Gentleman`s Agreement Book Summary

“Gentlemen`s Agreement” by Laura Z. Hobson is a novel about American perspectives on racism and the fight against discrimination. Hobson`s work focuses on the contradictions of humanity, the rationalizations of society, and subtle bigotry. Hobson focuses the work on a racial group, the Jews, and allows the protagonist to impersonate a member of that society in order to gain an understanding of racial prejudice, only to discover what “gentlemen`s agreement” means in the context of American society. In this context, Phil Green is the protagonist of the story; He is a journalist who pretends to be a Jew and tests his hypothesis about racial prejudice and anti-Semitism. Throughout history, he cannot join several country clubs and, in some cases, is prevented and/or prohibited from buying a house in a predominantly white neighborhood. Hobson`s study further shows that many people in American society who believe they are not racist are among those who are openly anti-Semitic. At the end of the gentlemen`s agreement, Hobson concluded that prejudice and racial attitudes were learned behaviors. But even that is a very laudable goal, and Ms. Hobson`s book is already well received by the enlightened readership, as is to be hoped. On the other hand, as a novel, it is poor – boring, non-dimensional, without atmosphere.

Of course, thesis novels are usually bad; we have learned to abolish certain standards of aesthetic judgment by reading them. And yet, even by such standards that we might apply to a book like Lillian Smith`s Strange Fruit, Gentleman`s Agreement is strangely empty. FreeBookNotes found 3 pages of book summaries or reviews from Gentleman`s Agreement. If there is a Gentleman`s Agreement SparkNotes, Shmoop Guide, or Cliff Notes, you`ll find a link to each study guide below. Excerpt from the original review in The Winnipeg Tribune, May 17, 1947: The title of this book gives the reader no idea of its central theme. It is indeed sarcastic because it is something that is not supposed to be characteristic of the gentleman code, namely prejudice. The book received rave reviews, with the New York Times Book Review calling it “a must-read for any thoughtful citizen in this dangerous century.” The Philadelphia Inquirer said it was “right to be one of the most amazing novels of the year,” and it was later reissued in 1947 as the Armed Services Edition. “He was a book hoarder – he could never bring himself to throw away a book, so one or two of those he remembered should be somewhere in this conglomerate.” The book is not about professional Jewish agitators and their thugs. It focuses mainly on those who claim that they have nothing against the Jews, and yet a remark here and a remark there shows that they unconsciously differ between themselves and the Jews. The plot of the book is rather fragile, but given that it is a thesis novel, the author`s skillful writing makes up for this shortcoming. Hobson has the ability to make his characters deeply human, whether they succumb to prejudice or succeed in fighting them.

The value of the book to Jews is even greater, for it will produce more results than any apologetic Jewish literature ever can. The book is well written and will make its readers think. The value of the book to non-Jewish readers is that it allows them to see themselves in an appropriate light and to question whether each of them is unconsciously committing the same sin of distinguishing Jews from non-Jews. The book tells the story of Philip Green, the new employee of a national magazine. As a non-Jew, he is commissioned by his magazine to tell the story of anti-Semitism. He decides to do this by telling people that he is Jewish. Sites like SparkNotes with a Gentleman`s Agreement study guide or Cliff Notes. Also includes websites with a brief overview, summary, book report, or summary of Laura Z. Hobson`s gentleman`s agreement. In other words, Mrs. Hobson`s Book makes perfect sense in her own area of responsibility, which is also the domain of a large group of middle-class Americans.

He pledges to show that even so-called non-sectarian people – people who live in a universe in which religion, if it exists, is present only as a general code of morality and wisdom, and in which there are no facts or virtues in cultural pluralism – are guilty of direct or indirect anti-Semitism. It`s interesting this woman. Hobson`s novel about anti-Semitism was to be published, and obviously very happy, by the same house that voluntarily suppressed a book by Jerome Weidman a few years ago on the grounds that its unattractive Jewish characters would reinforce anti-Jewish sentiment in this country. In the course of Mrs. Hobson`s story is indeed spoken of the Weidman genre; We must understand that Mrs Hobson also refuses to draw attention to unpleasant Jewish examples. The hero of the Gentleman`s Agreement was commissioned to write a series of articles on anti-Semitism for a mass-circulation magazine; In search of a new “point of view” for the series – a fresh point of view and a new one, as the theme naturally demands – he rummages through his library and stumbles upon three books, each of which has a “dishonest, conspiratorial or repugnant” Jew as the main character. “Didn`t it ever occur to any of them,” Phil Green angrily thought of their writers, “to write about a good guy who was Jewish? Did each of them have a crazy need to choose a Jew who was a pig in the rough, a Jew who was a pig in the movies, a Jew who was a pig in bed? Originally published as a series in Cosmopolitan in 1946, the book was published by Simon & Schuster and became a bestseller with over 1.6 million copies sold. It reached number one in the New York Times bestsellers in April 1947.[2] The book was shot in 1947 with Gregory Peck in the lead role. Websites with a brief overview, summary, book report or summary of Laura Z. Hobson`s gentleman`s agreement.

Excerpt from the original review of Gentleman`s Agreement by Laura Z. Hobson in the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, March 1947: There will be much discussion – and for a long time – about Laura Z. Hobson`s Gentleman`s Agreement. The novel, which cleverly exposes social anti-Semitism in the United States, will make many non-Jewish liberals blush. . Cultural pluralism is a complex political matter. It creates social problems perhaps faster than it creates social values – and I don`t oppose Ms. Hobson`s monism as a “solution.” But it at least has this virtue that it complicates our idea of society and the individual and creates a place for saving human differences, which can often even be political salvation. The central character is Philip Schulyer Green, a magazine editor tasked with writing a series of articles on anti-Semitism aimed at exposing it.

Due to the fact that the name Green could be Jewish as well as not, he decides to impersonate a Jew and find out what a Jew actually feels among non-Jews. There is hardly a cliché of liberalism missing from the gentleman`s agreement, no opinion or attitude that does not repeat or summarize the progressive lesson of the day. PM, the entire intellectual and cultural school represented by PM, did its job well on an appropriate student. Ms. Hobson, for example, knew what was expected of a conscientious citizen about the economic motive of religious prejudice; he is really only aware of the link between anti-Semitism and anti-crimeism, chauvinism and anti-unionism. She has the prescribed liberal attitude towards marriage (it is normal and should be civilized), towards sex (it is no less normal than marriage: Kathy piously pays attention to her good mating with Phil), to raising children (Phil`s child from a previous marriage is a little monster of reason and adaptation), to literature (she writes liberal articles for mass magazines), towards death (it must be accepted). So it was Kathy, Phil`s daughter, who suggested the articles on anti-Semitism; but Kathy is able to tolerate “natural” expressions of prejudice such as tight neighborhoods and hotels. Or there are Kathy`s friends, all liberals, who, while their left hands are occupied by such commendable corporations as the Springfield Plan, use their right hands to protect their eyes from their own well-behaved prejudices. Or Phil`s unprejudiced editor himself would have overlooked the discrimination that operates in his magazine`s human resources department. The very people who see themselves as the vanguard of the struggle for social decency allow anti-Semitism to exist and even help it flourish; Prejudice, Hobson says, is limited not only to reactionary elements of the population, but also to liberals, as well as they can hide the fact. The purpose of the Gentleman`s Agreement is perhaps more limited than Ms Hobson realizes: it is not an attack on anti-Semitism in its deepest sources or in its broadest manifestations, but simply in a single group – the so-called “liberal” group.

It is an attempt to bridge a gap between the ideals of contemporary liberalism and liberalism in practice. Phil Green, a widower for seven years, who uses his middle name “Schuyler” Green as a pseudonym for comments he writes mostly about social issues, has just moved from Los Angeles to New York with his mother and former son Tommy to work at the headquarters of his company, Smith`s Weekly. a national journal. Its publisher, John Minify, proposes as the first story a series on anti-Semitism. He`s not thrilled with the topic, which he says has been covered by a variety of writers from all relevant angles until Tommy asks him about the whole nature of the topic, one who has no idea what it all means and why. .