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Activities: Author Activities
Anzia Yezierska - Author Questions
 Back to Anzia Yezierska Activities
- Comprehension: What motivates Hannah Hayyeh to paint her kitchen white? What sacrifices does she make in order to perform this improvement?
- Comprehension: Why does Hannah Hayyeh refuse Mrs. Preston's offer to give her money to cover the rent increase? How does the scene in which Hannah Hayyeh refuses Mrs. Preston's charity change their relationship?
- Comprehension: Why does Hannah Hayyeh refuse Mrs. Preston's offer to give her money to cover the rent increase? How does the scene in which Hannah Hayyeh refuses Mrs. Preston's charity change their relationship?
- Context: Examine the pictures of Lower East Side tenements featured in the archive. How do the pictures compare to Yezierska's description of Hannah Hayyeh's apartment? Given the tenement environment, why might Hannah Hayyeh's quest for "beautifulness" make such an impression on her neighbors and on Mrs. Preston?
- Exploration: While she was studying at Columbia and the Academy of Dramatic Arts, Yezierska became interested in Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy of self-reliance. How do ideals of self-reliance inflect Yezierska's portrait of Hannah Hayyeh? In what ways might "The Lost 'Beautifulness' " critique Emerson's ideas about self-creation and personal responsibility? What were the limits of self-reliance for an impoverished immigrant woman at the turn of the twentieth century?
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