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It is arguable that the early years of the 20th century were, collectively, a pivotal moment in the history of America. The wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe at that point in time ushered in an era of industrialization and work effort that would eventually form the backbone of the United States as an economically dominant world power. Scores of books and stories have been written to depict the struggles and conflicts endured by these early American people and Call it Sleep, by Henry Roth, is a wonderful example of such a tale. I believe that the aspects of immigrant life depicted in the novel Call it Sleep, which are most important in understanding the lives of immigrants in America during the early 1900’s, are language, labor and industrialization, and the interaction between different ethnic groups. The main character of the book, David Schearl, is of a Jewish family. His borderline-psychotic father, Albert, left David and his mother and came to America some time ago to earn money and establish a living before arranging for his family to join him. This situation was a remarkably mainstream practice for early immigrants such as in the case of the Lithuanians in which “a third of the husbands had left their families in the old world.” (Barrett, p. 45) Throughout the story, he has important life experiences, all of which can be attributed to immigrants Linguistic difficulty is a hindrance for an immigrant, regardless of his or her origin. As a matter of fact, language is still a struggle for some people who live in microcosmic communities in present day America. One of the most powerful tools used in the novel is the distinction that Roth develops between the literal Yiddish spoken at home with David and the (broken) English spoken by the streets of New York. With some patients and imagination, a reader really obtains a sense of what conversation was like for most immigrants – simple and understandable around friends and family at home as opposed to challenging and prone to miscommunication on the streets and in the workplace. In one instance in Call it Sleep, David becomes lost while evading a gang of boys and has a more than difficult time trying to get back home.
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