Individuality vs. Faith

In both novels “Eli The Fanatic” by Philip Roth and “ The Loudest Voice” by Grace Paley the protagonist both go through conflict between American culture and their jewish culture, making them struggle through assimilation. Eli wishes to embrace his jewish culture but is conflicted between his jewish heritage and his neighborhood. Shirley participates in a Christmas play, wanting to become Americanized which causes a conflict with her parents’ biases of the traditions of Judaism. The research question that I’ve proposed was how much influence does the community have vs individual temperament? I want to compare and contrast the way Shirley and Eli’s assimilation process that they go through within their community. The influence of one’s community begs to question their religious identity and their individual desires through the pressures of assimilation.

Both Eli and Shirley grapple with the conflict of dual cultural identities. In “The Loudest Voice” Shirley was encouraged to join the christmas play. “…your teacher, speaks highly of you. Now listen to me, Shirley Abramowitz, if you want to take the part and be in the play, repeat after me, ‘I swear to work harder than I ever did before.” (Paley 3). Because the play was about Christmas this clashed with her jewish heritage, particularly her mother disagreed with Shirley’s participation. When Shirley’s mother heard about her participation in the play she discussed it over with Shirley’s father, who didn’t seem to mind her participation. Her father sees it as a way for Shirley “to learn to speak up”(Paley 5). Her mother on the other hand sees it as “…fall[ing] into a creeping pogrom, that our children learn a lot of lies” (Paley 4). Her mother says this because she feels like if Shirley participates in the Christmas play she would start to lose traces of her jewish culture and become more “Americanized”. They also worry about the future generations to come in their family. They want to preserve their jewish culture through Shirley and implant their jewish heritage in Shirley. However, that didn’t stop her from participating, it helped her become one step closer to being seen as American. She was determined and had a goal set in mind to be seen as American. Shirley was chosen by her teachers due to her “particularly loud, clear voice read with lots of expression” (Paley 2). Her voice symbolizes her determination to be seen as American as she is the only person in her school that’s Jewish which makes her stand out as an outsider. Because Shirley’s voice was what made her stand out from the rest of her peers, it made her use it to her full advantage for the Christmas play. Towards the end she hopes that her voice was heard by “my talking family, cousins far away, passersby, and all the lonesome Christians” (Paley 8). She hopes that they heard her voice as an outcry of her fitting into American society.

For Eli that wasn’t the case like for Shirley. His conflict with balancing his dual cultural identities made him torn between his community and his orthodox jewish heritage. In “Eli the Fanatic”, Eli conceals his jewish culture by wearing western apparel to be seen like the rest of the people in his community. Within the Elis neighborhood is a predominantly non orthodox jewish community that are assimilated Jews and because of this his community shows oppression and prejudice towards the orthodox Jews moving into their community. They use Eli as their messenger to let them know that they are not wanted within the community, to evict them. They feel that “…Tell this Tzuref where we stand, Eli. This is a modern community, Eli, we have our families, we pay taxes . ..” (Roth 249). They didn’t want to open up to any unnecessary changes in their neighborhood. We see this prejudice provale when one of the assistants walks around town dressed in all black which makes the town angry. The attire that the assistant was wearing symbolized the traditional jew and the upbringings of post World World II that the community wanted to forget. When Eli converses with Mr.Tzuref about the matter he believes that the people that wear a black suit are traditional jews who haven’t assimilated yet and that they should “give up” the all black appearance. Mr.Tzuref replied with a “The suit the gentlemen wears is all he’s got” (Roth 261). Eli’s mindset and belief were set and clear, that he was loyal to his assimilated neighborhood and followed American culture through wearing western clothing. However, this all starts to change when Eli and Mr.Tzuref exchange suits. Eli donates his green Brook Brothers suit to Mr.Tzuref, while he gives Eli his black suit. When Eli started going through the stuff that Mr.Tzuref gave him this gave him a reminder about his jewish heritage. It also reminded him of the wisdom that Mr.Tzuerf left him, going back to Eli and Mr.Tzuref conversation about the black suit, which was “Here, I give up. I refuse even to be tempted. We surrender” (Roth 286). This reevaluated his opinion of the Orthodox Jews. He starts to slowly grapple with the understanding of being a Jew and the oppression that they face that makes them hide their identity. Eli switches to wearing traditional jewish clothing to understand and explore his jewish culture. Eli started to develop a nervous breakdown about which identity starts to arise on which side to stay loyal to: his community or his individuality, his jewish identity. This idea also makes him worried about the future when his wife Miriam gives birth to their son. 

Going back to the question of how much influence does the community have vs individual temperament we see that for Eli even though he’s still conflicted between his loyalty towards his community and his individual temperament of his jewish identity, his “divided” community was what led him to be conflicted. Shirley, on the other hand, chooses her own individual temptation of wanting to become Americanized and was somewhat influenced by her community. For Shirley, she had something symbolic enough for her to choose which side, which was her voice. Her voice was loud enough for her to stand her ground about her mothers opinion about her participation in the play. When Shirley went to her parents for advice about the play it was like she was torn between loyalty towards her jewish heritage and participation in christian holiday. Because she decides to join the play it shows Americans forced assimilation on American jews. She was the only Jewish student in her school which made her an outsider; her participation in the play, for a faith that she is not loyal to, gave her statues an extra boost to being recognized like her classmates. Her voice also allowed her to speak for what she believed in. This notion of America forcing jews to assimilate to American culture can also be seen in “Eli the Fanatic” when Eli wears western clothing like the people in his community, while concealing his jewish identity, for fear of being alienated like the newly orthodox jews in the beginning. Eli in the beginning sided with the people within his community, wanting to be accepted by them, to evict the Orthodox Jews coming into his neighborhood. Regardless of how, Mr.Tzuref, the voice for the Orthodox Jew, tried to influence change in Eli’s belief about faith through wisdom, which he successfully did. Eli, in response, started to have a mental breakdown of what to believe and not, and which side to stay loyal to. The peer pressures of the people in his community, his wife and the wisdom that Mr.Tzuref said all pushed him to the breaking point of having this nervous breakdown.

“Eli the Fanatic” and “The Loudest Voice” both provide insight into the American Jew’s assimilation process through the themes of cultural identity, assimilation pressures within their community setting and cultural clashes. They both experienced wanting to be accepted in their community. Shirley wanted to be seen like everyone else at school, which was filled with non jewish people. Eli wanted acceptance from his mostly assimilated community while hiding his jewish Identity. The idea of them wanting to feel accepted came with the consequence of pressure from their community. For Shirley she faced conflict with what her mother wanted and the fact that she was the only jewish person in her school, making her feel alienated. Eli pressure from his community and the influence of the orthodox jews conflicted him with a self-identity crisis. Even though they both faced conflicts, they were both very different from each other with different outcomes, they found a way to push through the struggles and make due with what they can accomplish. This makes me wonder if other immigrants that are not jews come across this problem of trying to fit in with their community. No one should feel pressured to change their identity or belief unless they want to. However, it is nice to step out and explore new cultures as a way of balancing out.