59 pages • 1 hour read
The Rise of David Levinsky
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Book 9 Summary: “Dora”
David continues to lament his loss to the Western firm. Mrs. Chaikin also continues to harass him about the loss. He decides to talk to Meyer Nodelman about business and a possible loan. He confesses the whole situation, from poaching a tailor to the Gentile loan and the Western firm. Nodelman tells David he is brave and that the business could work but that he will not loan David the money. He tells David he will think about how he can help and sends him on his way.
The next day, Nodelman agrees to loan David enough money to pay the Gentile but not all that he will need. He tells David he will have to work for the rest of the money. David feels encouraged after his chat with Nodelman and puts on a new suit to go ask Maximum Max for the loan. Max comments on how prosperous he must be in his new suit. Max brings David to his home to meet and discuss business. David meets Max’s wife, Dora, and his two children. Dora and Lucy, her daughter, display their spelling skills. David has no mind for it as he anxiously waits for Max to talk business with him. The two men finally chat, but Max tells David he has no funding for the scheme. Max offers to go talk to a usurer about securing a loan, leaving David alone with Dora. David realizes she is captivating and interesting with a beautiful long neck. The children come back and David gives Lucy and Dora spelling words to try. Max returns, but David thinks the errand is just a ploy to make the lack of financial assistance more bearable.
After he leaves the Margolis house, David spends the next few days ruminating about the business and Dora. A little over a week later, money arrives from the Western firm with an explanation that the company was bought by new directors. He rushes to Nodelman’s office to discover he is out. He then decides to go to the Margolis house to brag to Max. He shows Max the check and stays for supper, which comprises a sorrel soup he finds particularly delicious. On his way to see the Chaikins, he thinks about dissolving his partnership with them but casts the thought aside. He shows Mrs. Chaikin the check, but she remains suspicious of David.
David pays Nodelman back the loan; he then sets out to find more business. He keeps his business afloat from sheer will and some risky practices. He spends more time with the Margolis family, meeting Dora and Lucy’s best friends, Sadie and Becky. David and Max become closer friends, though David still pines for his wife. He notices Max often cheats on his wife. Dora dotes on her daughter even as she tries to keep pace with her learning. It becomes clear to David that Lucy will fulfill her mother’s wish to be educated.
The family takes David with them on outings, and he becomes more integrated into their family. David suggests living with them as a boarder, but Dora tells him there is no room in their current apartment. The couple eventually move their family to a larger home and rent David one of the rooms on the lower level. David’s desire for Dora grows. David begins to scheme ways to seduce her. Max notices none of this.
David continues to grow his business throughout this period, meeting with buyers from various department stores. He meets with Charles M. Eaton, an Anglo-Saxon from Philadelphia, at a fancy restaurant. He confesses to having no idea how to order or manage the silverware. Mr. Eaton tells him what to do, and the two become friends after the ordeal. Dora begins to rely on David more for English lessons and even chides him for not going to college. One night, David tells her the story of Matilda. David makes a move, but Dora rebuffs him. She refuses to talk to him alone for days. David finally draws her back into conversation by asking her about her relationship and marriage to Max. He tries to kiss her again, but she begs him to stop. He feels the guilt of betraying Max, but he cannot keep Dora out of his head.
The workers begin to form for another strike, leaving Max fretful about his business. He agrees to support the union but keeps his workers going all the same. Eventually, the union leaders shut him down. In his idleness, he turns back to Dora. Max leaves to search out a man overdue on his loan. David takes the opportunity to plead with Dora. Eventually, she relents, and they kiss. David says his “heart was dancing with joy over my conquest of her […] I really loved her” (346). David and Dora maintain their affair in secret.
David’s work remains slow. He becomes enmeshed in the union struggle and reads Darwin and Spencer, believing that because he is fitter than his fellow man, he deserves to have more money. The press supports the strikers. David brings in his workers, paying them according to the union’s demands but also having them work extra and paying them extra. This tactic allows him to make a large sum of money during the strike as he has less competition.
David plans to move to a larger shop. He continues his relationship with Dora, even attempting to give her a diamond bracelet. She tells him it is ridiculous since she cannot even wear it with Max. Chaikin’s wife continues to distrust David. David longs to be American, thinking, “That I was not born in America was something like a physical defect that asserted itself in many disagreeable ways—a physical defect which, alas! no surgeon in the world was capable of removing” (362). David travels to outlying cities to make more sales. He eventually loses Chaikin as the tailor decides to go into an independent business with another man.
Dora then resolves to end their affair. She tells David he has to move out. David hopes she will relent, but she does not. Max cannot understand their quarrel. Eventually, Dora convinces Max to move into a new house in Harlem. Max and David part as friends.
Book 10 Summary: “On the Road”
The loss of Dora saps all of David’s love for his factory away. David meets his English teacher, Bender, by chance. David offers him a job as a bookkeeper in the shop. On another occasion, David runs into Max Margolis. Max asks David to explain what happened between him and Dora. He keeps pestering David, telling him Dora confessed to having an affair with him. David denies it, going so far as to tell Max that Dora only confessed because Max kept badgering her. Max makes him swear, then leaves.
Bender begins working as a supervisor in the shop while David travels. David drives in ever-widening circles out of New York City building relationships with buyers and store owners. He travels by train, occupying his time with reading. He finds friendly competition in a Gentile, Mr. Loeb, who works for one of the largest manufacturing companies for clothing. He finds many surprises in middle America, such as cattle barons and evasive buyers. David tries to track down Huntington, a buyer for several stores, but is turned back at every try. Eventually, he stalks him to his neighborhood bowling alley. In the end, he makes the sale. David grows closer to Meyer Nodelman as he frets over his business, which continues to thrive even without Chaikin. Chaikin, however, does not fare as well. Mrs. Chaikin comes to the shop, accusing David of cheating her out. She causes quite a scene, returning again and again with growing desperation. In the end, David hires Chaikin back as a designer.
David has no pity or empathy for the poor, thinking he carved himself a fortune out of nothing. He views himself as the fittest in a valley of dancers. He runs into Jake Mindels, his friend who loved Madam Klesmer. He recently graduated from medical school. David feels envy toward him and the road he did not take. He eventually realizes his opinions on politics and humanity are largely dependent on his age and circumstances.
Book 11 Summary: “Matrimony”
David nurses his aching heart after the loss of Dora, though this is 6 years afterward. He sees Lucy, Dora’s daughter, on a bus one day, and it brings love back into the forefront of his mind. He focuses all his attention on the business and catching larger and larger fish. He takes to copying designs from larger companies. He even takes a competitor’s suit from a buyer so his company can recreate it. David grows a vast wealth. He realizes he amassed over $1 million, but he longs to have people for whom to work and a home of his own. David asks Meyer to find him a wife. Meyer enlists the help of his wife as a matchmaker. David, not one to sit around and wait, continues to work.
Meyer’s wife eventually organizes a dinner for David to meet the woman she thinks will be David’s wife. David, however, feels no affection toward the woman, instead becoming enamored with another woman at the party, Nodelman’s cousin, Stella, but she is already engaged to another. He receives word of Matilda coming to the States, though she is now married to a Russian socialist activist. David decks himself in his finest clothing and a fur coat as he goes to the meeting where her husband makes his speech following his release from the gulag. Matilda greets him coldly, making a snide comment about his wealth and fur coat. David curses himself as a fool as he returns to the hotel he now calls home.
His business hits a snag following another wave of union activism and worker discontent. David established a charity fund for immigrants arriving from his hometown in Russia. He employed anyone willing to work hard. Most of his employees viewed the business as a community rather than a job. They work longer hours than at most factories, but David incentivizes his employees by continuing to pay them by the article. He takes advantage of Orthodox employees who chose not to assimilate into American culture. During the next strike, David continues to run his shop under the union’s nose, paying his dues and his employees to avoid harassment. The union, and the papers, focus more on David during this strike as he has a larger and more profitable operation. David dislikes the characterization written about him as greedy and exploitative. In his loneliness and sorrow, he turns back to the synagogue. David befriends a Talmudic scholar there, Mr. Kaplan, with whom he debates Jewish law. David proposes to marry Mr. Kaplan’s daughter, Fanny, after an acquaintance and attachment are formed.
Books 9-11 Analysis
This section of the book focuses on David’s rise from poverty to being a millionaire, developing the book’s theme of Exploitative Socioeconomic Mobility and Capitalism. David comes to America with nothing and builds a business that makes him extremely wealthy. David likens his rise to the survival of the fittest and a Darwinian inevitability, but he later acknowledges that this was not the case. Cahan shows David’s need for aid and receipt of gifts and grace that allows him to become the business magnet of cloak-making. All these circumstances are cast in a different light when considered in contrast to the life of the average Russian Jew at the time. Cahan argues that the American dream is a myth, in other words. David is not able to become rich simply through hard work but must exploit others to do so. He must rely on the help of others when he is young, but he does not return these favors to the world or his community. This increasingly alienates him from his culture and religion.
David’s affinity for ruthless capitalism shows in his view of those who fail as being misfits and weak, but this section shows time and again that his success comes not from himself alone but from the help of the Jewish community and his “credit face.” David misleads the Chaikins into thinking he has more capital than he does, takes a loan from an American businessman, and overstretches himself to meet his first order. These circumstances would bankrupt and ruin most men, but David reaches out to his wealthy business acquaintance, Meyer Nodelman, for support. Meyer saves David from ruin. David is not able to succeed on his own but must exploit others to do so and take advantage of others’ kindness to achieve the American Dream.
When the money from the Western firm finally comes through, David immediately reinvests in his business. He continues to take big risks, which typically pay off. He acts like most capitalists, taking advantage of their monetary power to make more money and amass more power. David resents the union for challenging his cheap labor and long working hours practices. He acknowledges that the constant influx of desperate immigrants, like himself, makes it possible to undercut larger firms with more oversight and middle management. He shamelessly stalks buyers, copies patterns, and poaches workers. David holds nothing back in his pursuit of wealth. He even has to exploit Jewish Spirituality, Tradition, and Religion on his path to wealth, as he takes advantage of those from his own culture. David takes advantage of other Jewish immigrants in his factories, and he not only falls away from his traditions and religion while assimilating into American secularism but actively exploits these things. He even tries to destroy them in the world, and he succeeds in doing this within himself.
David continues to get lucky and work hard, a potent combination that makes the American dream so appealing. He confesses his ignorance to the Philadelphia buyer. The risk could have lost him a client, but it brings him a mentor and friend. He continues to undercut and poach from other firms, though he receives advice to stop leaning on those tactics for sales. His nimble and streamlined business practices allow him to survive two strikes and increased socialist pressure. His Antomir Synagogue community allows him to weather the storms. He exploits Jews and many other Americans.
David creates the Antomir charity to hire cheap labor he knows will be less likely to rise against him. The Russian Jewish population suffers considerable discrimination and bias in Russia, pushing more and more to immigrate to America. For those who arrive, David offers income, community, and security. Those who enter his employ are assured a decent life, though without opportunities for upward mobility. Most of the immigrants from Antomir choose to stay with David. David writes his own myth of himself as a self-made man. He does not cherish his spiritualty and tradition but actively exploits them to remove them from within himself and the world on the path to secular materialism.
Cahan, however, ensures that the reader sees his exploitative practices and constant assistance. Cahan shows his disdain for David’s beliefs by inserting David’s future judgments on these beliefs. David reflects that:
The amusing part of it was that in 1894, for example, I found that in 1893 my judgment of men and things had been immature and puerile. I was convinced that now at last my insight was a thoroughly reliable instrument, only a year later to look back upon my opinions of 1894 with contempt. I was everlastingly revising my views of people, including my own self (435).
David acknowledges the naivete of his beliefs. Cahan shows that with reflection, David acknowledges the falsity of his belief of being self-made and fitter than others. David’s rise owes itself to the community that supported him and the luck that carried him to wealth. Readers continue to see Losing Identity to the American Melting Pot as David moves farther away from his Jewish identity as he attempts to assimilate and become wealthy. He must actively sacrifice his Jewish identity to materialism to assimilate and become wealthy, in that sense both that he must exploit Jewish workers and that he must reject Judaic morals to do the things he does. The American melting pot is equivocated to ruthless secular capitalism.
David’s complicated relationship with his wealth weaves throughout this section. David shows pride in the wealthy man he has become but still wishes he had gone to college when confronted with Jake. He realizes that he sacrificed much of his youth to build a business rather than build a family and home. David’s search for a wife highlights his growing discontent. He enters his middle age wondering for whom or what he works so hard.
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