Family ties: Examining the restrictive world of Jack Marshall
To say Jack Marshall had a difficult childhood would be quite an understatement. Marshall's memoir, From Baghdad to Brooklyn, opens with the thought that "Families are to flee from," a line that summarizes his childhood years growing up in the Jewish-Syrian neighborhoods of New York. Marshall reconstructs his stifling early years through short, almost poem-like vignettes. These tales, which at a recent reading Marshall called "independent but contributory," not only render his family troubles with vivid imagery, but expertly analyze his battle with religion.
A poet by trade, Marshall employs his formidable use of language to describe his bleak childhood. His family lived in a cramped, roach-infested apartment two stories above a tire company. Marshall, a sickly boy, suffered from a lack of heating in the apartment. He writes, "In cold winter months we'd bang on the steam pipes for some heat that rarely (and if so, miserly) came up," and was only felt if one "stood against the accordion-shaped radiator" (Marshall 50). This toxic atmosphere was further heightened by his parents' poor (arranged) marriage. Marshall's mother, a domineering woman who refers to her own birthday as "Doomsday" (37), constantly slings insults at his father: "My mother would often mock-imitate his pronounced Manchester English accent rounded in Middle Eastern tones, its formality and fussy correctness; she'd scoff at his timid, conciliatory nature and within earshot, sneer in Arabic, "T'eel i-dem (Slow, heavy blood)" (155), Marshall writes. Indeed, it is a wonder Marshall's father treated the marriage as a "test of character, a matter of honor" (46) instead of abandoning his family like some men. Finally, to add another dimension of suffering, Marshall describes how he endured the conservative religious practices of Orthodox Judaism, which for a time he "so painstakingly, even fanatically, upheld; fanatic perhaps because, like all zealots, I had an ever-so-fragile hold on what one deems unquestionably sacred" (17).
With such a childhood, the reader sympathizes with Marshall when he sees his faith is waning and his observance of "codified religious practice felt like being submerged in a magma of solidified past" (126). The more he chafes at his religious restrictions, the more Marshall wonders, "Might faith and family be what one had to flee?" (199). His rebellion starts small, as he consumes forbidden food like bacon. "My first taste of that fatty, burnt flavor swallowed me into the belly of the unkosher beast," (174) Marshall recalls. Next, he expands his worldview by reading books from the public library and learning about the philosophies of Darwin and Freud. He even learns information that shakes the foundations of his faith. "You know Moses wasn't a Jew," (143) a friend tells him, which throws Marshall off-kilter. His love of reading and poetry contribute to a "sustained wave of purpose toward a rational system describing absolute qualities" (182) instead of the religion practiced by his mother. However, perhaps feeling guilty over his transgressions, Marshall still attends a religious school as "a last attempt to convince myself of the primacy of the inherited faith over a disillusion fast burgeoning into ever more irrefutable reality" (199). But his stint in a yeshiva school doesn't last, and Marshall eventually loses his faith in religion. This decision later causes much grief between Marshall and his siblings. At a much later point in his life, Marshall tells his brother Nat, "At home I felt smothered. Everything was bi'zohr (forced)" (191). But Marshall pays a difficult price for abandoning religion; the reader senses that when he casts off Judaism, his siblings feel abandoned as well.
With such a childhood, the reader sympathizes with Marshall when he sees his faith is waning and his observance of "codified religious practice felt like being submerged in a magma of solidified past" (126). The more he chafes at his religious restrictions, the more Marshall wonders, "Might faith and family be what one had to flee?" (199). His rebellion starts small, as he consumes forbidden food like bacon. "My first taste of that fatty, burnt flavor swallowed me into the belly of the unkosher beast," (174) Marshall recalls. Next, he expands his worldview by reading books from the public library and learning about the philosophies of Darwin and Freud. He even learns information that shakes the foundations of his faith. "You know Moses wasn't a Jew," (143) a friend tells him, which throws Marshall off-kilter. His love of reading and poetry contribute to a "sustained wave of purpose toward a rational system describing absolute qualities" (182) instead of the religion practiced by his mother. However, perhaps feeling guilty over his transgressions, Marshall still attends a religious school as "a last attempt to convince myself of the primacy of the inherited faith over a disillusion fast burgeoning into ever more irrefutable reality" (199). But his stint in a yeshiva school doesn't last, and Marshall eventually loses his faith in religion. This decision later causes much grief between Marshall and his siblings. At a much later point in his life, Marshall tells his brother Nat, "At home I felt smothered. Everything was bi'zohr (forced)" (191). But Marshall pays a difficult price for abandoning religion; the reader senses that when he casts off Judaism, his siblings feel abandoned as well.
792 words, 3 pages
|
Home
