During her search for identity, Justine, the protagonist in the book Confessions of a Closet Catholic by Sarah Darer Littman, makes a few generalizations about Catholic families versus her own Jewish family, which leads me to ask the question: does the dynamic between Mrs. McAllister (the Catholic mother of Justine's friend) and Mrs. Silver, Justine’s mom, solidify the stereotype that Jewish women of today are spoiled and love to show off their wealth?
First, let's take a look at the indications of how Mrs. Silver shows off her wealth. She constantly redecorates and designs her house in accordance with two decorators, Armando and Marcel. Her house is filled with designer furniture and up to date on the latest décor, from what Justine describes. Mrs. Silver also takes great joy in showing off her house, for example when she presents her walk-in closet to Mrs. Weinstein. Why else would Mrs. Silver show off her closet other than to fish for an awestruck comment from another person? She obviously loves to show off what she has which holds status in society and is considered a luxury that not many people have. In this case, it is a walk-in closet.
Littman also portrays Mrs. Silver as being spoiled. When she doesn’t get anything her way, she throws a tantrum and anybody who is involved gets an undeserved earful. For example, when she screams into the phone at the pest-removal service for not answering her phone calls "anytime, anywhere" then promptly slams down the phone. Justine refers to this as “the Wrath of Mom.” Also, Justine claims that her mom got mad at her dad, not for spilling coffee all over himself, but for getting some on the new upholstered chair. What is ironic is that Mrs. Silver is given the money to buy things, such as reupholstering chairs and the hiring decorators, from Mr. Silver's salary.
Mrs. Silver also follows the stereotype by being very superficial. She obviously cares very much about the look of her house much more than the things that happen in it. Justine becomes extremely preoccupied with keeping the house clean in order to please her mother. She even complains that “I’m mad at Mom for caring more about the carpets than about her children.” The ultimate show of Mrs. Silver’s superficiality is when instead of being furious that Justine has been practicing Communion behind her back, she is raging about Justine attracting mice into her house.
The reason why I am asking this question is because I feel that this book involves maintaining the stereotypes we have while possibly generating others by making assumptions based on the way Mrs. Silver acts in comparison to Mrs. McAllister. It really becomes apparent that we need to discuss stereotypes in relation to this book. Hopefully Littman’s book can help break stereotypes instead of formulating them.
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6 comments:
I don't know if solidify is the best word, but the portrayal of the two mothers draws attention to the stereotypes that do exist about Jewish women.
Yet Mrs. Silver's reactions make me wonder if you took being Jewish away from her characteristics wouldn't she just be another wealthy person consumed in the appearance and money value of everything. What does being Jewish really have do to with this stereotype, since it is common to associate Jewish women like this?
Agree with Molly, in that, these stereotypes need to be examined in a relation of why these stereotypes are present and why they need to be broken.
I agree with Jessica, I don't think that it is a generalization about Jewish people that they have the designer items, I think Mrs. Silver is taking value if appearance and the value of money. I think any person could portray these traits. So if a person portrays these traits like Mrs. Silver, does that mean they are Jewish?
I do agree there are generalizations/stereotypes that are brought up in the book.
I'm curious about whether you finished the books with a "flat" image of Mrs. Silver and what a "rich, Jewish mother" might look like, or whether her characterization complicated the identity. Another way to say this is to ask whether her character was any different than other representations of "rich, Jewish mothers".
Your posts made me think about a book called "How the Jews Became Whitefolk & What that Says about Race in America" by Karen Brodkin. It's hard to summarize her analysis, but the gist is that stereotypes around class, gender, and religious identity grew out of attempts to assimilate to white culture and become "American". (For example, moving to the suburbs and having a particular type of home or reconstructing cultural ideas around gender to fit an image of what white maleness looks like.) I'll bring the book to class.
My "inspiration" for asking this question is because, especially after working with ResLife, I overheard tons of hate speech. On term that kept coming to mind when reading this book was "JAP," or Jewish-American Princess. I was disappointed that Littman could portray Mrs. Silver in this sense. This was what I was trying to portray in my question.
I agree there have been a lot of stereotypes in the past relating to wealth and Jewish religion, however I do not feel that the representation can be looked at solely based on the religion. I agree with Jessica, I think it is important to take other aspects into consideration. For example, Mrs. Silver may be portraying the characteristic and personality of any other wealthy individual. Although it is very important to take into account that these stereotypes may be presented if left to the readers interpretation.
This is an interesting question that I really did not think about when I was reading the book. Now that it is brought up, I can kind of see where the question comes from. I agree with the other posts in that I don't think her showing off her wealth is really connected to her being Jewish. I have Jewish friends back home who are wealthy, but they act the same as any of my other wealthier friends would act. However, reading Molly's reasoning behind her question in her 2nd post, I can definitely see why she would create the argument. It seems that this may be an issue in some sense, but for the most part I don't see Mrs. Silver acting any different than most other wealthy people would act.
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