Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
"Call It Sleep" by Henry Roth is a seminal coming-of-age novel set in early 20th-century New York City, exploring the experiences of young David Schearl, a Jewish immigrant. The narrative begins with David and his mother, Genya, arriving in America to reunite with his father, Albert, whose coldness starkly contrasts the joy of other immigrant families. The story delves into the deep alienation within the Schearl family, particularly the fraught relationship between David and his father, marked by Albert's contempt and insecurity. As David navigates his childhood, he grapples with cultural identity, sexuality, and the contrasting parental influences of his nurturing mother and his harsh father. The novel captures David's confusion and existential fears as he encounters the complexities of life, religion, and adolescence, ultimately seeking solace in sleep, where he finds temporary relief from reality. Roth's work is notable for its vivid portrayal of immigrant life and the internal struggles of a child caught between two worlds, making it a poignant exploration of identity, family dynamics, and the human condition.
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Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
First published: 1934
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Bildungsroman
Time of plot: 1907-1913
Locale: Lower East Side, New York City
Principal characters
David Schearl , a young Jewish immigrant boyGenya , his motherAlbert , his fatherJoe Luter , a print shop foremanBertha , Genya’s sister and David’s auntYussie Mink , David’s friendAnnie Mink , his sisterLeo Dugovka , another of David’s friendsNathan Sternowitz , a widower and later Bertha’s husbandPolly andEsther , his daughtersRabbi Yidel Pankower , David’s teacher
The Story:
In 1907, David Schearl, about two years old, and his mother, Genya, are on a steamer leaving Ellis Island, the last leg of their journey to America. David’s father, Albert, came to America earlier, and the family is now to be reunited. Albert displays a coldness, however, that is in marked contrast to the joy pervading other reunions taking place around him. His remarks to his wife and son are contemptuous and accusatory; because he does not want his boy to look like an immigrant, he snatches David’s old-country hat off his head and hurls it into the river.
Like the other immigrants, the Schearls are people in an alien culture. Unlike most of the other families, however, there is a deep alienation in the family, particularly between father and son: David is the immigrant in life who must seek his own meanings in maturity.
By the time David is six years old, his attachment to his mother is important not only for the relationship between them but also for the shelter she provides him from his father’s icy contempt. Where Genya is placid and beautiful, Albert is aloof, suspicious, gullible, and eaten away by a tragic pride. Albert is at war with the world. His great fear—partly based on an awareness of his own foreignness and partly based on a deeper insecurity—is of being laughed at, cheated, or made to look a fool. David’s immature but meticulous consciousness records that Albert’s foreman, Luter, flatters Albert only to be with Genya. He also experiences a repugnant sexual encounter with a neighborhood girl and a terrible thrashing by Albert. In the second book, David watches the courting of Aunt Bertha by the laconic Nathan Sternowitz and listens in confused fascination to his mother’s account of an earlier love affair in Russia. Through these experiences, David becomes uneasily aware of sexuality, particularly of the disturbing fact that his mother is also a sexual being.
In the Hebrew school, the cheder, David’s intellect is awakened by Rabbi Yidel Pankower, a tragicomic figure of classic proportions. David learns rapidly, but one afternoon he is puzzled by a verse from Isaiah in which Isaiah, seeing the Lord seated on a throne, is afraid; then a seraph touches a fiery coal to Isaiah’s lips, and he hears God speak. David yearns to ask about that coal but is not given an opportunity to do so. At home, he asks his mother to explain God. He is brighter than day, she tells him, and he has all power.
On the first day of Passover there is no school, and David wanders toward the East River. He stares at the river, meditating on God’s brightness. The experience is almost a mystical trance, but the dazzling contemplation is broken by three boys who taunt him. They tell him that he will see magic if he goes to the train tracks and drops a piece of scrap metal in the groove between the tracks. When David does so, there is a sudden blinding light that terrifies him. His child’s mind connects the thought of God’s power and light with the electric flash.
David sometimes does not get along with the rough boys of the neighborhood. One day, he discovers the roof of the flat as a place of refuge. From there, he sees a boy with blond hair flying a kite. Leo Dugovka, a confident and carefree boy, also owns skates. He is surprised to learn that David does not know anything about the Cross or the Mother and Child. David desperately wants Leo to like him.
The next day, David walks the long distance to Aunt Bertha’s candy shop to see if she has any skates he can use. The living quarters behind the store are cramped, dark, and filthy. Bertha tells him to get Esther and Polly out of bed while she watches the store, but she has no skates. David thereupon goes to Leo’s flat. There he is attracted to a picture of Jesus and to a rosary. When Leo hears about David’s two cousins, he becomes interested in seeing them. The next day, Leo promises to give David the rosary if he will take him to see the girls. Though uncomfortable with the proposal, David agrees. Leo is successful with Esther, but they are caught by Polly, who tattles.
David is terrified at the thought he might be implicated. At cheder in the afternoon, he is nervous when he reads before a visiting rabbi. Bursting into tears, he entangles himself in hysterical lies fabricated out of the secret in his mother’s past. He says that his mother is dead and that his father is a Gentile organist in Europe. When the puzzled rabbi goes to David’s parents to try to clear up the matter, Nathan angrily blames David for what happened to Esther. The rabbi learns that David lied, but mention of the organist arouses Albert’s suspicion. He accuses his wife of unfaithfulness and believes David to be the child of another man. Genya cannot convince him that he is wrong.
When Bertha arrives, the adults argue violently. David, terrified, runs into the street. Images, recollections, and fears spin through his mind. Finding a steel milk-dipper, he desperately decides to produce God again at the tracks. At first, nothing happens when he inserts the dipper; then, he receives a terrific electric shock that knocks him out. The flash draws a crowd of anxious people, but David is not seriously hurt. Even his father seems somewhat relieved to find that he is all right. David reflects that soon it will be night and he can go to sleep and forget everything. In sleep, all the images of the past—sights, sounds, feelings—become vivid and alive. Life is painful and terrifying, but in sleep he triumphs.
Bibliography
Buelens, Gert. “The Multi-Voiced Basis of Henry Roth’s Literary Success in Call It Sleep.” In Cultural Difference and the Literary Text: Pluralism and the Limits of Authenticity in North American Literatures, edited by Winfried Siemerling and Katrin Schwenk. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996. Focuses on the novel’s representation of different languages and voices, included in a study of multiculturalism in literature.
Dembo, L. S. The Monological Jew: A Literary Study. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. Argues that Roth uses an imagist technique of perceiving reality: David senses but never understands life.
Farber, Frances D. “Encounters with an Alien Culture: Thematic Functions of Dialect in Call It Sleep.” Yiddish 7 (1990): 49-56. Analyzes the way Roth masters the “cacophony” of street dialects of immigrants becoming acculturated in early twentieth century New York City and how he uses speech to show “young David’s temptations and terrors.”
Guttmann, Allen. The Jewish Writer in America: Assimilation and the Crisis of Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Analyzes David’s agony as representative of the experience of first-generation Jews as they take their place in American culture. Recognizes the novel’s universality.
Kellman, Steven G. Redemption: The Life of Henry Roth. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. Engaging, readable account of Roth, particularly good in examining the long interim between his novels. According to Kellman, Roth deliberately stopped writing because he did not want to confront his adolescent incest in his autobiographical fiction.
Lyons, Bonnie. Henry Roth: The Man and His Work. New York: Cooper Square, 1976. Discusses Call It Sleep in the context of Roth’s life and shows that it is a unified work of art.
Sherman, Bernard. The Invention of the Jew: Jewish-American Education Novels, 1916-1964. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1969. Treats the book as primarily a Depression novel but recognizes that central to it is the maturing of a young mind.
Weber, Myles. Consuming Silences: How We Read Authors Who Don’t Publish. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005. Roth figures prominently in this discussion of four American authors who stopped writing for long periods of time. Weber argues that for some writers the decision to defer authorship can be a smart career move.
Wirth-Nesher, Hana, ed. New Essays on “Call It Sleep.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Collection of some of the most engaging and useful analyses. Includes an essay by literary critic Leslie Fielder on the “many myths” of Roth and analysis of “language, nostalgic mournfulness, and urban immigrant family romance” in the novel.