Fear
The character of Leah in Yolen’s ‘‘Suzy and Leah’’ is racked with fear. Though she is safe in the present moment of the story, the residue of her experiences in World War II haunts her. In presenting fear as one of the main themes in this story, Yolen emphasizes the effects war has on people even after they have escaped it. No matter how people treat Leah, no matter how nice they are or how good their intentions, she is marred by the hideous conditions in which she lived in Nazi Germany. She is afraid to accept gifts, afraid to expose her emotions, even afraid to notify authorities that she is in physical pain. Her fear consumes her to the point that she is willing to die of appendicitis rather than to die at the hands of some other person whom she imagines will kill her.
Avi is also consumed by fear. After he was abandoned in a cupboard for three days, fear has taken away his voice. Readers can imagine that Avi’s grandmother probably told him to not make a sound before she closed the doors of the cupboard. His grandmother did not want the Nazis to find him. That fear continued to control the young boy even after he was rescued and brought to the United States. His grandmother’s suggested last words remain in his head, commanding him to be silent for fear he, too, will be taken away to some scary, unknown place as his grandmother was.
Hidden behind some of Suzy’s actions are more subtle layers of fear. In Suzy’s case, there is fear of strangers or fear of people who speak and act differently than she does. This fear prods Suzy to look at the refugee children as if they belonged to a different species. There are references in the story to the refugee children being seen as if they were animals in a zoo. The refugee children are also dirty, which makes Suzy want to keep her distance for fear she might catch a disease from them. Yolen uses this type of fear to demonstrate how stereotypes of a different ethnic group can be created. It is from Suzy’s type of fear that prejudice is often born.
Misunderstanding
Readers are shown, through a comparison between the diary entries that Suzy writes and those Leah composes in her journal, that the two girls constantly misunderstand one another. When Leah is experiencing fear, Suzy thinks that Leah’s silence indicates that Leah is uppity, concluding that Leah believes she is better than Suzy. When Suzy offers treats, Leah wonders what the underlying motive of Suzy’s gift is. When Leah is sad or feeling lonely and is therefore less responsive to the other children, Suzy misunderstands Leah’s withdrawal and refers to her as being grumpy.
Yolen’s story points out that misunderstanding can break down relationships, or, even worse, can keep relationships from building in the first place. Because Suzy can only read Leah’s expressions, emotions, and needs through her own cultural and psychological experiences, she misunderstands much of what Leah is saying through her body language. Readers can infer that Suzy has never met another child who has suffered as much as Leah has. Things that Suzy worries about, such as pop music and stylish dresses, are superfluous to Leah’s recent lifestyle. In the few years before Leah came to the United States, she was existing on the level of survival. To merely find bread crumbs to eat was a reason to rejoice. The misunderstandings between these two girls have the potential of easing once Leah and Suzy open up to one another, but readers can only guess at this conclusion. Suzy might grow to the point of empathizing with Leah once she understands the real pain Leah has endured. But the misunderstanding might continue unless the girls remain as open with one another as they have been in their journal writings.
Jewish Persecution
Though this is not a story of the Holocaust—the imprisonment and murder of millions of Jewish people in Europe during World War II—the theme of Jewish persecution is very much apparent in Leah’s journal entries. As Leah reveals her emotional reactions to the new life she is leading in the refugee camp, details of what happened to her and her family in Germany are made known. Her family was taken to a concentration camp, where her mother and brother were killed. The young boy Avi lost his grandmother, and readers can assume he lost his parents as well. The scars of Jewish persecution are fresh and psychologically painful in the refugees’ minds.
Also noticeable in this story is the fact that Jewish persecution has followed the refugees to the United States. Though the hints are subtle and the persecution not as severe, Yolen suggests the possibility that segregation and prejudice might continue. Even though the refugees are told they are free, they remain living behind barbed wire fences. Though the children are intelligent, able to speak multiple languages, Suzy and her American friends laugh at their foreign accents when the Jewish children speak English. They also laugh at their unfamiliarity with nonkosher food. Because the lives of these refugees have very different foundations from those of the children from other backgrounds, the refugees’ differences could well continue to make others label them as suspicious and therefore unworthy of others’ full trust.
Source:
Sara Constantakis – Short Stories for Students – Presenting Analysis, Context & Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories, vol. 29, Jane Yolen, Published by Gale Group, 2001.