The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
John McPherson, which resulted in his wife getting out of bed and unfortunately causing her death. The next day at school, Mr. John McPherson shows up under the influence of alcohol, completely drunk and starts to insult the Jews and making extremely racist comments. This is Just a small example of Anti-Semitism during Duddys childhood. Another idea I found important in the text was selfishness as well as ambition and greed. Even though Duddy was making more money than a 17 year old should, he always wanted more.
Nothing was more important to him than making money. When he heard that the last piece of land in Lac St. Pierre was up for sale, he took all the money he had, but still came up short. Duddy decides to forge a cheque from Virgil’s chequebook. Virgil was a man who Duddy met in New York and helped him make money illegally by smuggling pinball machines. After Virgil and Yvette found out about what Duddy had done to them, they never spoke to him again. Discuss the author’s style.
Describe 2 iterary elements the author uses successfully and give a clear example of each. The author used a few techniques to deepen our understanding of the story. One of the techniques was using a teenager as the main character of the novel. I think this showed us the ambition of the young man because all teenagers want to make money and dream about becoming rich one day, but it’s not all 17 year olds that want it as bad as Duddy Kravitz. Another technique used by the author was making the main character a Jew.
As we all know, Jews have a reputation for wanting money so ad and I think that the fact that Duddy is Jewish makes the whole story about a young man chasing money more meaningful. Did you enjoy the book? Why or why not? I enjoyed this novel a lot and recommend it to everyone living in Montreal and who likes a story that may have many things in common with their own personal lives. I think it is an important part of Montreal history in our generation. I also think it’s good for Jewish people to read this novel because we also see how racism has stronger racism against Jews was in the 1940s
