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Analytical Review of
"My Dead Brother Comes to America"
by Don Rey
Alexander Godin’s short story, "My Dead Brother Comes to America," written in 1934, takes place during the mid-twenties to the early thirties. The story follows a young boy and his arrival with his family to America, displaying his thoughts and conflicts. Many changes were going on during this period of time, and the same is true for the protagonist, the boy. The essence of depression foreshadowed the soon-to-come global hardships and had already begun to negatively affect employment and status of poverty in lower-income families. The fear of foreign radicalism in terms of liberal ideas and the loss of jobs to lower-paid immigrants lead to strong political conservatism which, in turn, lead to isolationism and the restriction of immigration into America. Godin seems to have strong feelings about this time period, as if he lived through the harshness much like that of his characters in the work discussed. He displays the time period and the feelings of the protagonist vividly with his intense use of imagery. While the economy of America moved towards depression and political sentiment towards isolationism, literature moved towards naturalism. Godin’s short story, "My Dead Brother Comes to America" uses the literary technique of naturalism along with intense imagery and use of powerful metaphors to display the sentiment of typical Americans and immigrants during the time period in a vividly descriptive way.
The mid-nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties were a very rough time in American history and that of the rest of the world. An economic boom and short burst of prosperity immediately following World War I gave Americans a false sense of security. By the middle of the 1920s, economic instability was very noticeable in America, and even more so overseas (Spielvogel 748). Although Godin never specifically mentions a date in his short story, the narrator makes suggestions as to the time period in which the events occur. He notes that the "youngest child was still in the cradle when [his father] had sailed [for America]." In addition, the boy’s brother died during the war, and his father did not know of this and eight years had passed since he had seen his father (Godin 154). Because the war officially enveloped the years 1914 to 1918, the story must have taken place sometime between 1921 and 1926. Also, they must arrive at Ellis Island in the winter, as the narrator mentions the snow he sees on the ground. America had merely begun to see instability in its economy at this point. However, across seas, European and Asian countries had seen much greater economic problems already. In Germany, inflation soared, and in 1923, interest rates flew as high as 90 percent (Rogers 402). The devaluation of currency was a consistent problem throughout most of Europe and Asia in the twenties and thirties, following the First World War.
Again, a specific location of the family’s previous home is not given directly. However, the narrator of the story mentions the vast fields of the Ukraine as if the protagonist, or the boy, has seen them first hand. Being a poor family, they probably did not travel much if at all, so it can be inferred that the boy and his family lived originally in the Ukraine and amongst the economic problems. The narrator confirms this in saying, "We had lived through a heroic period of history without having anything heroic in our natures, and many things had happened to us during that time" (Godin 154). The heroic times referred to include three aspects of the twenties. Of great importance to future generations, but little or no direct importance to the family was a revolution in physics. Ernest Rutherford, a famous physicist of the time, dubbed the 1920s the "heroic age of physics" (Spielvogel 812). War and economy was of great direct importance to the family, however. World War I and the depression were the main factors that forced the family to immigrate to America for a second chance. Despite the heroic times, they did not feel heroic, but merely grasped life by every moment, and when they felt it was necessary to leave in order to live, they sailed for America. They did not expect an immediate change of their lives for the better, but merely a chance. The family knew America would not accept them warmly and would not make living immediately easier. Their expectations were confirmed when they arrived at the grey and dreary Ellis Island.
The family’s welcome consisted of unfriendly and routine but careless treatment. First, the luggage aboard the ship, which for most of the passengers was all they had to their names, was thrown carelessly at the deck. Some fell in the water, and some broke and shattered on the ship. When they were finally allowed to leave the ship, they were "herded together like cattle" (Godin 155). Next, doctors examined them giving no sentiment to their feelings or pains. The reason for all of this was not only to keep disease and crime from being brought into America. The decade following World War I in America was a time filled with anti-foreign sentiment. The majority of Americans saw a prospering, but unstable economy and wanted nothing to injure it. They wanted for America, normalcy; a word coined by President Warren G. Harding to mean "a regular steady order of things" ("United States" 1). To maintain this, Americans wanted to close their doors to immigrants, and to practice isolationism, a policy that would seclude America from most or all foreign relations, especially alliances and wars. This is seen and experienced by the boy and his family when they arrive in America. The poor treatment and harsh examinations was not merely to weed out the criminals and those weakened by disease. Americans did not want these immigrants in their country. They feared disruption of their fragile economy. More directly, they were afraid the immigrants would take their jobs, as desperate foreigners would work for lesser wages, and they feared foreign radicalism. In 1924, Congress Passed the National Origins Act, putting an annual quota on the number of immigrants allowed into America. This sentiment lead to very harsh times for the boy and his family.
The boy’s feelings were strong against the harsh times he endured. This is clearly evident in the powerful use of imagery in Godin’s short story. Imagery can be defined literally as a "collection of images in a literary work," or less literally as the "special usage of word in which there is a change in their basic meaning" and can be synonymous with figure of speech (Harmon 263). Godin’s uses intense imagery to display the boy’s strong feelings, which complicate his arrival to America and meeting his father. His sentiment on his treatment in the ship, and the experience he was subject to is something the boy felt strongly about. He describes it in such a vivid way that the reader can picture it in his or her mind’s eye as something horrible and unnerving. Godin writes,
We could still feel the vomit and ammonia smell of the sea in our nostrils, and see the emptiness of water unrelieved by anything but cheerless birds of the sea, and masses of weeds. But from the new way some of the sleepers snored it could be seen that assurance had partly, if not altogether, returned to them; others, however, tossed and moaned upon their bunks.
The manner in which he uses adjectives and word choice gives the reader a picture of what the boy is enduring. In addition to this powerful imagery, Godin uses metaphors to further the display of the boy’s feelings in the story. He puts more importance on the metaphor than the simile in this work. This creates a direct relationship between the abstract thoughts he is attempting to present and something any reader can relate to. He writes, "After breakfast we were all herded together like sheep. Pale, frightened ghosts that we were, hovering between two worlds…" (Godin 155). Godin first uses a simile to introduce the harshness of the immigrants’ situation and to show how unimportant they were to the Americans. Then he uses a more intense metaphor showing both the immigrants’ fear and the strong sense of death on board the ship. It is likely that a relatively high percentage of the immigrants died of hunger and sickness on their voyage. They have already had this to haunt them, and now they are overtired, hungry, and weak. The immigrants, themselves feel dead, heartbroken, and almost hopeless. In addition to the sentiment of the immigrants as a whole, the boy has endured the death of his brother, and is, on this trip, experiencing harsh reminders of his loss. This is difficult for the young boy, and Godin is trying to show his pain.
A more general device used in the short story is naturalism. The naturalist movement in literature occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The simplest definition of naturalism is "the application of principles of scientific determinism to literature. It draws from its basic assumption that everything real exists in nature, conceived as the world of objects, actions, and forces that yield their secrets to objective scientific inquiry" (Harmon 337). The method of naturalism begins with the idea that all living things, including humans, perform actions based on their instinct and experience in the environment around them. They cannot understand or control these factors which shape their lives; they are subject to the natural laws that govern the universe and all living things (Harmon 338). Godin presents the boy’s feelings about his father and about the death of his brother in a way that the boy does not understand them, but merely understands that they are natural feelings and there is little he can do to control them. When his father greets him for the first time, his father hugs him. The boy is first subject to feelings of resentment towards his father. When he is hugged, and sees the compassion in his father’s eyes, he is also subject to compassion. When his father squeezed him in his arms, he again felt resentment, and his tension let his father know this. Throughout the short story, Godin focuses on the feelings and pains endured by the boy. He does this effectively through strong imagery, metaphors, and the use of the naturalistic method of literature. The boy’s feelings toward his father and even more intensely about his dead brother are displayed in a very real way to the reader.
While the time period sets up a basis for Godin to write, his use of specific techniques, including naturalism, imagery, and metaphors displays the harsh image of what immigrants from Europe and Asia endured in their lives and journeys to and within America. He shows the reader that they did not come here to instantly better their lives, but instead for a second chance not given them in their own harsh countries. For this second chance, they paid a hefty price through their hardships, pain, and loss. Godin uses the boy to represent this somber fact.
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The Enmey of all the world
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http://carl-bell-2.baylor.edu/~bellc...lTheWorld.html
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http://www.classicreader.com/book/1449/1/
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