Essay Draft Two

Baggio Hou
2007-5-18
Draft Two
                                   Is Shadrach Cohen Americanized?

“In the latter part of the nineteenth century, many Jewish immigrants fled in their country to escape religious persecution.” They came to the America primarily for two purposes: one is to obtain religious freedom; the other is to enjoy a better material life. However, not every Jewish immigrant can manage to achieve these goals, since as they stay in a new circumstance, especially in a highly-developed country like the America, they have to deal with the conflicts between their original religion and the new ones. So it seems necessary for them to adapt the American culture and life pattern, for the reason that it seems the only way for them to be accepted by the mainstream American society. Or they may find living in this country is really a hard process. 

In the story the Americanization of Shadrach Cohen, Bruno Lessing presents us a typical Jewish immigrant – Shadrach Cohen’s experience in the America. In the story, Shadrach Cohen succeeds blending into the American society and achieve great success in business realm at last. Meanwhile he wins respects both from his sons and local business men. As Bruno Lessing has mentioned in the beginning of the story: “there is no set rule for the turning of the worm, some worms. Some worms, however, turn with a crash. It was so with Shadrach Cohen.” It seems true that as a newly landed immigrant, Shadrach’s success is due to his “tuning” – in other words, the Americanization. However, a close scrutiny of the details and evident presented in the story gives rise to a question: Is Shadrach Cohen really Americanized, as the tile of the story suggests? For my part, Shadrach Cohen is actually not Americanized.

First of all, it is easy to find that Shadrach’s appearance and habits, such as the praying after dinner, kept the same as when he was newly landed in America. When Shadrach was first landed in the America, “he was a perfect type of the immigrants”. The author use the word “perfect”     to indicate that his appearance kept the same as he stayed in Russia wholly: wearing a “gaberdine” and having a “long, straggling grey beard and ringlets”. He did not prepare a “decent” suit that looked more American, which embarrassed his two sons. So they asked him “trim” his beard and make himself more like an American. Yet Shadrach did not cater to their requirement, instead, his “lips shut tightly for a moment”. From this detail one can see that although Shadrach was eager to express his opinion in whether he should change his outlook, he inhibited the impulsion. After all, he did not sacrifice the relationship with his sons in the first day. But we can still include from the sentence that in the bottom of Shadrach’s heart, he did not want to change his wearing, which in his eyes is a critical identify as a Jew. Actually he made it. From the ending of the story we can  still see “a picture of a patriarch from the Pentateuch, with a long, straggling beard, and ringlets of hair falling over the ears…”  . If Shadrach had been Americanized, he was supposed to wear more leisurely or in a more western style. And he should trim his hair and beard, like what his sons had done, and wear a T-shirt or suit. Yet all of these did not happen. He is still a “perfect type of the immigrants”. In this sense, we can not draw the conclusion that Shadrach had been americanized, at least with the respect to the appearance.

Shadrach’s habits like praying after meal had not changed either. When newly arriving at the America, he “donned his praying cap and began to recite the grace”. For his part, nothing could be more normal than thanking God for the food after diner, whereas his sons looked each other in “consternation”. Why they felt astonished? The reason is they thought “this is not quite American”. Maybe they had strong reasons to persuade their father to eschew this habit, since it could be a waste of time and be derided by others. But Shadrach said: “It is wrong to omit the prayer after meals; it is part of your religion.” These words suggest that in his eyes praying is not just a routine to obey every day, but an embodiment of one’s spirit world. And abandoning praying after dinner means a contravention of one’s religion, which Shadrach can hardly accept. He did as what he said. In the end of the story we still see the scene that “when the evening meal had ended, Shadrach donned his praying cap, and with bowed head intoned the grace after meal”, just as the beginning of the story. He did not change, even though people around him had changed a lot. And he had not been Americanized, or he should enjoy the desert and party after dinner, like most Americans do. 

Secondly Shadrach was not americanized concerning his ways in running business. His concept in dealing with business affairs is far away from his sons’, which were influenced by the American ones. He fired one salesman just because he did not show proper reverence to him. And he substituted Abel for the other without any reason. He hired a new manager to run the store and ruled that one of the two sons should stay until ten. If he was americanized, like his sons, he was supposed to run the business in a more American way. Maybe he should show more appreciation to his employee, not just said “now go away as fast as you can”, which could be an offense and insult to the employee in the American value system. Or he should give enough and substantiated reasons for why dismissing the other employee, since firing an employee without any reason might be illicit in American law. And he should show more care to his sons and not enforce him to work until night, after all most Americans cherished the time shared with family. But Shadrach did not. He preserved the Jewish or maybe his own way in doing business, which had little been remodeled by the circumstance in America. And he succeeded.

Someone may augur that Shadrach’s succeed in business is due to his adaptation to American society. Therefore Shadrach was americanized. However, in my opinion, it is Shadrach’s individual talent and capability rather than his Americanization that lead the success in business realm. “He was the true money-maker spirit; there was something wonderful in the swiftness with which he grasped the most intricate phases of trade” indicates that Shadrach was born to be a good business man. In the world there is no one can learn how to earn money effectively during a short period of time. So it is impossible for Shadrach to be a successful business man in a few months in the American. It can be deduced from the sentence that when Shadrach was still living in the Russia, he had had certain knowledge and experience on how to run business. “Where experience failed him some instinct seemed to guide him right…” tells us that there existed some “instinct” that guided Shadrach in business. It is generally accepted that so-called instinct is more related to his previous life experience and original religion than the Americanization. Since Americanization might alter one’s appearance and habits, but it can hardly change one’s deeply subjective world. In other words, the instinct which helps Shadrach when doing business is stem from other source, maybe his early experience as a Jew, not Americanization. Since Shadrach’s succeed in business was spring from other factors, as analyzed above, it is unjustifiable to draw the conclusion that Shadrach was americanized.

Last and foremost, Shadrach had not been americanized since he insisted upon a strict observance of every tenet of the original religion consistently and kept instilling his sons the fundamental values and principles as a Jew. Before he made a successful in business he told his sons “religion is the worship of Jehovah” and instructed them that “address a person who is older than you respectfully”. After his succeed in running the store, if he was americanized, it makes sense that he would teach the sons how to make money effectively and share his precious experience with them. But he did not do this. Instead he was still eager to make them know “the value of discipline, the beauty of filial reverence and the severe joy of the earnest life”. The reason why Shadrach did so is that: on the one hand, he loved his sons and hoped to endow their life with something more meaningful than money. So when he realized “there was a wall between him and his sons” he was “distressed and puzzled”. it can also explain why he told his sons “I have no one but you two” and “take no interest in business affairs”. On the other hand, Shadrach did not want to see his sons lost themselves in the process of Americanization. “If becoming Americanized means becoming stupid, I must congratulate you upon the thoroughness of your work”. In Shadrach’s eyes, his son’s so-called “Americanization” is a failure. Although they are “dapper-looking”, they lose numerous good characters as a Jew, like the reverence to elders or the value of discipline. Just as the two reasons mentioned above, Shadrach saw it was necessary to adhere to the religion as a Jew steadfastly, from which his sons, as well as himself and get consolation, spirit source and self-identity. So essentially Shadrach was not been americanized. It was “the same Shadrach Cohen”.