The City: Human Characters Tested by Its Malicious Forces
In Abraham Cahan’s Yekl and William Howell’s The Rise of Silas Lapham, protagonists struggle to cope with malicious social and economic forces in the big city. Both novels dramatize the psychological and sociological effects of the nineteenth century metropolitan life. The nineteenth century city symbolizes the outward vanity and greed of those who build and patronize industrialism. The city is divided up into shares of materialistic spaces for its dwellers and those who gather the most amount of shares come out as winners of industrialism. Yekl, a Jewish immigrant in New York, wants to increase his space in the city by expanding his cultural freedom, which he interprets to be a sexual freedom enjoyed by the Yankee. Likewise, Lapham, a former farmer, but now a businessman, wants to increase his space in the city by gaining a bigger share of the new industrial economy, which he believes will ultimately crown him with an aristocratic prestige. However, because enormous social and economic forces overwhelm the protagonists, they forsake their true characters, fail to expand their spaces in the city, and, ultimately, revert back to their yonder spaces.
In the city, people of extreme class differences coexist with varying amounts of space; the rich and cultivated enjoy larger spaces with greater mobility while the poor and unrefined stagnate in close quarters. Yekl represents the lower rung of the socioeconomic ladder. For him, city is a dense place. “Suffolk Street is in the very thick of the battle for breath. It is one of the most densely populated spots on the face of the earth” (13). Regardless to this fact, Yekl still embraces his new abode eagerly, because he foresees what lies beyond the denseness of the city; he appreciates the symbolic value of the space. “Once I live in America,” he pursued, on the defensive, “I want to know that I live in America. Dot’sh a’ kin’ a man I am!” (5). Yekl patronizes American values; he wants to be a Yankee. On the other hand, Lapham, with his socioeconomic situation on the rise, has gained more space but is not yet satisfied; he wants to ride class mobility to a higher place. When his wife enviously tells him about the regal lifestyle of the Corey’s, he remarks, “I know where they are. I’ve got a lot of land over on the Back Bay” (29). He then unhesitatingly commands his wife: “Why don’t you get [the girls] into society? There’s money enough!” (30). Lapham believes that with his economic success, he, not only can buy more space in the city, but also can uplift his status. Both Yekl and Lapham are not deterred by socioeconomic polarization in the city and aspire to expand their space within it.
For both protagonists, ability to adapt to pre-established customs dictates their viability in the city. According to Velikova, the social reformers of 19th century desired the Jews to sacrifice their ethnic and national identity and embrace American culture (Velikova p11). Yekl is not offended by this demand because cultural democracy in New York is irresistible to him. “One must not be a greenhorn. Here a Jew is as good as a Gentile” (5). Yekl immediately shifts from his past ways of thought to the adoption of the American way of life. He changes his name to Jake, ignores his religion, and leaves his background behind. Likewise, Lapham realizes that there is a predominant socio-economic class in Boston. If one desires association with an esteemed society, then, he/she must conform to their century-old mannerisms. Lapham strives to meet the external values of the aristocrats. At the Coreys’ dinner party, Lapham fusses over whether to wear gloves. Even his wife, when Tom Corey pays a visit, tells Lapham to put on a coat. “It don’t matter how he sees you at the office, shirt sleeves or not. You’re in a gentleman’s house now…you shan’t see company in your dressing gown” (135-36). Both protagonists show immense willingness to adapt to the prescribed values of the city.
Yekl and Lapham’s ultimate aspiration is to re-create their identity through cultural and commercial opportunities in metropolitan world. “Every Jew, even the most ignorant emigrant, came to feel that [coming to America] was part of a historic event in the life of the Jewish people” (Girgus, p3). As ignorant as Yekl is, he is aware of the new opportunities that are offered in New York and wants a cultural rebirth for himself. “[S]ince he had shifted his abode to new York, he carefully avoided all reference to his antecedents” (24). Perhaps, when Yekl says, “I am an American feller, a Yankee – that’s what I am” (70), it best manifests his deliberate intentions to transform his identity. On the same token, Lapham sees how in a free-market society, the old canon of social status seems to offer a new page to make room for a new power. He fancies that money, with its exchange value, can help him exchange his previous peasant-identity to something higher in the social ladder. He plans to build a new identity for himself by building a new home. “[T]here aint a prettier lot on the Back Bay than mine. It’s on the water side of Beacon, and it’s twenty-eight feet wide and a hundred and fifty deep. Let’s build on it” (30). The city offers its portion of space to Yekl and Lapham to build new homes and new lives in it – even a metamorphic transformation of their identity.
However, the lack of moral values in the city corrupts both protagonists. A city embodies the multiplicity of opinions and convictions and is devoid of one universal truth. In the midst of such diverse mentality, Yekl, formulates his own conviction. He believes freedom in New York means promiscuity. The readers are informed that “his enthusiastic nature before long found vent in dancing and in a general life of gallantry. His proved knack with the gentle sex had turned his head and now cost him all his leisure time” (25). Yekl, who is tired of censorship, frees his conscience and does whatever he wants in a new land; he enjoys a second bachelorhood in New York. Similarly, Lapham also forms his own business ethics. He gets rid of Roger, his former partner, when profit seems imminent. He sees no ethical wrong in this: “it was a perfectly square thing. My conscience is easy as far as he’s concerned, and it always was” (46). Evidently, due to the absence of clear ethical guidelines in the city, the protagonists’ integrities fall more readily.
Furthermore, conformity to standards of urban elites kills individuality. The protagonists’ individualities are either sacrificed by yielding to the styles and manners of the dominant culture or by not being able to freely express due to suppression by the urban elites. Yekl emulates the external qualities of the dominant culture. He dresses and dances like the Yankees, patronizes Yankee sports, learns and speaks English, and yet all that he does only makes him less unique. His wife, upon seeing him after three years of separation, feels that “she had suddenly discovered her own Yekl in an apparent stranger” (36). His old identity has become blurred by his adopted mannerisms; he has succumbed to the commercialized dress code that makes everyone look the same. On the other hand, the journalist Hubbard stifles Lapham’s individuality in the interview; he conducts an almost one-way dialogue where he treats Lapham as mere subject matter by never fully allowing him to speak freely. It is a bourgeois journalism of dominating and silencing Lapham as a commodity to its articles. Hence, individuality is the price both protagonists pay as they aspire to play by the rules of urban elites.
The loss of individuality means that the protagonists are now only left with their exteriors to be evaluated by the co-members of their city. When Yekl’s wife arrived in New York, “the contrast between Gitl and jake was so striking that the officer wanted to make sure – partly as a matter of official duty and partly for the fun of the thing – that the two were actually man and wife” (35). Likewise, Corey, learning of his son’s association with the Laphams, depicts Irene as “paint princess” (97) to his wife, and jokingly remarks, that “Tom’s marrying the princess,” (102) implying that Lapham is the king of the mineral paint. To Corey, the paint best symbolizes Lapham because it seems only a covering, a material that masks the true object it decorates. Though Lapham has proven himself successful in business, the meaning of his success is still contingent upon others’ perception. In a populous city, judgments of external appearances from peers abound.
In addition to external judgments, character judgments by others push both protagonists to near insanity. Mrs. Kavarsky’s constant meddling over Yekl’s extramarital affairs vexes him. On one such occasion, Mrs. Kavarsky condemns Yekl: “Really, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.” Yekl lose composure and cries out: “Min’ jou on businesh an’ dot’sh ull.” “Jake’s first impulse was to strike the meddlesome woman,” (72) but he changes his mind and “with a frantic bang of the door he disappeared” (72). As he heads out, he impetuously decides to divorce his wife. Without giving much thought, he runs to Mamie. With Mamie on his side, he falls into a mode of guilty conscience. In this state of mind, he hallucinates: “The figure of his dead father, attired in burial linen, uprose to his mind” (77). By the same token, Lapham also dreads character judgments from others. His ignominious episode at the dinner party makes him fearfully anticipate his verdict by the upper-class mannerisms: “I was the only one that wasn’t a gentleman there!” Lamented Lapham. “I disgraced you! I disgraced my family! (209). Subsequently, his sense of inferiority propels him to fight even harder for success and enslaves him to money. Because he seeks both vengeance and redemption, he devotes all his energy into building a lavish home. This materialistic insanity consumes his every fiber. “You just stop at a hundred thousand,” (129) his wife worries. “You’ve lost your head, Silas Lapham, and if you don’t look out you’ll lose your money too” (129). However, a wife’s admonition is useless to a man who has already lost his mind. Although different in plot, both cases, illustrate the withering effect on the spirit in a judgmental society.
The protagonists’ obsessive desires to conform to urban customs put them in jeopardy of losing their old culture without acclimating successfully to the new. Both protagonists are too ready to sell their old identity for a new one. For Yekl, his rash romance with Mamie costs him his most cherished identity, the masculinity. He becomes financially dependent and psychologically subordinate to the self-confident Mamie. Eventually his masculinity weakens so much that, he, before Mamie, dare not express his innermost desires: “Several times Jake was tempted to declare his ardent desire to have the child with them, and that Mamie should like him and be a mother to him” (81). By the end of the novella, Yekl is reduced to a position from which he can only fantasize of restoring his old bravado. On the other hand, for Lapham, the dinner party at the Corey’s symbolizes the values of the Boston’s elite society. It serves as a means to introduce competing members of its society for evaluation. Though he gains an entrance with a proper appearance, his crudeness leaks out during the party; unaccustomed to alcohol, he drinks too much wine, becomes obscene, and loses his only competitive edge – the image of a shrewd businessman. Consequently, after the incident, Lapham’s enterprising spirit tumbles. Though he has treasured Corey’s presence in his company, he now feels he is no longer worthy of such a qualified employee: “I will give you up if you want to go before anything worse happens, and I sha’n’t blame you” (210). This incident shows how Lapham’s endeavor in altering his identity not only has failed but also has weakened his clout as a prominent entrepreneur. Hence, rashness and over-anxiousness of Yekl and Lapham respectively lead both to forfeit a successful transition into a new culture because their foremost identity is now too ruptured to beget a new one.
With their core identities weakened, the money acts as a key agent that drives both protagonists into self-destruction. As indispensable as money is in the city, it lures the protagonists astray from providence. For instance, Yekl, in order to finance divorce proceedings, he turns to Mamie. However, as immediately as he is set free from his marriage, he realizes that in so doing, he has foolishly bound himself to a worse misery – a marriage with Mamie. “Still worse than this thirst for a taste of liberty was a feeling which was now gaining upon him, that, instead of a conqueror, he had emerged from the rabbi’s house the victim of an ignominious defeat” (89). The money that facilitates his divorce puts him right back into a never-ending cycle of self-destruction. Likewise, Lapham sees that the fundamental basis of much of the upper-class societal-interaction is money, and that it serves as a prerequisite for admission to their domain. Mindful of this discovery, he believes that more money can buy him more class, so he works harder to amass more of it. He engages in risky ventures in hopes of earning fast money. As a result, in the end, he loses all his fortune and laments: “A year ago, six months ago, he would have laughed at the notion that it would be hard to raise the money…he thought with bitterness of the tens of thousands that he had gambled away in stocks” (319). Thus, short-lived success with money ultimately confines Yekl and Lapham to a state of never-ending failure.
The protagonists’ financial indebtedness reflects their ultimate inability to survive in the struggle amongst capitalists. According to Girgus, “following the Holocaust and the war, a major test for the reality of emancipation for Jews is the viability and endurance of the social and cultural structures upon which that emancipation is based – [capitalism]” (Girgus p3). Soon after his arrival, Yekl realizes “that America was not the land they took it for, where one could ‘scoop gold by the skirtful’” (27). Here, he is beset by competition: “artisans, merchants, teachers, rabbis, artists, beggars – all…in search of fortune” (14); he never rises above his competitors; he is always in debt. Similarly, Lapham faces threatening competition from the younger generation. His bookkeeper informs Corey of a doom: “I don’t mean merely in the stock of paint on hand, but in a kind of competition which has become very threatening. You know about that West Virginia paint?” (301). If Lapham forsakes prudence (or lose luck to be more precise), the forces of ever changing market dynamics will uproot him for a new rising power. Hence, nothing is certain and permanent in capitalistic society; his debut in the upper-class circle guarantees nothing; his eminence in the business world is fragile and ephemeral. Succinctly, Yekl’s persistent penury and Lapham’s ultimate loss of his towering fortune mark both as less than the fitting survivors in the city.
Barton sums up nineteenth-century American society as “a culture of character” (Barton 29). As a naturalist of this era, both Cahan and Howells portray the vast space of the city as a battleground where one’s character is constantly put to the test by its impalpable yet destructive forces. Both author’s intent is to realistically uncover how these subtle and distressing forces gradually tear down one’s morality and character. Cahan unfolds these effects by uncovering Yekl’s process of acculturation in an industrialized society. For Yekl, assimilation of a foreign culture is a battle that causes immense psychological frictions with his Jewish character. He loses everything in this fight: his home, his son, his masculinity, and his youthful optimism. Similarly, Howells’s mission is to expose how the greed and vanity of industrialism works against human morality and character. For his protagonist, the Beacon Street house metaphorically represents the nineteenth-century social status that Lapham struggles to build for himself. However, his obsessive vanity for higher status eventually leads him to excessive greed and brings ensuing financial catastrophe. At the end, he loses immensely and retreats back to his origin with pulverized confidence but with restored character. The fate of both Cahan and Howells’s protagonists illustrate human vulnerability and helplessness before the grandiose urban forces that readily submerge people’s morality and drown their character.
Works Cited
William Dean Howells (1885). The Rise of Silas Lapham, Penguin Books
Abrahm Cahan (1896). Yekl, Dover Publications, Inc., New York
John Cyril Barton, Northeastern University (2001) “Howells’s rhetoric of realism: The Rise of Silas Lapham and The Minister’s Charge” Studies in American Fiction, Autumn 2001 v29 i2 p159(29) .
Roumiana Velikova, State University of new York, Buffalo (1999).“Cahan’s Yekl” The Explicator 1999 v57 i2 p91(3)
Sam B. Girgus (1984). “A Convert to America: Sex, Self, and Ideology in Abraham Cahan” The university of North Carolina Press pp.64-91
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