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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Devil’s Arithmetic, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory
Sacrifice
Jewish Culture and Identity
Hope
Summary
Analysis
Hannah wakes early the next day and is disappointed to realize that she hasn’t woken up from a dream and is in fact still living in the shtetl (small town with a mostly Jewish population) with Gitl and Shmuel. Shmuel asks Hannah if she’s been having bad dreams too. He reveals that even someone as strong as him has many things that frighten him, like getting married (which he believes is scarier than simply being married, which doesn’t frighten him). When Hannah starts talking about how she’s not Chaya, Shmuel assumes she has a high fever.
For the most part, shtetls ceased to exist during the Holocaust, and so Hannah is getting firsthand experience of a way of life that has died out. Although the horrors of World War II loom over this chapter, Hannah’s more immediate concern is how to get home. As she spends more time with Gitl and Shmuel, they begin to open up to her, and she finds them less intimidating. By literally meeting people from history, Hannah begins the slow process of opening herself up to learning Jewish history.
Themes
Hannah tries to convince Shmuel that she’s really from New Rochelle, in America, but Shmuel just takes it as a joke and assures her that she’s really from Lublin, Poland. Hannah keeps protesting but can’t make Shmuel understand.
Yitzchak, a butcher who has tried in the past to convince Gitl to marry him, comes over to visit. Shmuel greets him, but Gitl just grunts at him. Yitzchak is preparing his chickens because Shmuel is soon marrying a woman named Fayge, and the chickens are a wedding gift.
Gitl’s combination of kindness but sternness (particularly towards Yitzchak) recalls Hannah’s Aunt Eva, who also refused to marry. The chickens as a wedding gift help to convey that this is a rural community where people live off the land—very different from the Bronx apartment where Hannah’s grandparents currently live or the New Rochelle suburb where Hannah currently lives.
Themes
Yitzchak has two toddlers, Reuven and Tzipporah, and when he brings them in, Gitl asks tells them to go sit with Hannah. After Yitzchak leaves, Hannah says he seems nice, but Gitl dismisses this.
Hannah learns after meeting Yitzchak in person that he is nicer than Gitl made him sound. Gitl may be a selfless person willing to help others, but sometimes she makes it difficult for others to help her.
Themes
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