Mameh Character Analysis

One afternoon she took her finished work to the loft on Stanton Street. The owner invited her into his office. He looked at the piece goods carefully and said she had done well. He counted out the money, adding a dollar more than she deserved. This he explained was because she was such a good-looking woman. He smiled. He touched Mameh’s breast. Mameh fled, taking the dollar. The next time the same thing happened. She told Tateh she was doing more work. She became accustomed to the hands of her employer. One day with two weeks’ rent due, she let the man have his way on a cutting table. He kissed her face and tasted the salt of her tears.

At this time in history Jacob Riis, a tireless newspaper reporter and reformer, wrote about the need of housing for the poor. They lived too many to a room. There was no sanitation. The streets reeked of shit. Children died of mild colds or slight rashes. Children died on beds made from two kitchen chairs pushed together. They died on floors. Many people believed that filth and starvation and disease were what the immigrant got for his moral degeneracy. But Riis believed in airshafts. Air shafts, light and air, would bring health. He went around climbing dark stairs and knocking on doors and taking flash photos of indigent families in their dwellings. […] After he left, the family, not daring to move, remained in the position in which they had been photographed. They waited for life to change. They waited for their transformation.

Millions of men were out of work. Those fortunate enough to have jobs were dared to form unions. Courts enjoined them, police busted their heads, their leaders were jailed and new men took their jobs. A union was an affront to God. The laboring man would be protected and cared for not by the labor agitators, said one wealthy man, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom had given the control of the property interests of this country. If all else failed the troops were called out. […] In the coal fields a miner made a dollar sixty a day if he could dig three tons. He lived in the company’s shacks and bought his food from the company stores. On the tobacco farms Negroes stripped tobacco leaves thirteen hours a day and earned six cents an hour, man, woman, or child.

One week later he took the girl down to the railroad station. She was in a contingent of two hundred going to Philadelphia. She was wearing a new cloak and a hat that kept her ears warm. He kept stealing glances at her. She was beautiful. She had a naturally regal posture. She was enjoying her new clothes. He was casual with her and tried not to be hurt. She had accepted the idea of leaving him without one word of protest. Of course, this was good for all concerned. But if she found it so easy, what would the future bring? She attracted people. […] Tateh was proud, but frightened too.

This was the day Evelyn Nesbit considered kidnapping the little girl and leaving Tateh to his fate. The old artists had never inquired of her name and knew nothing about her. It could be done. Instead, she threw herself into the family’s life with redoubled effort, coming with food, linens, and whatever else she could move past the old man’s tormented pride. She was insane with the desire to become one of them and drew Tateh out in conversation and learned from the girl how to sew knee pants. For hours each day, each evening, she lived as a woman in the Jewish slums, and was driven home by the Thaw chauffeur form a prearranged place many blocks away, always in despair.

One afternoon she took her finished work to the loft on Stanton Street. The owner invited her into his office. He looked at the piece goods carefully and said she had done well. He counted out the money, adding a dollar more than she deserved. This he explained was because she was such a good-looking woman. He smiled. He touched Mameh’s breast. Mameh fled, taking the dollar. The next time the same thing happened. She told Tateh she was doing more work. She became accustomed to the hands of her employer. One day with two weeks’ rent due, she let the man have his way on a cutting table. He kissed her face and tasted the salt of her tears.

At this time in history Jacob Riis, a tireless newspaper reporter and reformer, wrote about the need of housing for the poor. They lived too many to a room. There was no sanitation. The streets reeked of shit. Children died of mild colds or slight rashes. Children died on beds made from two kitchen chairs pushed together. They died on floors. Many people believed that filth and starvation and disease were what the immigrant got for his moral degeneracy. But Riis believed in airshafts. Air shafts, light and air, would bring health. He went around climbing dark stairs and knocking on doors and taking flash photos of indigent families in their dwellings. […] After he left, the family, not daring to move, remained in the position in which they had been photographed. They waited for life to change. They waited for their transformation.

Millions of men were out of work. Those fortunate enough to have jobs were dared to form unions. Courts enjoined them, police busted their heads, their leaders were jailed and new men took their jobs. A union was an affront to God. The laboring man would be protected and cared for not by the labor agitators, said one wealthy man, but by the Christian men to whom God in his infinite wisdom had given the control of the property interests of this country. If all else failed the troops were called out. […] In the coal fields a miner made a dollar sixty a day if he could dig three tons. He lived in the company’s shacks and bought his food from the company stores. On the tobacco farms Negroes stripped tobacco leaves thirteen hours a day and earned six cents an hour, man, woman, or child.

One week later he took the girl down to the railroad station. She was in a contingent of two hundred going to Philadelphia. She was wearing a new cloak and a hat that kept her ears warm. He kept stealing glances at her. She was beautiful. She had a naturally regal posture. She was enjoying her new clothes. He was casual with her and tried not to be hurt. She had accepted the idea of leaving him without one word of protest. Of course, this was good for all concerned. But if she found it so easy, what would the future bring? She attracted people. […] Tateh was proud, but frightened too.

This was the day Evelyn Nesbit considered kidnapping the little girl and leaving Tateh to his fate. The old artists had never inquired of her name and knew nothing about her. It could be done. Instead, she threw herself into the family’s life with redoubled effort, coming with food, linens, and whatever else she could move past the old man’s tormented pride. She was insane with the desire to become one of them and drew Tateh out in conversation and learned from the girl how to sew knee pants. For hours each day, each evening, she lived as a woman in the Jewish slums, and was driven home by the Thaw chauffeur form a prearranged place many blocks away, always in despair.