One important aspect of the political analysis in this novel is that suffering, by itself, is not enough to produce the political consciousness necessary for revolutionary action against capitalism. The "conversion" of the narrator on the last page, however problematic we might consider it, is consistent with this point.
Pick 3 of the following themes in the novel.
Go through each of the three themes, and find at least three passages in which this theme is discussed. That makes 9 passages in all.
Identify these passages by page number in your assignment, but don't quote them.
Show how Gold shows how his characters are "trapped" in bourgeois capitalist social relations, and in fact reproduce those relations despite their efforts at some kind of liberation.
* Mikey's father and his false consciousness (illusion of bettering himself; picture of himself as "breadwinner" or patriarch; blaming himself for failure);
* Mikey's mother (the struggle between her proletarian, internationalist impulses and nationalist/Jewish ideas of identification)
* the critique of the commodification of women -- prostitutes, and other women;
* the role of education / miseducation, both "school as jail" and nevertheless the successful inculcation of patriotic and warlike ideology;
* the "gang of young Yids", as an attempt at solidarity and a free space away from the repressiveness and dangers of the ghetto, yet reproducing the values and behaviors of the larger socity.
* the function of religion in the Jewish ghetto.
Please write 300 words, about 100 on each theme. Email to your group and to me.