Sarah S.
In Theodore Dreiser’s “Butcher Rogaum’s Door,” a German family settles in
Greenwich Village in New York City. The Rogaum children are products of American
culture—they have been raised in the United States and so do not understand the
Old World values of their parents. As a result, their oldest daughter Theresa chooses
to rebel against the rules that her strict father has put in place and to stay out after
he calls for her to come inside. In the end she escapes from a potentially dangerous
situation, but her parents spend most of the night in a state of terror as they search
for her. The story is a perfect illustration of the dichotomy between the cultures of
the Old World and the culture of blossoming America. Theresa considered her
parents to be “old foggies” and found it irritating when her father would call to her
in German in a “very hoarse and belligerent voice.” Dreiser’s interest in the struggle
between immigrant parents and American children no doubt stems from his own
experience as the twelfth child of German and Czechoslovakian immigrant parents.
His sisters rebelled against the strict Catholic rule of their father, and ended up in
situations that were far more severe than what the character Theresa faced. Dreiser
may have felt that the strict parenting that was typical of those from the Old World
caused more harm than good—children who are torn between the social customs of
their peers and their obligations to their parents will often choose to follow the path
of their peers.
“Butcher Rogaum’s Door” seems to also be a commentary on the inability of
parents and teen children to truly understand each other, even in situations where
both the parents and children are from the same country. This situation is obviously
something that America’s society deals with today, and in recent history something
Sarah S.
that this generation’s parents or aunts and uncles dealt with during the cultural
revolution of the 1960s and 70s. Though the cultural differences today may not be
as drastic as the culture difference between early 1900s Germany and the United
States, there is still a significant difference between the 1950s and today, or even the
1980s and today (partly because of the technology boom). Dreiser does an excellent
job of illustrating how these differences can cause strain within families and of
showing what the consequences could be if families refuse to respect such
differences.