In order to be able to grasp the dimension of the role identity plays in Mary Antin’s The Promised Land, one has to take into consideration the author’s biographical background, as the first part of her life differs completely from the later years. She is born in the Jewish Polotzk near Witebsk in White Russia. In 1894, the family emigrates to the United States. Mary receives solid school education and manages to have her first poem published in the Boston Herald at the age of fifteen. With the help of diligence, natural ability, curiousness and luck, Mary Antin advances from her proletarian neighbourhood to higher educated circles. Antin publishes several essays, short stories and poems, gives lectures and gets involved with the loosening of laws restricting immigration.
Already at the age of twenty, Mary Antin writes her autobiography The Promised Land (formerly published under the name of "From Polotzk to Boston"), which describes her childhood in Russia, her immigration to America, the initial problems in her new homeland and her success in gaining ground. Especially the preface causes attention, as she calls her life “unusual, but by no means unique. (…) [A] concrete illustration of a multitude of statistical facts”, while she is distancing herself from her former life as Maryashe Weltman in Polotzk. The high degree of self- reflexiveness and the dispartment of her own person into at least two identities predestine her book as a subject of inquiry by means of sociological investigation in the field of identity research.
In order to discuss Mary Antin’s notion of identity, it is required to outline the term itself. Within the last decades, this concept has become central to social science and it has turned from a technical term to an almost redundantly used catchphrase in virtually every field of everyday life. Thus, the perception of identity is as subjected to historical, social, political and emancipational changes as every other term referring to the self- reflexion of an individual, which also develops according to altering circumstances.
This essay tries to concretise the term "identity" in order to be able to grasp the difference between the "given identity" in Polotzk and the "hybrid, constructable identity" Mary Antin experiences in the United States.
Moreover, this essay will give possible reasons for Mary Antin's comprehensive closure with her past in Russia.
Table of Contents
I. A short abstract of Mary Antin’s biography:
II. The notion of identity in Mary Antin’s The Promised Land….
1. Disambiguation of “identity”
2. Polotzk: Identity as a given attribute
3. Boston: Identity as a hybrid construction
III. Possible reasons for Mary Antin’s exhaustive closing with her past
Research Objectives and Themes
This academic paper examines the evolution and construction of identity in Mary Antin’s autobiographical work The Promised Land, analyzing how the author navigates the transition from a predetermined identity in Czarist Russia to a self-constructed identity as an immigrant in the United States.
- The biographical background of Mary Antin and its influence on her narrative
- Sociological perspectives on "given" versus "constructed" identity
- The impact of migration on personal identity and cultural assimilation
- The role of gender, religion, and social status in shaping self-perception
- The psychological necessity of distancing oneself from the past to achieve autonomy
Excerpts from the Book
3. Boston: Identity as a hybrid construction
“Our mothers”, according to Antin, “are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth”. Thus, the author speaks of two births, namely that out of her father and mother of the flesh, and that out of herself. This second nativity is possible not until she has immigrated to the “New World”, as – compared to Polotzk - the horizon accessible to a Jewish girl exorbitantly expands in her new home.
One major step in Antin’s creating a new identity is her renunciation of Orthodox Judaism which allows ascending to higher educated society circles. This experience of freedom in spite of her being a female helps her on with her restatement concerning her notion of identity.
The whole dimension of her sense of doubleness becomes clear after chapter IX in which the migration is being described. To her as an immigrant, democracy – which she witnesses for the first time in the US – equals among other things the freedom to deny and denounce her ethnical background in order to become a “good American”. Back in Polotzk, Antin regrets that she was sometimes “as weak in moral as [she] was in religion”, but later on, she makes no secret of her being a “Freethinker” questioning God’s existence. This experience of autonomy paves the way for Antin’s rethinking of her own identity.
Summary of Chapters
I. A short abstract of Mary Antin’s biography: This section outlines the author’s life from her origins in Jewish Polotzk to her migration to America, highlighting her transformation from a restricted childhood to an educated public life.
II. The notion of identity in Mary Antin’s The Promised Land….: This central chapter discusses the theoretical definition of identity, distinguishing between identity as a given attribute and identity as a hybrid, social construction.
III. Possible reasons for Mary Antin’s exhaustive closing with her past: This chapter analyzes why Antin felt the need to emotionally and narratively dissociate herself from her Russian upbringing to successfully embrace her new American life.
Keywords
Mary Antin, The Promised Land, Identity Research, Immigration, Assimilation, Emancipation, Social Advancement, Hybridity, Autobiography, Jewish Identity, Americanization, Self-Reflexiveness, Patchwork Identity, Sociological Investigation
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the central focus of this research paper?
The paper explores the concept of identity within Mary Antin’s autobiography, specifically looking at how her migration from Russia to the United States facilitated a radical change in her self-definition.
What are the primary themes discussed in the text?
The core themes include the contrast between static and constructed identities, the impact of the immigrant experience on personal growth, and the pursuit of social mobility through assimilation.
What is the main research question or goal?
The goal is to determine how Antin’s identity transitions from a fixed, "given" state in her childhood to a "hybrid" construction in her adult life, and why she felt it necessary to distance herself from her past.
Which scientific methods are employed?
The paper utilizes sociological theory—specifically the work of Heiner Keupp—to analyze literary narrative and autobiographical content through the lens of identity research.
What topics are covered in the main section of the paper?
The main section covers the disambiguation of the term "identity," the comparison between the Russian and American cultural contexts, and the psychological process of "renaming" and "remaking" the self.
Which keywords best characterize this work?
Key terms include identity research, assimilation, emancipation, hybridity, and autobiography.
Why does Antin refer to herself in the third person?
This rhetorical choice signals her detachment from her past self (Maryashe Weltman), highlighting that she views her early life as a story she is telling from a completely different stage of personal development.
How did her father influence her sense of "patchwork identity"?
Her father’s life in America, marked by frequent business changes and failures, taught Antin that one's path is not fixed, allowing her to compose her own identity through varied life roles.
- Quote paper
- Christiane Abspacher (Author), 2006, The notion of identity in Mary Antin's "The Promised Land", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/57975
