n was hopeless. Sarah's mother represents the hopelessness of the Old World. She was born to a relatively wealthy family, had a happy childhood and grew up to be a beautiful, spirited and happy young woman. But the happiness was not meant to last because her father decided to marry her off at the age of fourteen. She naturally had no voice in the decision and was married to a man who her father perceived to be most educated. The "educated man" turned out to be good only for wasting her father's money, fathering four daughters and leaving the burden of raising them completely on her shoulders. On top of that he had an audacity to blame her for all his troubles and to teach her his useless "wisdom". In the end, the mother from a spirited young beauty, who loved to dance cozachek, became an old burnout with a dead soul, gray unhealthy face, and lifeless eyes, that projected nothing but sadness and hopelessness. The tragedy of her life was that there was nothing she could do about it, there was no way out. Her children, however, did have a way out. They could rebel; they could go against their father's will, get an education and become self-sufficient and independent. American society would accept it and that together with other things was the promise of the New World. The second generation of emigrants: Sarah and her sisters represent the new choices that Eastern European Jews had in America. Unlike their mother, they could chose to go different ways. The choices were not easy. They required strength, courage, determination and stamina but nevertheless they were real.The simplest choice was to carry on the parents' traditions, obey them and to suffer through life much like the mother. That's the choice that Sarah's sister Bessie took. She did not find an inner strength to rebel against parents and wound up married to Zalmond, the fish-peddler, who was an ugly old man with a lot of children, and who suffered, like many othe...
