Essay Draft Three

Baggio Hou
2007-6-12
Draft Three

                               Was Shadrach Cohen Americanized?
 

“In the latter part of the nineteenth century, many Jewish immigrants fled in their country to escape religious persecution.” (45) They came to America primarily for two purposes: one is to obtain religious freedom; the other is to seek for 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 America, they have to deal with the conflicts between original culture and the new one. So it is necessary for them to adapt the American culture and life pattern, for the reason that it is the only way for them to be accepted by the mainstream American society. Unless they yield to this new environment, they could 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 and his experience in America. In the story, Shadrach Cohen succeeded in blending into the American society and achieved great success in business realm. Meanwhile he won respect both from his sons and local business men. Just as Lessing mentions in the beginning of the story: “there is no set rule for the turning of the worm. Some worms, however, turn with a crash. It was so with Shadrach Cohen.”(48) It seems true that as a newly landed immigrant, Shadrach’s success was due to his “tuning” – in other words, the Americanization. However, a close scrutiny of the details and evidence presented in the story gives rise to a question: Was Shadrach Cohen really Americanized, as the tile of the story suggests? For my part, Shadrach Cohen was 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 this country, he was a “perfect type of the immigrants” (46). The author uses the word “perfect”  to indicate that his appearance kept exactly the same as when he was living in Russia: wearing a “gabardine” and having a “long, straggling grey beard and ringlets” (46). He did not prepare a “decent” suit that looked more “American”, which embarrassed his two sons. So they asked him to “trim” his beard and make himself more like an American. Yet Shadrach did not cater to their request. Instead, his “lips shut tightly” (46). From this detail one can see that although Shadrach was eager to express his rejection, he inhibited such impulsion. After all, he did not want to maintain the dignity as a father at the expense of destroying the relationship with his sons. But we can still infer from those words that in the bottom of Shadrach’s heart, he did not want to change his appearance, which was a critical identify as a Jew in his eyes. From the ending of the story one can still see Shadrach’s appearance as “a picture of a patriarch from the Pentateuch” (51). If Shadrach had been Americanized, he was supposed to dress more leisurely or in a more western style, like wearing a T-shirt or sweater. And he should trim his hair and beard too, like what his sons had done. Yet all of these did not happen. He was still a “perfect type of the immigrants” (46). In this sense, we can not draw the conclusion that Shadrach had been americanized, at least with the respect to his appearance.

Shadrach’s habits like praying after meal had not changed either. When newly arriving in America, he “donned praying cap” and “recited the grace” (46) after the first dinner with his sons. For his part, nothing could be more normal than thanking God for the food after diner, whereas his sons looked each other in “consternation”. (46) Why they felt astonished? The reason was that they thought “this is not quite American”. (47) Maybe they had strong reasons to persuade their father to eschew this habit, since it could be a waste of time and even could be derided by others. But Shadrach told them it was wrong to “omit the prayer after meals” since it was “part of your religion.” (47) These words suggest that in his eyes praying was not just a routine to obey every day, but an embodiment of one’s spirit world. So for Shadrach abandoning praying after dinner means a contravention of one’s religion, which he can hardly accept. He did as what he said. In the end of the story we still see the scene that Shadrach “donned praying cap” and “with bowed head intoned the grace” (51) when evening meal had ended, 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 was far away from his sons’, which were more or less marked by the “American ways”. He fired one salesman just because he did not show proper reverence to him. And he substituted Abel for the other salesman 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 employees, not just said “now go away as fast as you can” (49), which could be regarded as 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 argue that Shadrach’s success in business is due to his adaptation to American society and therefore Shadrach was Americanized. In my opinion, however, it was Shadrach’s individual talent and capability rather than the Americanization that lead his success in business realm. Shadrach had the “true money-maker spirit” (49) and was born to be a good business man. In this world there is no one who can learn how to earn money effectively during a short period of time. So it was impossible for Shadrach to become a successful business man during the first few months in America. And there also existed some “instinct” that “guided [Shadrach] right” (50) in business. It is generally accepted that so-called “instinct” is more related to one’s previous life experience and original value system than the changes or improvements in a new country. It was entirely possible that when Shadrach was still living in Russia, he had owned certain knowledge and experience on how to run business. Since Shadrach’s success in business was spring from other factors, as analyzed above, it is unjustifiable to draw the conclusion that Shadrach was Americanized because his outstanding performance in business.

Last, we can reach the consensus that Shadrach had not been americanized by realizing his consistency in instilling his sons the fundamental values and principles as a Jew. Before he made a success in business he told his sons religion was the “worship of Jehovah” (47) and instructed them to address an old person “respectfully”. (49) After his success 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 aware of “the value of discipline”, “the beauty of filial reverence” and “the severe joy of the earnest life”. (50) 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” (47) between him and his sons, he was “distressed and puzzled”. (47) It can also explain why he told his sons that “I have no one but you two” and that “[I] take no interest in business affairs”. (47) On the other hand, Shadrach did not want to see his sons lost themselves in the process of Americanization. Shadrach thought “becoming Americanized” meant “becoming stupid” (49) for his two sons and their so-called “Americanization” was a failure. Although they were “dapper-looking” (46), they lost numerous good characters as a Jew, like the reverence to elders and the value of discipline. If keeping the same appearance and habits presented Shadrach’s adherence to Jewish religion in an extraneous way, then his earnest expectation toward his sons reflected his inherent eagerness to keep precious Jewish virtues intact and inherited. After all, religion is the only source from which Shadrach and his sons can get consolation, spiritual sustain and self-identity. So essentially Shadrach was not been americanized. It was “the same Shadrach Cohen”. (50)

                                                      Work cited
Bruno Lessing. “the Americanization of Shadrach Cohen.” 1903. Rpt. in The International Story: An Anthology with Guidelines for Reading and Writing about Fiction.