America! America! by Delmore Schwartz
"America! America!" by Delmore Schwartz explores the complexities of immigrant life in the United States during the Great Depression through the experiences of Belmont Weiss and the Baumann family. After returning from Paris, Belmont finds himself in a world drastically altered by economic hardship, struggling to connect with friends whose aspirations have been diminished. The narrative unfolds largely through his mother’s storytelling, which recounts the life of Mr. Baumann, a sociable immigrant who navigates the challenges of assimilation while maintaining a semblance of a comfortable lifestyle through his insurance business.
The Baumann family’s dynamic reveals both the richness and the strains of immigrant identity, showcasing the tension between their social aspirations and personal conflicts. Each family member exhibits varying degrees of success and failure, reflecting the broader immigrant experience of alienation and the pursuit of the American dream. The story highlights the psychological burdens and familial tensions that arise from these struggles, culminating in Belmont's introspective reflections on identity and belonging. Ultimately, "America! America!" serves as a poignant examination of how external circumstances shape personal narratives and aspirations within the immigrant community.
On this Page
America! America! by Delmore Schwartz
First published: 1940
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of work: 1934
Locale: Brooklyn
Principal Characters:
Belmont Weiss , a musician recently returned from ParisMrs. Weiss , his motherMr. Baumann , the insurance sales representativeMrs. Baumann , his wifeDick Baumann , their oldest sonSidney Baumann , their youngest childMartha Baumann , their daughter
The Story
Belmont Weiss returns from Paris to a world changed by the effects of the Depression. Unable to fit into the changed situation among friends whose hopes have been "wholly modified," he takes it easy by enjoying long breakfasts, during which he listens to his mother's stories. The story of the Baumann family is told to him one morning as his mother irons.
Mr. Baumann, a cultivated immigrant, was known for his sociability, his appearance, and his ease of living. With little effort, he sold insurance policies, consoled the grieving at funerals, and accumulated a comfortable income from the premiums. His life was leisurely. The family often took four vacations a year, often entertained, and indeed became celebrated for their Sunday evening gatherings, where immigrants shed the loneliness of people who have been cut off from the old country ways and then thrust into the "immense alienation of metropolitan life."
As his mother irons, she tells Belmont that Mr. and Mrs. Baumann "shared so many interests that there was naturally a good deal of antagonism between them." Other people might regard her husband as a sage, but Mrs. Baumann sought out the rabbi, read Sigmund Freud and Henri Bergson, and relished all things and people Jewish. Their children, Belmont is told, reflected the attitudes of their parents. The oldest, Dick, moved from job to job but made little headway, except by marrying a successful beauty-parlor owner, Susan. When Mr. Baumann and Dick became involved in a real-estate partnership with Belmont's father, Mr. Weiss soon tired of their casual attitude toward business hours and responsibilities, terminating the partnership with a summary letter of dismissal. This ended the Weiss-Baumann friendship only briefly, however, because seemingly no one could stay angry with affable Mr. Baumann.
The youngest child, Sidney, followed an even more disastrous course of action, finding some jobs unbearable because of the class of people with whom he worked, others because of the summer heat. Sent to Chicago to find his feet, he failed there and returned to a series of temporary jobs, becoming embittered by his father's "limited success." After a quarrel over the seemingly trivial—a pair of shoes—the father and son fought, and the son "unsuccessfully" attempted suicide and was sent to a mental asylum.
Only their daughter, Martha, the plain intellectual, managed her life by increasing her separation from the family and by marriage to a doctor who, despite her bitterness, enjoyed the family atmosphere at the Baumanns. Although twenty years younger, Mrs. Weiss had offered advice through the years to Mrs. Baumann and continues to share her insights with Belmont (though she would have preferred talking with her older lawyer son).
The reader learns only in passing that Belmont's father left the family in the 1920's, but as this short story draws to an end, Belmont's reflections shape the plot. Sitting in the bedroom that he is sharing for a time with his brother, he examines the conflicting emotions generated by the morning's saga of the Baumann family and the whole panorama of immigrant expectations about America. The reader hears no more about the Baumanns but turns inward to the real purport of the story—what Belmont has learned about others and about himself.