THE LOST BEAUTIFULNESS

After reading this story, the only sympathy I have for any of the characters would be for the Hanneh Hayyeh’s husband and son. Her husband works hard to pay for bills and to put food on the table. Sure Hanneh works as well but she should help out with the bills instead of saving money to paint her kitchen. Her husband stated, “But you had ought save it up for the bad times. What’ll you do when the cold weather starts in and the pushcart will not wheel itself out?” (Yezierska, 1920). That tells me that they are not in great shape financially. I also feel sympathy for her son, after fighting in the war he comes home to find his mother in the street with all of the family’s belongings. Instead of enjoying his 24 hours of leave he now has to deal with his homeless family and assist with them finding a new place to live and help them move. This story had no appeal for me whatsoever, I feel that Hayyeh ruined the story for me. Granted she was the main character, but she was the character I disliked the most. Granted she painted the kitchen as a tribute for her son, I can respect that. She didn’t have to show every Tom, Dick and Harry the work she did. Because of that she set herself and her family up for failure. Being a military man, I did find interest with her son serving in the war. Yezierska does talk about a relatable event, when people do home improvements or purchase a major item, they want to show it off. To have that sense of pride of ownership, a status quo. I believe that epiphany is demonstrated by Hanneh’s worshiping of her new painted kitchen. It is all she can talk about and wants to show everyone how glorious her kitchen looks now after she painted it. She wants something special for when her son comes home from the war. When in all reality, the son will probably be happy just to be home. He doesn’t need a fancy painted kitchen, just his family and friends to welcome him home (which he doesn’t seem to