Anti-Semitism In The Yellow Wallpaper

Traditionally, the codes of anti-Semitism included negative typecasting that reinforced people’s fear of the other, of opaque rituals and cultural norms common to a specific subgroup that seemed to succeed too well in the dominant culture while at the same time undermining it. Some of the overt stereotypes against Jews included them being avaricious, dishonest, power-hungry, genetically inferior (despite an apparent superior ability to make money and engage in scholarship), and miserly. During World War II, Nazi propaganda against Jews looked much like the physical labels that plagued them throughout the world: big noses; shifty eyes; dirty, long-matted hair; scowling faces. By exploiting her readers’ understanding about narrow-mindedness, Stevie Smith explicitly constructs a new direction for anti-Semitism in Novel on Yellow Wallpaper by replacing explicit antipathy with the appearance of high regard. …show more content…
Pompey, trying to convince the reader she has overcome her bigoted attitudes about Jews, reveals that she has “a lot of Jewish friends” (11) and that she “felt real wicked the way [she] had felt about the Jews [herself]” (107). While it is true she describes her friendship with Leonie positively, building a friendship with an individual of a certain group does not preclude that person from bigotry. Even if she no longer believes that “[a] clever goy is cleverer than a clever Jew” (10-11), her tendency to compare Jews to animals, even noble ones, reveals a subterranean uneasiness about Jews that even she may not be aware of (68). Here, Smith alludes to anti-Semites referring to Jews as animals, but she allows Pompey to spin the comparison to seem