Anna Chakryan wrote me a message asking:
"I wanted to find out why [Pascal] didn't mentions the Statue of Liberty? What was the real reason if any."
Some of you had interesting hypotheses about it.
Of course, if you contribute, it will count in your blog participation.
REPLIES will count too.
He did not escape to America because of any type of persecution, as many immigrants did. For them the Statue of liberty signaled freedom and lack of persecution. For hi, he viewed America as the land of gold and that was what was important to him, money not freedom from persecution.
ReplyDeleteWhat came to my mind with the Statue of Liberty was a comparison between the statue atop Liberty Island and the vampire atop Mount Majella. I thought that since in the U.S. everything is bombastic, in his eyes this was the U.S. version of the vampire in a magnified sense. In the same way he wrote that the vampire had a strange majesty to her maybe this was the majestic vampire driven away yet he wouldn't want to mention it because it was something that had scared him back at home.
ReplyDeleteBut Pascal never failed to mention even a little thing from his life that scared him. He always vividly discribed his fears, I dont thing Statue of Liberty would be any different, besides when you see it for the first time, for the poet who reflects every emotion on the paper, Statue had to have an emotional impact on him this way or the other.
DeleteI believe that he consciously chose not to mention the Statue of Liberty throughout the entire novel. There are many instances where he speaks about NY landmarks (Brooklyn Bridge, etc.), yet he never mentions the Statue of Liberty, which you can specifically see from lower Manhattan. He obviously encountered it when the boat docked, as well as multiple times throughout his life. The Statue of Liberty is a symbol for American freedom and liberty. I hypothesize that he did not mention the Statue of Liberty because he did not feel that America was necessarily a free land. There was one instance in the book when he was speaking of horrible food and living conditions, as well as terrible conditions for laborers, and he concluded the story with the sentence: “And this in free America” (pg. 103). I believe that he chose not to mention the Statue of Liberty because he does not believe that America stands for what the Statue of Liberty is supposed to stand for, freedom and liberty.
ReplyDeleteWill,
DeleteI got the same impression from the text. It seemed that the narrator had to find the freedom to redefine himself in spite of the reality of immigrant life. The Statue is an emblem of that freedom, but it did not come easily to Pascal.
I think the immigrants were originally supposed to pass through Liberty Island upon arrival in America. The "natives" protested this as they didn't want the Statue of Liberty to be "tainted" by the immigrants and therefore the immigration process was transferred over or was instead set for Ellis Island. I find this ironic considering what the Statue is supposed to symbolize, yet maybe intuitively Pascal picked up on this without even knowing this piece of history which I am sure he did not know when coming over on the boat. The feeling of disillusion however I am sure he did feel.
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ReplyDeleteI hypothesized that, since the boat went in late, it could have been dark outside already and Pascal couldn't physically see the Statue of Liberty because of the absence of spot-lights lighting it up. It is also possible that he was asleep in the cabin since it was night, when they were passing the Statue of Liberty. Pascal mentions the unsuccessful attempts of some passengers to point out Coney Island, which means the visibility was very poor or he was on the side of the boat facing coney island and not facing the statue of liberty.
ReplyDeleteI hypothesized that Pascal deliberately did not talk about the Statue of Liberty because he could not identify with what the statue stood for "the icon of freedom". Pascal's father decided to leave for America because he thought that if he stayed in Italy he would never get out of poverty. I think that neither Pascal nor his father were prepared for the life he had in America, because they thought that life would be better. Basically, they were working just as hard, and still in poverty, if not worse off than in Italy. If anything, I think that Pascal felt enslavement and not freedom.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea that Pascal felt enslaved by America. He realized that immigrants need to assimilate to rise in American culture and this is not true freedom, it is forced assimilation. I believe he interprets this forced assimilation as a kind of slavery.
DeleteThis is a very interesting idea. The comparison between forced assimilation and slavery in a sense is mind blowing to me. It is true that in America in order to succeed, one must assimilate. It is rare that a person becomes truly successful in this country without adapting to the ideals and customs in America. I do however think Pascal didn't necessarily feel enslaved because he did have the option to return to Italy if that was the case. Instead I feel Pascal was just unsatisfied with poverty and his living and working conditions which were forcing him to give up his life for meager wages.
DeleteI think that you bring up an interesting point. I remember when we were first looking at the cartoons, that the Italians were given ape-like features, and often presented using the same stereotypical imagery that was used against Africans. The Italians were forced into doing jobs for little to no money, and like you said, it was a form of enslavement. All immigrants go through a period where they are negatively portrayed in the media and also are given, for lack of a better term, the short end of the stick in America, and unfortunately it takes decades to overcome, if it is ever overcome.
DeleteMy hypothesis was that perhaps coming to New York represented a far cry from the freedom he expected or the freedom that everyone talks about. He often made a mockery of that believe when he said "an this is America" a couple of times in the book when recounting the horrors he faced. That made me think he was trying to make a point than America was not what people thought it was.
ReplyDeleteLike Will, I also believe that Pascal did not see America as a land of liberty and freedom which is why he omitted the mention of the Statue of Liberty in his writings. I believe Pascal does not believe America is free because laborers are like slaves that are forced to assimilate in order to become emancipated. If Italian immigrants want to hold on to their Italian ethnicity without integrating into American culture, they will not be able to rise up socioeconomically. Pascal sees this issue with assimilation and it works against the idea of liberty and freedom--a main reason (I think) why he omits the mention of the Statue.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Pascal had real issues with the laborers being slave-like having to spend whatever they earned and then called good people while the ones that don't spend get fired. I think he did have some faith in America when he was eager to find out even letting his father go back to Italy without him and not wanting to quit. I think this was a sign that he did have some faith in America which is why he chose to stay. He says there had to be some kind of opening in this vast country so he believed that there was some way of making it here.
DeleteI also wondered why the Statue of Liberty wasn't mentioned in the book, I actually went back several times believing that I read it somewhere. A broken chain lies at her feet. My assumptions as to why it was left out is because of what it means. When immigrants come to this country they immediately identify the Statue of Liberty with hope, freedom, living the dream and then slowly the dream starts dying. They start to realize that in America isn't what they thought it would be. In the book he makes sure to mention places that he visits because they mean something special to him. Whereas the Statue might have meant something to him only for him to realize that it didn't live up to his expectations.
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ReplyDeleteI wondered about this. Before he left Italy, he was "boyishly angry against this America" which was stealing his father away from him. Then he became curious. He wanted to find out. Although he wasn't sure. He later has some disappointments such as when he says Americans hold prostitutes in higher regard than they do immigrants or during his hardships at work (ex: when the foreman makes works spend what they make) when he sarcastically states over and over that this is American freedom.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the book, there are multiple criticisms of America. I think that Pascal had to do everything he could to survive in this new land, but he in no way admired America. He just didn't feel that America should be considered a free country, omitting the image of American freedom from his writing.
DeleteI am more for the idea that Pascal never had a chance to see the Statue, I am sure a poet like him, who gets his muse from the things he observes, couldn't just leave out The Statue of Liberty, even if his feeling about it weren't pleasant. It might be foggy that day and too dark to view the Statue.
ReplyDeleteAt that time, with no skyscrapers, Lady Liberty was the single tallest structure in the harbor, visible from every possible angle along the Manhattan coastline. Not only, but Ellis Island is a stone-throw away from Liberty Island and he couldn't have missed it.
DeleteAfter reading everyone else's post, I must agree with the person who said that Pascal didn't mention it because he didn't see America as being a place of freedom. However my original answer was that maybe it didn’t appeal to him as it would to anyone else so he didn't bother to write about it because he just didn’t see any significance to it.
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