Résumé
Résumé de Yekl
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love sharp stories about immigrants, city life and the cost of changing your name and manners, and anyone curious about New York’s Lower East Side.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Yekl is a short novel by Abraham Cahan, published in 1896. Cahan was a Jewish immigrant from the Russian empire who reached New York in 1882. He became a labor organizer, a journalist and later the editor of the Yiddish newspaper the Forward. He wrote this book in English, and it is one of the first stories to show the poor Jewish immigrants of the Lower East Side from the inside, in the speech and the crowded rooms they knew.
The book follows one man, Yekl Podkovnik, who now calls himself Jake. He works long hours in a sweatshop, and he has a wife and a small son waiting in the old country. You get a close, funny and uneasy portrait of a man who wants to be an American so badly that he starts to be ashamed of who he was. Let us begin where Jake begins, in the workshop, among men who think he is a fine fellow.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Jake the Yankee works in a sweatshopFree
- 2Evenings at the dance academy
- 3Gitl and Yosele reach New York
- 4A greenhorn wife in a crowded flat
- 5What the story says about becoming American
- 6How Cahan tells the tale
Point clé 1 sur 6
Jake the Yankee works in a sweatshop
The story opens in a crowded New York sweatshop, where Jake works among other Jewish immigrants. Cahan shows the room in rough, lively detail. The men bend over their machines and their pressing irons, and the talk never stops. Jake is a young man who has been in America about three years, and he talks like someone who has been there much longer.
He is proud of his new self. He has dropped the name Yekl and become Jake. He speaks a mixed language of Yiddish and broken English, and he is eager to show off every American word he has picked up. He admires the way American workingmen walk and joke, and he copies them. In the shop he holds forth on boxing and on what a real Yankee does and does not do.
The other workers listen, and some of them envy him. Others tease him, because they see how much of his act is borrowed. Cahan plays this lightly at first. Jake is vain and a little ridiculous, but he is also warm and quick, and the reader likes him. He is not a villain. He is a young man who has found a mirror that flatters him.
But there is something he does not say. He has a wife named Gitl and a little boy named Yosele in a village back in the old country. He has been sending money for their passage, though he does not talk about them much in the shop. The first hint of trouble is that Jake hides this part of his life from the people he most wants to impress. The question of how long he can keep that up leads straight to his evenings.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Jake (Yekl Podkovnik)
- A lively immigrant sweatshop worker, Jake longs to seem American while his wife and son remain abroad.
- Gitl
- Jake's wife, Gitl comes from their village to join him, hoping to rebuild their family life.
- Yosele
- Jake and Gitl's young son, Yosele crosses the ocean with his mother to join his father.
- Mamie Fine
- A young woman at the dancing academy, Mamie embodies the American manners and confidence Jake admires.
- Bernstein
- An educated boarder in Jake's household, Bernstein treats Gitl kindly and offers a contrast to her husband's ambitions.
- Joe Peltner
- The dancing academy's proprietor, Joe Peltner is Jake's friend and shares his enthusiasm for American social life.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 36,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 25 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 10 other languages
Questions about Yekl
What is Yekl about?
Yekl follows a Jewish immigrant who calls himself Jake and works in a New York sweatshop. He tries to become fully American while his wife and son, left in the old country, are about to join him.
Is Yekl a true story?
It is fiction, published in 1896, but Cahan drew on his own experience as a Jewish immigrant to New York and on years of observing life on the Lower East Side.
Who is Gitl in Yekl?
Gitl is Jake's wife. She comes from a village in the old country, wears the wig of a married pious woman and joins her husband in America with their young son.
Is Yekl hard to read?
No. It moves by clear scenes. Cahan makes the meaning plain.
What is the main message of Yekl?
The book shows that remaking yourself in a new country has a cost. Jake's wish to look American leads him to treat his past, and the people who share it, with shame.