37 pages • 1 hour read
Neil SimonLost In Yonkers
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Healing From Generational Trauma
The Kurnitzes, a Jewish family living in Yonkers during World War II, have experienced significant trauma in their family life, and over the course of Lost in Yonkers, each member attempts to escape that trauma in their own way. Neil Simon ultimately traces this trauma to the antisemitism Grandma experienced as a child, when she witnessed her father’s murder at an anti-Jewish political rally. Grandma carries the mental scars of this trauma into adulthood, and they are visible in her harsh treatment of her family. Simon renders Grandma’s trauma physically as well, through a pronounced limp resulting from a serious injury during the rally where her father died. Orphaned and alone, she uprooted her entire life at great expense, using all the money she could have spent on repairing her injured leg to flee to America with her young family.
With this backstory, Simon both illustrates the effects of Grandma’s own trauma and shows her attempts to save her family from the troubles that she faced. For example, Grandma’s sacrificing her own healing to take her family out of a dangerous, antisemitic environment indicates an awareness that her children may face the same dangers that traumatized her. However, the effects of Grandma’s childhood trauma, along with the trauma of losing two of her children, are evident in her treatment of her children, each of whom has lasting difficulties related to their childhood experiences. This suggests that her harsh treatment of her children has passed her trauma to the next generation. Grandma believes suffering builds character, but this point of view is informed by the amount of trauma and suffering she has endured.
Each of Grandma’s children faces an opportunity to reduce the effects of trauma on the next generation. For example, though Eddie’s decision to leave his sons with their grandmother puts them in danger of traumatization, that he makes the decision to leave them with her demonstrates the depths of his desperation. He knows his lifestyle on the road will be hard on them and wants to give them the stability Grandma can offer. Bella in particular strains against her mother’s overbearing demands, and she is the only member of the family who actively seeks to bring Grandma’s behavior to a halt. Her desire to marry and have children of her own, with the stated purpose of showering the children with the love and affection she never received, is in clear opposition to generational trauma. While Bella retains her mother’s fierce determination, she directs it toward self-determination and compassion. For all her limitations, Bella dreams of a better world. These dreams make her uniquely positioned to reduce the effects of the family’s trauma, even if she lacks the resources and ability to completely bring the cycle to an end.
The Effects of War
Lost in Yonkers takes place against the backdrop of World War II. While the fighting occurs far from the mainland United States, everyone on the “home front” feels the effects of the war. The wartime economy offers economic opportunities to many that otherwise wouldn’t have existed, as illustrated by Eddie’s story arc. While Eddie can make a great deal of money collecting scrap metal for the war, the work is dangerous and physically demanding, threatening his health and leading him to leave his children. Similarly, Louie escapes his criminal past and the gangsters who wish to kill him by enlisting in the military. While he no longer breaks the law for a living, he escapes a criminal past by going to a war zone, which is neither safer nor, Simon suggests, more moral than the petty crime Louie committed before.
That Grandma’s initial trauma stemmed from World War I implies that war’s harmful effects are not unique to World War II. Grandma’s childhood experiences with antisemitism in her native Germany illustrate the impacts of war and hatred on individuals. The physical pain of her injury and the emotional trauma of witnessing her father’s death at the hands of antisemites significantly influence Grandma’s behavior toward her own children. In turn, that behavior affects her children in a way that indirectly leads both of her sons to participate in World War II, further perpetuating the trauma of war. It is ironic that Eddie pulls his children out of poverty by collecting metal that makes weapons of war; the death and destruction give Eddie a chance to escape the generational trauma caused by the previous war. Simon implies that their escape comes at the cost of traumatizing others, continuing the cycle of generational trauma.
If Grandma’s wartime trauma sets her children on a path toward participation in World War II, it also leads to a figurative war within her own family. The Kurnitzes have fought their mother and each other for their entire lives in a conflict involving both physical violence as well as verbal and emotional abuse. Although the scene in which Bella tells her mother about her plans to marry Johnny is the moment of most overt conflict, acts of hostility and subterfuge occur throughout the play—e.g., in the boys’ attempts to steal from the candy shop. Even as World War II is reshaping the world, this conflict in a domestic sphere is reshaping the lives of the characters, underscoring the connection between the geopolitical and personal realms.
Transition From Childhood to Maturity
The three generations depicted in Lost in Yonkers—Grandma, her children, and her grandchildren—all have complicated relationships to their childhoods. Some characters’ childhoods end prematurely, while others’ extend into adulthood. After witnessing her father’s death during an antisemitic protest and having her leg permanently injured at the age of 12, Grandma was forced into a maturity she was not ready for and resents. Her difficult childhood teaches her to place a great value on endurance and determination, and she equates these attributes with maturity. Throughout the play, she works to instill these characteristics in her children and grandchildren. Arty and Jay, like their grandmother, are thrust prematurely into adulthood by the death of their mother and their father’s departure. They are forced to grow up quickly, illustrated by their changing attitudes to the world around them. For example, the boys’ childish awe of their gangster uncle Louie morphs to disgust as they realize the implications of his criminal behavior. Likewise, they stop mocking Aunt Bella’s disability as they realize the tragic circumstances behind it and come to love and respect her.
By contrast, Grandma’s children have, to varying degrees, struggled to grow up. Though Grandma did not tolerate “childish” dependency in her children, her overbearing presence and abusive behavior have had the ironic effect of arresting her children’s growth. Eddie, for example, lacks fiscal sense, while Louie supports himself via the reckless world of the mob. Simon symbolically captures the effect Grandma’s parenting has had on her children in Gert’s breathing difficulty, which she developed when she was a child due to her fear of her mother. Eddie, Gert, Bella, and Louie all grew up amid suffering, and they have carried this pain into their present: Childhood is such a defining time for all the characters involved that they are never truly able to leave their childhoods behind.
Bella both typifies and subverts this pattern. While her siblings and her mother are defined by the sufferings of their childhoods, seen from an adult’s perspective, she is stuck in a perpetual childhood from which she is struggling to escape. Because of Bella’s intellectual disability, her family treats her like a child. Grandma uses Bella’s childishness as an excuse to maintain tight control, keeping Bella from leaving her alone. The irony of Bella’s perpetual childhood is that, on numerous occasions, she is the most emotionally mature person in the family.
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