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Tevye the Dairyman Identity Quotes

How we cite our quotes: Story Number.Paragraph

Quote #1

At that time I wasn't at all the man you see today. Of course, I was the same Tevye but not really the same. How do they say: the same yente but sporting a different hat. In what way was I different? May it not happen to you, but I was a beggar in rags […] compared to that time, today I am a wealthy man [who goes] out every morning to the market, then drive from dacha to dacha in Boiberik. I drop in on this one, on that one, the biggest businessmen from Yehupetz, chat a little with each one like I'm also somebody […] you're looking at me Pani Sholem Aleichem, and probably thinking to yourself, Aha! This Tevye is really some Jew! (2.2)

Two ways to think about identity in this passage. First, a neat little verbal turn here when Tevye wonders whether internal, innate identity is fixed or fluid (is he the same man from back then or isn't he?). And second, identity as totally external, social construct—Tevye's is economically determined by his wealth, so the "beggar" and the "somebody" aren't the same person at all.

Quote #2

[…] even high-up Christians have begged me to sell them my merchandise.

"We hear, Tevel," they say, "that you're an honest man even though you're a filthy Jew." Would you ever hear a compliment like that from a Jew? […] You never hear a kind word from our little Jews. (2.115)

Whoa, there's a lot to unpack in this tiny passage. Okay, so, here we're getting Tevye's identity from (1) the perspective of the majority community (the Christians he sells to), (2) the perspective of his own in-group (the Jews he sells to), and then (3) his views on both of those groups. So: (1) he's living in a time and place where anti-Semitism is all well and good and right out there in the open—check out the Christians who are shocked that he is "honest." There's also a great detail in the fact that they call him a Russified version of his name—Tevel instead of Tevye. (2) To his Jewish customers, he doesn't seem particularly special. And (3) Tevye somehow likes the brutally blunt words of the Christians—just as they are upfront about hating Jews, so are they fine with talking up his integrity. He has some disdain for what he sees as his fellow uptight Jews.

Quote #3

I stopped people along the way and asked them if they had seen or heard of Menachem-Mendl. "If," they said, "his name is Menachem-Mendl, that's not enough. There are lots of Menachem-Mendls around here. What's his last name?"

"I haven't any idea," I said. "At home in Kasrilevka he's known by his mother-in-law's name, Menachem-Mendl Leah-Dvossi's. […]"

"That's still not enough. What is his business? What does he deal in, your Menachem-Mendl?" […]

"He deals in gold imperials," I said, "and options, and he sends off telegrams to Saint Petersburg, to Warsaw."

"Oh?" They began to laugh, then laughed louder and louder. "You mean the crook Menachem-Mendl! Why don't you just go across the street? There you'll find brokers running around like rabbits, and yours is probably one of them." (3.63-67)

Again, there's the tossup between whether a guy gets his identity from himself (here, that doesn't help since there are a ton of dudes like Menachem-Mendl in the big town), or from his family (again, that would only identify him in his little local village Kasrilevka), or from the kind of public figure he cuts as a businessman.

Quote #4

At first I thought, Lazer-Wolf? Tzeitl? He has children her age. But then I reminded myself that it was a stroke of luck for her. A stroke of luck! She would have everything she wanted! So he wasn't the most generous man. Nowadays that wasn't the greatest virtue. […] He had one fault—he was somewhat common. Oh well, could everyone be a scholar? (4.34)

Here, Tevye talks himself into having Lazer-Wolf for a son-in-law by flipping every terrible character flaw into a net neutral or even net positive. Does identity come from how other people interpret you?

Quote #5

I quoted a portion [of the Torah] to him, as only Tevye can. […] As I talked with this young fellow, for some reason I felt drawn to him. Maybe it's because I like a person with whom I can talk, with whom I can discuss a biblical commentary, have a philosophical argument, speculate about life, on this, on that, and who knows what else. That's the kind of person Tevye is. (5.34-39)

It's weird that Tevye switches to the third person (you know, "as only Tevye can" and "that's the kind of person Tevye is") when he's talking up his philosophical cred here? It's not one of his usual verbal tics. Modesty? Or something else?

Quote #6

What else was there to do? We all went back to work, my wife and children to the milk jugs, I to the horse and wagon. The world goes on its accustomed course—the world does not stand still. I told everyone in the household that Chava was not to be remembered or mentioned—no more Chava! erased!—and that was it. […] my customers celebrated and rejoiced to see me [and I told them that] one of my calves died. (6.96-98)

Wow, that's some crazy harsh stuff right there. Not only does he totally erase Chava from the family—seriously, they even sit shiva for her, which is something you only do to mourn the dead—but Tevye even takes away her actual humanity by busting out this white lie about a dead calf. But then again, from his point of view, Chava started the process of erasing her identity herself by leaving her Jewish family for a Gentile dude.

Quote #7

"Reb Tevye! What would you say if I told you that I love your Shprintze and want to take her as my wife?" […]

"Certainly you have to ask your mother, and your mother will surely tell you that you're an idiot, and she will be right. […] She will be right because what kind of husband are you for my Shprintze? How is she your equal? And most important," I said, "what have I to do with your mother?" (7.57-68)

Marriage isn't just two individuals getting together—it's two families getting together. For Tevye, that means all of them have to match on some level. (Anyone with in-laws can see the point of this.)

Quote #8

You should have seen [Beilke] at her wedding—a princess! I glowed with pride and marveled. Was this really Beilke, Tevye's daughter? Where had she learned to stand like that, to walk like that, and to hold her head and to dress as if she had been poured into her clothes? (8.53)

Compare this to Shprintze and the whole sad business of her not being considered good enough to marry into Ahronchik's family. What's different here? Because the groom is independent? Because Beilke herself is somehow different from the rest of her family?

Quote #9

[Beilke] laid out for me a tale, a story worthy of A Thousand and One Nights, about how her Podhotsur became rich after being a nobody. He drew from the lowest of the low and with his own ability reached the highest levels and now wanted to invite to his house people like Brodsky. […] Money wasn't enough—you still needed a pedigree, power, influence, and status. Podhotsur was doing everything possible to show he was somebody. He bragged that he came from the famous Podhotsurs, his father was also a famous contractor. But "he knew very well that he was a street musician," Beilke said. "Now he tells everyone that his wife's father is a millionaire." (8.112)

There's a couple of ways to take this little allusion to A Thousand and One Nights. (1) Podhotsur has some Aladdin in him, what with the coming from nothing and ending up powerful and rich. (2) Tevye is a bit like Scheherazade, what with constantly plying Sholem Aleichem to keep him interested. Now, granted, it's not like Sholem Aleichem has promised to kill Tevye if the stories stop coming (which is Scheherazade's whole deal with the king)—but in a way, if the stories stop coming, Tevye stops being in print, which is certainly a kind of death. You know, sort of.

Quote #10

But then again, after all, [Chava] was still my child, and again the verse came to me, like a father pitieth his children. How can a person be so harsh when God says of Himself that He is an all-forgiving God! And especially since she had repented and wanted to return to her father and to her God! (9.77)

Tevye is torn between seeing Chava as a father sees a child, as an individual; and as a symbolic traitor to the very core of her identity as a member of his family and a Jewish woman.