Textual Analysis of “Fresh Challah”

        I started to select “Fresh Challah”, which is written by Sergio Troncoso, as the text of my textual analysis because this article is one of the few English-based articles that I had read carefully and thoroughly. Based on the pre-reading, in-class analysis and peer discussion, I gradually not only understand the superficial meaning but also perceived the deep emotional feeling underneath the description. It documented the hard times Troncoso’s grandmother had been through and demonstrated the great love that she offered to him that shaped him a better person. The emotions the author tried to express was so exquisitely intertwined with the descriptive techniques and elements, which will be analyzed in the following paragraphs.

Challah is a special Jewish braided bread

eaten on Sabbath and Jewish holidays. 

         In “Fresh Challah”, the memory of Troncoso’s grandmother’s figure was firstly triggered by the old lady he met in the  Royal Bakery on 72^nd Street. We can roughly imagine what Troncoso’s grandmother look like by the description of the old lady: “An old woman, not higher than five feet, with a bouffant hairdo under a back hairnet, her skin a creamy pallid except for the smear of rouge on her cheeks, shuffled toward me. Her long, stiff apron seemed to snag her legs, and I worried she would tumble forward at any moment, but she did not.”(11) Shared the similar age and the same gracious treatment with this old lady, Troncoso’s grandmother was also described a strong and nice person in his essay.

        Grandma’s history is the next coming-up main body of this text. Through the description of the history, the essay gradually revealed who she is. As I reflected on this part, I did not feel bored about his narrative by telling histories, but it made me realize that his language and the way he delivered in this part indicates the complex yet sincere love underneath his narrative. Troncoso tried to find the meaning from the “painful” (13) experience she used to live in El Paso, and that experience made her a strong, wise and nice grandma. She was also a courage warrior who could be the survivor within the upheaval years, and yet still kept the faith and hope to life as well as inherited the spirit to her grandchildren. Troncoso attributed her ways of survival as a “great spirit”, which is “she was a person who found meaning in life despite, and because of, her pain.”(16) This sentence related to me very much, because I was and am the person with deep scars yet still striving to survive in a meaningful way. Besides, the Troncoso mentioned about his grandma’s full name, Dona Dolores Rivero, in which Dolores means sorrow in Spanish. (15)

        As for my reading experience, for the first few times I looked through this article, I found some foreign words pop out now and then, making me confused and wonder if I should look them up in the dictionary. However, the technique of foreign language use merely not strikes me down and lose interest, but brings the reader to wander over somewhere fantasy and exotic. He uses rugelach, kasha, tsimmes and asaderos (12) to refer to the food he was eating at Royale Bakery on 72^nd Street, showing great enthusiasm towards these food and even attracting the readers by describing their history and the smell. The most important character, his grandmother, is also called in foreign words in this article as “my abuelita” (13), which shows an intimate, private and unique love of the writer towards his grandmother.

         Troncoso also put the store and street names into the passage where they used to live or had connection with, such as Royal Bakery, Licon’s Dairy in Clint, Texas, El Paso, Olive Street, Chihuahua desert, and Los Coyotes del Rio Bravo. His list of these specific detailed names concreted the intangible and abstract ideas into physical location, which made this essay credible and be dug into. When the author expresses his reflection on Jewish beliefs, he also uses certain words such Challah (11)—the Jewish bread—and Yom kippur (12)—the atonement day of Jewish holiday. The usage of these words shows the author was not just saying these for fun, but he had done some research on this topic and treated his beliefs and spiritual struggle seriously.

        The sophistication of the essay’s organization also revealed by its title: “Fresh Challah”. I found the title is a very elegantly delivers three elements in this article from my perspective: the status where the author now lives—he met this bread on one street of New York; the clue of memoir of his grandmother—the old lady in the bakery store who stands for grandma’s figure; and the moral and spiritual reflection on Jewish religion—Challah is a specific Jewish bread, indicating his spiritual pursuing.
        We were all impressed by the tough experience Troncoso’s grandmother had been through and finally she became a good and inspiring person. Her love and care for next generations also inspired her grandson and encouraged him during his hard time at Harvard University. Her spirit toward life cultivated Troncoso’s spiritual growth, and in his essay he informed a tendency of converting to Jewism in order to being a person with high morality, just as his grandma used to be. Troncoso’s overall description advanced “grandma’s love” into a new high spiritual level indeed.