When the Angels Left the Old Country

“The pogroms in the east had everyone unsettled, always looking over their shoulders. Shtetl was too small to merit that kind of trouble, but if trouble ever came, it was certainly too small to survive it.”

The introduction of the political problems that beset Shtetl helps to contextualize the complex factors that lead many young people to migrate to America. There is growing antisemitic fervor in the region, and although the town is small enough to be ignored, it is also so small that any negative attention will prove catastrophic. Its inhabitants therefore live in fear of the unstoppable social and political forces that surround them, and this pervasive sense of uncertainty fuels the desire of the younger generation to leave all that they know and seek a new life abroad.

“He knew from experience that it was possible to appear one way and feel quite another, and had developed a sense for when a person was wearing not only their clothes but also their body as an ill-fitting garment.”

This excerpt details the thoughts of Yossel, a conman and minor character who briefly encounters Little Ash and the angel. Despite his relatively small role in the story, his perceptive analysis and “cold reading” of the angel provides a vital piece of character development, making it clear that the angel has yet to embrace the complexities involved in The Shaping of Personal Identity. At this early stage of the novel, the angel does not feel comfortable with a human identity and dislikes being constrained by the social expectations attached to gender, and Yossel instinctively recognizes this element of discomfiture.