60 pages • 2 hours read
Letters from Rifka
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Character Analysis
Rifka
The first-person narrator of the novel, it is Rifka whose geographical and personal journey drives the plot. Rifka’s character arc is largely defined through her response to hardship; when her geographical journey is hindered, her personal journey advances. By the time she is finally within reach of her promised land of America, her metamorphosis is so profound that it touches those around her, leaving a transfigured world in her path.
She begins the novel feeling mixed fear and excitement as she and her family escape from Berdichev. She writes to Tovah about disliking her brother Saul and generally seems less mature than later in the novel. Rifka also reveals her naïveté when she wastes the family’s entire food budget, entrusted to her, buying a single orange from a dishonest salesman. At the same time, there are early signs that Rifka can act boldly and independently. She keeps her cool on the train platform in Berdichev while soldiers search for her family, for instance.
Rifka’s independence grows significantly, especially when separated from her family while living in Antwerp and later on Ellis Island. She demonstrates keen linguistic skills, picking up Polish, Flemish, and English quickly, in addition to her native Yiddish and Russian; Rifka’s linguistic prowess makes her a point of convergence for different cultures, symbolizing her embrace of others who at first seem different from her, but with whom she then finds a commonality. In addition to this aptitude, she develops her own perspectives and ideas; she writes poetry, maintains her love of Pushkin (and even befriends a Russian boy) in the face of her brother’s shallow criticism, and rejects the immigration officials’ assertion that her hairlessness will render her a societal burden.
In addition, Rifka demonstrates a strong sense of empathy, and it is this trait that most impacts those around her. In the Ellis Island detention hospital, for instance, she cares for a Polish baby who is ill with typhus. She also encourages Ilya, a scared young Russian peasant, who in turn flourishes. She impresses Saul, her mother, and the immigration officials with her maturity, talent, and independence, and in doing so, confers to them a higher perspective on humanity. Ultimately, Rifka is able to begin a new life in America with much greater confidence than she has at the start of the novel—and much fuller sense of self than she would ever have known had she not endured all her hardships.
Saul
Like Rifka, Saul undergoes a personal transformation over the course of the novel. At the beginning, he seems to pick on her, somewhat legitimizing Rifka’s complaints about him. Yet Saul also demonstrates strength in a positive sense. He is the only member of the family not to contract typhus. During Rifka’s illness, Saul steps up to care for Rifka while the other family members recuperate in a hospital. Even if he seems somewhat disgruntled about the situation, Saul gets a job while the family is held up in Poland, ensuring Rifka’s care.
For a great portion of the novel, Rifka goes without seeing any family, including Saul. During her time in Antwerp and on Ellis Island, she transforms. Saul is the first to see her again, implying the importance of the siblings’ relationship. Both siblings have matured during their time apart. Saul does not bicker with Rifka as before, but instead tries to impress her by giving her a banana as a treat, assuming she has never had one before. Such gestures show that Saul has become more affectionate in Rifka’s absence.
Still, differences between the siblings are clear. In particular, Saul is shocked to discover that Rifka has befriended a Russian peasant, Ilya. Saul equates Russians with persecution, given the way he and other Jews were treated in Russia. Speaking from his own prejudice, Saul criticizes Rifka for her friendship with Ilya and for her love of the Russian Pushkin—and in doing so, his character functions as a distinct litmus test for Rifka. Even as she is challenged (indeed, accused) by her own family, Rifka is unfaltering in her hard-won, humane perspectives, and she holds fast to her favor for both Russians Ilya and Pushkin.
Rifka’s persistence and empathy are ultimately convincing. At the final hearing for Ilya’s and Rifka’s entry to the US, Saul is supportive of Ilya. With the influence of his sister, and the siblings’ mutual growth, Saul undergoes his own transformation, becoming a new person in America.
Ilya
Ilya appears late in the novel, but his friendship with Rifka features centrally in her character growth. Similarly, Ilya changes as he receives her encouragement. Ilya is initially silent and resistant, on hunger strike because he wants to return home to Russia—a disposition that rankles Rifka, given that she herself could not return even if she wanted. On a deeper level, however, Ilya’s perspective complicates the idea of America as the land of opportunity, by disproving the sentiments’ universality and challenging its idealism.
Ultimately, Rifka convinces Ilya to accept life in America, but she does so by encouraging Ilya rather than shunning him. Her compassion proves transformative for both of them, as Ilya, in turn, influences Rifka; as she is moved by her own innate empathy, Rifka discovers her commonality with Ilya and, by extension, with Russians in general. Rifka’s friendship with Ilya also facilitates her acceptance of her own Russian, multi-faceted identity. Their relationship has its finale at the immigration hearing, in which Ilya embraces his uncle, with whom he is to live in the US, symbolizing his acceptance of the country. He also finally speaks aloud to the immigration officials (by reciting Rifka’s poetry, no less), who thought he was unintelligent or unable to speak. The drama and consequential nature of this moment indicates the powerful influence Rifka has had on Ilya. The hearing is an event of culminated vindication, personal transformation, and homecoming.
Pieter
A fleeting but luminous presence in the novel, Pieter’s impact on Rifka is profound. When Rifka is on her transatlantic voyage to Ellis Island, Pieter’s friendship is an unexpected respite from the gravity and loneliness of her journey thus far. A whimsical jokester, he is the only character in the novel who is marked by ease and playfulness. He is also unique insofar as his company momentarily becomes the only thing more desirable than America; Rifka wishes the ship would never arrive at the Island, and that she and Pieter could continue sailing together. Rifka’s relationship with him—both in his life and his death—changes the way she sees herself and her world.
While Pieter is a very young man, many modern readers may nevertheless balk at the romantic attention he gives Rifka, who is a mere 13 at the time of their meeting. Even while the marriageable age of 1920s Russia was significantly younger than it is now, Rifka would still not have qualified. Despite this, her contemporary milieu was far more likely to view such overtures as normative. The novel assumes the ingenuous perspective of its protagonist, thus framing the romance as beneficially transformative for Rifka, by whose naïve understanding Pieter’s kiss is an initiation into womanhood. The kiss does, at least, catalyze her poetic imagination. It is her relationship with Pieter, and her desire to express the heady emotions involved, that inspires her to consider writing her own poetry. Poetry does, in fact, become a factor in her identity formation and a key to her eventual American citizenship.
One of the novel’s themes is humanity’s transcendence of racial or national boundaries, and Pieter’s death is a vehicle for this theme. When he is swept away in a storm, the loss has a grim universalizing effect within Rifka’s awareness. She writes, “[S]uddenly I feel how defenseless we are—not just Jews, all of us” (87).
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