Call It Sleep – Plot Summary (OCR A-Level English Literature): Revision Notes
Call It Sleep – Plot Summary
Introduction to the novel
Call It Sleep (1934) is a realistic fiction novel by Henry Roth that explores the immigrant experience through the eyes of a young Jewish boy. The story follows David Schearl as he grows up in the Jewish ghetto of New York's Lower East Side during the early 1900s.
Historical Context: Like his protagonist, Roth himself was a Galician Jewish-American who immigrated to America around the turn of the twentieth century. This was his first novel, published when modernist literature was at its height, establishing it as an important work of early 20th-century American fiction.
Language and dialect in the novel
Roth uses dialect strategically to reflect the immigrant experience and cultural divisions:
- Yiddish dialogue: When Jewish characters speak to each other at home, the dialogue appears proper and precise in English. However, it's implied they're actually speaking Yiddish.
- Street English: When English-speaking children play in the streets, their dialogue is rough, grammatically incorrect, and uses heavy dialect to show their pronunciation.
This linguistic divide highlights the cultural barriers David navigates between his home life and the outside world.
Main characters
- David Schearl: The six-year-old protagonist, recently arrived in America. A sensitive, fearful child who struggles to understand the world around him.
- Genya: David's mother, with whom he shares a close, loving relationship.
- Albert: David's father, a violent and tempestuous man who struggles to find steady work. David fears him deeply.
- Aunt Bertha: Genya's sister who arrives from Galicia. She's coarse and frank, which Albert detests.
- Leo: An older Catholic boy who manipulates David's friendship.
- Reb Yidel: David's religious education teacher who recognises David's intelligence.
Early family life and tensions
The Schearl family struggles to adjust to life in New York City's Jewish tenements. Several factors create tension in the household:
- Albert cannot find steady employment, causing his already volatile temper to flare frequently.
- When Aunt Bertha arrives from Eastern Europe, her presence in their cramped apartment increases family discord.
- Albert's resentment towards Bertha's frank manner adds to the oppressive atmosphere.
A Secret from the Past: David overhears conversations between his mother and aunt that reveal a secret from the past: Genya had an affair with a non-Jewish man back in Galicia. They met in cornfields, an image that captures David's imagination and becomes significant to the novel's psychological themes.
Aunt Bertha's new life
Bertha meets and marries Nathan, a widower with two daughters named Polly and Esther. They establish a candy shop together, providing some distance from the Schearl household tensions.
David's religious education and the Isaiah symbolism
David begins studying under Reb Yidel, who recognises him as a promising student. A pivotal moment occurs when David overhears Yidel teaching an older student about the prophet Isaiah. He becomes fascinated by the image of an angel holding a hot coal to Isaiah's lips to purge him of sin.
Central Symbolism: This image of purification through fire becomes central to David's psychological landscape. It represents his desire for cleansing and protection in a frightening world, and will resonate throughout the rest of the novel.
David's fearful worldview
David experiences life through a lens of constant fear. Rather than bringing comfort or understanding, new discoveries tend to alienate and frighten him further.
The Trolley Rail Incident: During Passover, David joins a group of children who drop a piece of zinc onto the live rail of a trolley car. The resulting jolt of electricity creates a powerful impression on David, who mentally links it to the Isaiah story and the cleansing hot coal. This connection between electricity and spiritual purification becomes significant later in the climax.
Albert's employment and violence
Albert finally secures steady work as a milkman. David sometimes accompanies him on his rounds, but witnesses a disturbing event: his father violently beats a man trying to steal milk bottles with a whip, possibly killing him. This reinforces David's fear of his father's capacity for violence.
The tragedy with Leo
David befriends an older Catholic boy named Leo, not understanding that Leo is exploiting their friendship. Leo offers David a rosary, claiming it will provide magical protection. The fearful David eagerly accepts this promise of safety.
The Price of Protection: Leo demands that David introduce him to Polly and Esther in exchange for the rosary. David brings Leo to the candy shop, where Leo leads Esther into the basement and rapes her.
This represents a critical turning point in the novel: David is horrified by what has happened but tries to continue with his life, carrying the weight of guilt and trauma.
The breakdown and lies
Hours after the incident, David is supposed to give a recitation in front of Reb Yidel but breaks down crying instead. When Yidel asks what's wrong, David creates an elaborate lie:
He claims that Genya is not his real mother but his aunt, and that he is the illegitimate child of his real mother's affair with a gentile man.
Psychological Significance: This fabrication draws on the overheard conversations about his mother's past, twisting them into a false confession that reflects his feelings of guilt and unworthiness. David's lie reveals his desperate attempt to make sense of his traumatic experience through the framework of the family secrets he's absorbed.
The truth emerges
Meanwhile, Polly tells Bertha and Nathan about Leo's assault on Esther. Bertha urges Nathan not to confront Albert, fearing his violent reaction, but Nathan decides to speak with him anyway.
Reb Yidel also visits David's parents to share David's disturbing confession. Multiple crises converge at once.
The climactic confrontation
When David arrives home, Reb Yidel is speaking to his parents. Albert's response reveals his deepest insecurities:
- He says he has long suspected he is not David's real father.
- He calls his marriage to Genya a sham designed to cover their respective sins.
- He identifies Genya's sin as her affair outside her faith.
- He confesses his own sin: allowing his abusive father to be gored to death by a bull.
The Heart of the Conflict: Genya denies that David resulted from her affair, but Albert refuses to believe her, insisting David is not his son. At this moment, Nathan and Bertha arrive. Seeing Albert's fury, Nathan hesitates, but David himself speaks up. He admits leading Leo to Esther and hands his father the whip used to beat the milk bottle thief.
Albert discovers David's rosary and sees it as proof that David is the son of a gentile. In his rage, he prepares to beat David to death.
The electric shock and resolution
The family manages to restrain Albert. David flees and returns to the trolley's live rail. Using a metal milk dipper, he deliberately touches the rail and receives a massive electric shock. The shock knocks him unconscious.
Passersby carefully roll him off the rail with a stick. An ambulance arrives and revives David. A policeman brings him home.
The Purifying Fire Realized: The electric shock functions as the purifying fire David had been seeking, connecting back to the Isaiah imagery that fascinated him earlier. The electricity serves as the physical manifestation of the spiritual cleansing he desperately needed.
The transformation: For the first time, Albert demonstrates genuine softness towards his son. Genya takes David into her arms, and he experiences an emotion that he 'might as well call it sleep' – a sense of peace and belonging after the cathartic release.
Critical reception and legacy
The novel's reception illustrates the unpredictable nature of literary success:
- 1934: Hailed as a modernist masterpiece upon publication but was a commercial failure.
- 1934-1964: The book went out of print and remained unavailable for thirty years.
- 1964: A front-page review in the New York Times Book Review revived interest and sales.
- 2005: TIME magazine named Call It Sleep as one of the 100 Best Novels published in English after 1923.
Roth's Later Career: After Call It Sleep, Roth struggled with writer's block, possibly due to depression and childhood trauma. It took 60 years before he published another novel, the four-volume Mercy of a Rude Stream (1994-1998), demonstrating the lasting impact of his personal struggles on his creative output.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
- Call It Sleep explores the immigrant experience through six-year-old David's fearful perspective in early 1900s New York.
- The novel uses dialect strategically: proper English represents Yiddish home life, whilst rough dialect shows street culture.
- Central symbolism connects Isaiah's purifying coal to the electric shock, representing David's desperate search for cleansing and redemption.
- David's relationship with his violent father Albert drives much of the plot tension, culminating in Albert's false belief that David is not his son.
- The tragic incident with Leo and the rosary highlights David's vulnerability and desperate need for protection in a threatening world.
- Despite initial commercial failure, the novel is now recognised as a modernist masterpiece of immigrant literature.