The Conflict in Grace Paley's "The Loudest Voice"
...and only co-opts with the American one which allegedly doesn't force him to shed his Jewish identity. It seems like he is impressed by the American traditions which might help his daughter free herself from the anachronistic world her parents grew up in: "maybe someday she won't live between the kitchen and the shop" (p. 38). However, Shirley's father may want to be a modern man, but he still can't detach himself from the conceptions he grew up with: he still expects Shirley to fulfill the female's job and set the table for dinner. Also, his humor is Jewish – straight out, fresh, sarcastic. Maybe because he belongs to a marginal group, he lets himself state the ugly truth and is not cautious as to what might be politically incorrect; unlike Americans, who would never dare to put all the cards on the table, he has the nerves to say to a neighbor "have some lemon, it'll sweeten your disposition" (p. 40). And so, the father's sense of humor, which is directed mainly against the mother's rejection to hyphenate, is also what separates the first generation of immigrants from the Native Americans and the second generation. While Shirley's father only expresses his consent to become an American, Shirley really becomes an ingredient of the America "melting pot". She is going through a gradual change – at first, she celebrates Thanksgiving, an American holiday, and then she is thrilled to be in a Christmas show, a Christian activity. She becomes the right hand girl of a teacher who is unable to grasp her true heritage: "Your mother and father ought to get down on their knees…" (p. 37) – he talks about a Christian custom even though Shirley's parents are Jewish. At the end of the story, Shirley herself kneels down and prays. However, she prays to Israel's God; she is not completely detached from her roots - she only takes from it what seems right to her. She treats the Christmas tree, put by the city administration in the Jewish neighborhood, with respect, simply because the bible bids Jews to remember they were stranger once as well. Moreover, her idea of Christianity is not quite what the church might have taught her; she understood from the school play that Christians are lonesome: "all the lonesome Christians" (p. 40). Before she goes to bed, she might not understand what her parents and friends say in Russian and Polish, but when she wants to sleep she talks Yiddish. In the end, even though Shirley is marginal in the American society, she still has the loudest voice, while the white Christian boys from her class "got very small voices" (p. 40). The Jewish community represents the first generation immigrants' notions: "In that place the whole street groans: Be Quiet! Be Quiet!" (p. 34). When the Christmas tree is put in the street, they go out of their way in order to not walk next to it. They can't detach themselves from old "customs"; they all arrive early at the school show, in order to make a good impression. Moreover, unlike the Americans, who always kept to themselves, the Jews are very communal: when they are considering their reaction to the school play they do it together. Naturally, the Jewish parents are unable to refuse when they get a chance to see their kids on stage. The community in the story, however traditional, is not orthodox – they don't emphasize the religion, they want to preserve the heritage: When the rabbi's wife declares t...