Call It Sleep – Context (OCR A-Level English Literature): Revision Notes
Call It Sleep – Context
Introduction to the novel
Henry Roth's Call It Sleep was published in 1934, right at the height of the Great Depression when unemployment reached 25%. The novel tells the story of David Schearl, a young Jewish immigrant boy growing up in New York's Lower East Side between 1907 and 1913. Despite receiving critical acclaim from the New York Times, which praised it on the front page, the novel was a commercial failure and went out of print within just two years.
However, the story didn't end there. In the 1960s, the novel was rediscovered and republished, becoming recognised as a lost modernist masterpiece. It was even included in TIME magazine's list of the 100 Best Novels since 1923.
The novel's initial failure can be understood through its historical context. Roth wrote an experimental, modernist novel during an era when proletarian literature dominated, with works like Michael Gold's Jews Without Money offering straightforward communist narratives about working-class struggles. Roth's complex, stream-of-consciousness approach was simply the wrong book at the wrong time.
Historical backdrop: 1907-1913 setting
Peak Jewish immigration to the Lower East Side
The novel opens in 1907, which is described in the prologue as the year destined to bring the greatest number of immigrants to America. This was the peak of Eastern European Jewish immigration, with approximately 1.3 million Jews fleeing violent pogroms in Russia. These pogroms included the horrific Kishinev massacre of 1903-1906 and followed the failed Russian Revolution of 1905. Manhattan's Lower East Side became the most densely populated urban area in the world, with over 1,000 people living per acre.
The living conditions were extreme. Around 80% of immigrant families lived in tiny 2-4 room tenements with no electricity and shared outdoor toilets. This cramped, difficult environment is central to understanding David's claustrophobic world in the novel. The streets were dangerous, noisy, and filled with people from different cultures, all struggling to survive.
Economic realities for immigrant families
The novel's depiction of Albert Schearl's unstable employment reflects the harsh economic reality for immigrants. Albert moves between jobs constantly – from working in a print shop (where he nearly killed another employee with a hammer), to running a milk route, to unemployment. This job instability was completely normal for immigrant workers, who faced discrimination, language barriers, and exploitation.
The 1920s context also included fears surrounding radical politics, particularly after the Sacco-Vanzetti case involving accused anarchists, and the violence of Prohibition-era gangs. Despite these challenges, immigrant culture thrived in certain ways. The Yiddish press boomed, with newspapers like the Forverts (Forward) reaching circulation of 200,000 copies daily, showing how immigrants maintained their cultural connections.
Cultural collision and linguistic trauma
David's experience navigating multiple languages mirrors the reality for immigrant children. He had to switch between Yiddish at home with his parents, English on the streets and at school, and Hebrew at the cheder (Jewish religious school). This constant code-switching created profound psychological stress.
The novel depicts the religious and ethnic tensions of the period. Catholic children taunted Jewish children with slurs like "Goy! Goy!" (gentile), whilst David's mother Genya faces scandal over her past involvement with a gentile piano player – considered an ultimate taboo in their community. These details show how immigrant families faced pressure from both outside discrimination and strict cultural expectations within their own communities.
Literary context: modernism meets proletarian realism
Modernist influences
Roth's novel is deeply influenced by the modernist movement, particularly the experimental techniques of James Joyce and T.S. Eliot. Joyce's Ulysses (1922) pioneered the stream-of-consciousness technique that Roth adapts to show a six-year-old child's perspective. The novel's linguistic experimentation, with its Yiddish-inflected English, echoes Joyce's Leopold Bloom character.
The phrase "Hotter the fire, softer the metal" from Book IV demonstrates Joycean synaesthesia, where sensory experiences blend together. Roth also draws on T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) for his fragmented depiction of psychological trauma. David's visions of a "black sun" and his terrifying coal-cellar experiences create a mythic descent into darkness, similar to Eliot's modernist techniques.
Roth was part of an experimental literary circle at New York University, influenced by Gertrude Stein and mentored by poet Eda Lou Walton. This modernist education shaped his rejection of straightforward realist storytelling in favour of complex, poetic prose.
Proletarian literature counterpoint
The 1930s were dominated by proletarian literature – working-class focused writing with clear political messages. Michael Gold's Jews Without Money (1930) was a communist call-to-arms, whilst Pietro di Donato's Christ in Concrete (1939) offered Italian immigrant realism. These novels presented clear narratives about class struggle and workers' exploitation.
Roth deliberately rejected this approach. Instead of political solutions and class warfare, he chose lyrical mysticism and psychological exploration. This choice made his novel unpopular during the Depression era when readers wanted clear answers to economic suffering. However, this same quality made it valuable when rediscovered in the 1960s, as readers appreciated its artistic complexity.
Biographical context: Roth's life and writer's block
Henry Roth (1906-1995) grew up in the exact locations described in Call It Sleep – the Avenue D tenements of the Lower East Side. He won a scholarship to New York University, where he developed his modernist style. However, after publishing this novel, Roth experienced a devastating 60-year writer's block, unable to write another major work.
This creative paralysis mirrors David's linguistic blackout at the end of the novel. When the 1960s rediscovery brought financial stability, Roth finally wrote his late-life sequel series Mercy of a Rude Stream. Critics suggest that David's inability to speak after his traumatic electrocution represents Roth's own creative paralysis – the immigrant child's fragmented identity preventing the adult writer from finding his voice.
Socio-political pressures in the novel
Religious tensions
The cheder scenes reveal the brutal religious education that immigrant boys endured. Rabbi beatings were common practice, creating fear rather than faith. The community's messianic expectations following the pogroms created intense religious pressure. Jewish mysticism, particularly Kabbalah traditions, shapes David's climactic vision where light and coal come together in a mystical epiphany. This suggests spiritual transformation through suffering.
Gender dynamics in immigrant families
Genya's backstory reveals the limited choices for immigrant women. She was disowned by her family for having a relationship with a gentile organist, leaving her with no choice but to marry Albert. Her unhappy marriage shows how women bore the consequences of transgressing cultural boundaries.
Albert's character reflects pogrom-scarred masculinity. His paranoia and violence stem from trauma experienced in Eastern Europe, which he carries into his role as husband and father, creating a cycle of domestic abuse. Genya represents tenement motherhood as a battle between preserving cultural traditions and maintaining mental health under impossible pressure.
Comparing with The Reluctant Fundamentalist for NEA
For your comparative study, consider these parallels and contrasts:
Immigration waves: Call It Sleep depicts the 1907 Jewish immigration peak following pogroms, whilst The Reluctant Fundamentalist explores post-9/11 Muslim experiences and profiling.
Economic positions: David's family lives in proletarian poverty in a ghetto, whilst Changez in The Reluctant Fundamentalist occupies an elite position as a Princeton graduate working in finance.
Sources of oppression: David faces Catholic gangs and his father's violence, whilst Changez experiences post-9/11 racial profiling and conflict with his employer Underwood Samson.
Linguistic struggle: David navigates Yiddish to English, whilst Changez moves from Urdu to American English. Both experience identity fragmentation through language.
Resolution: Call It Sleep ends with mystical blackout and ambiguity, whilst The Reluctant Fundamentalist offers ambiguous resistance and an uncertain confrontation.
America as symbol: The milk-wagon electrocution represents America's deadly promise in Roth's novel, whilst the Twin Towers collapse embodies the same in Hamid's work.
Key contextual points for essays
Band 6 paragraph starters
When writing about context, try opening paragraphs with precise historical details:
Structuring Context Paragraphs:
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Roth's 1907 Lower East Side setting, described as destined to bring the greatest number of immigrants, provides historical grounding for David's linguistic fracture between Yiddish, English, and Hebrew.
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The novel's Great Depression publication in 1934 helps explain Roth's rejection of Michael Gold's communist approach in favour of Joycean mysticism, making it commercially unsuccessful but artistically significant.
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Albert's pogrom-induced violence reflects 1903-06 Eastern European trauma, showing how first-generation immigrant masculinity was shaped by experiences of persecution and displacement.
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The 1960s rediscovery parallels Roth's own creative paralysis, mirroring David's coal-vision blackout and suggesting how immigrant trauma can silence artistic expression.
Critical voices to reference
Including critical perspectives strengthens your analysis:
Irving Howe described the novel as a lost masterpiece of Jewish-American consciousness, emphasising its importance in representing immigrant psychological complexity.
Alfred Kazin saw it as modernism sustaining itself in a fallen world, highlighting how experimental techniques could capture immigrant trauma.
Leslie Fiedler placed it within the radical proletarian tradition, though noting how it transcends simple political messages.
Exam-ready timeline
| Event | Year | Impact on novel |
|---|---|---|
| Kishinev Pogrom | 1903 | Explains Albert's paranoia and violence |
| 1907 Immigration Peak | 1907 | Historical setting for prologue ferry arrival |
| Ulysses Publication | 1922 | Provides stream-of-consciousness technique |
| Great Depression | 1934 | Context for commercial failure |
| 1960s Rediscovery | 1964 | Novel's canonical recognition |
This timeline helps you integrate specific contextual references with the novel's literary techniques. When discussing stream-of-consciousness or synaesthesia, connect these techniques to their 1922 modernist origins. When analysing themes of economic precarity, link them to both the 1907-1913 setting and the 1934 publication during the Depression.
Key Points to Remember:
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The novel failed commercially in 1934 because its experimental modernist style clashed with the proletarian literature era's preference for straightforward political narratives.
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The 1907-1913 setting captures peak Jewish immigration, with the Lower East Side as the world's densest urban area – over 1,000 people per acre living in extreme poverty.
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Roth's modernist influences (Joyce's Ulysses, Eliot's The Waste Land) shaped the novel's stream-of-consciousness technique and fragmented psychological narrative.
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David's trilingual trauma (Yiddish/English/Hebrew) mirrors real immigrant children's experiences, whilst Albert's job instability reflects normal immigrant economic precarity.
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The 1960s rediscovery transformed it into a canonical work, with Roth's 60-year writer's block paralleling David's linguistic blackout – immigrant trauma silencing creative expression.