How we cite our quotes: Story Number.Paragraph
Quote #4
I avoid long discussions with this priest because right away we get into the whole business of your God and our God. I cut him off with a proverb and tell him we have a fitting commentary. Then he cuts me off and says he knows the commentaries as well as I do and perhaps better, and then he begins to recite from memory from our Bible. […] I get very angry and pour out whatever comes out of my mouth. Do you think that bothers him? Not at all. He looks at me and laughs […] At that time I didn't understand that little smile, but now I know what it meant. (6.5)
As always, Tevye turns the global, big-picture into the local, small-picture, just like in his debates with God, where he ascribes some petty and small-time motivations to a deity. Here, although the priest might be doing a turn-the-other-cheek thing or whatever, Tevye assumes that he's actually laughing at the Chava-Chvedka situation.
Quote #5
"Mazel tov! We have here a new philosopher, fresh from the oven!" I said. "As if I didn't have enough enlightened daughters, now Tevye's wife has also started to spread her wings and fly!" (6.38)
Wow, dude, that's way harsh. But also, there's a contradiction in the way Tevye is super-proud of his daughters' education—in almost every story he tells, the girls are able to out-argue him—and his sexist commentary about their intellectuality. Which is the real Tevye?
Quote #6
"Don't compare me to Hodl," Beilke said. "Hodl lived at a time when the whole world was in chaos, about to turn upside down, and people were worrying about that and forgetting about themselves. But now," she said, "that the world is calm again, everyone is worried about himself, and they've forgotten about the world." (8.52)
Right, so first of all, we kind of need to throw away our hindsight knowledge that this was written in 1909, so just 8 short years later… KABOOM! Anyway. Why does Beilke reject Hodl's way of choosing a husband, as well as her idealism/commitment to a cause? What does she claim to know that Hodl didn't?