Lost in Yonkers Essay Questions

What is the significance of the mustard soup Grandma makes in the play?

Grandma Kurnitz has made mustard soup since Eddie and Louie were children, and it is what she feeds them when they are sick. In the play, she makes it for Arty when he has a fever. It tastes horrible and has become infamous in the family for how bad it is. The significance in the soup is that, ironically enough, it makes Arty feel better very quickly; it actually works. Thus, we learn that though Grandma is unloving and mean in many ways, her tough love, as represented by the horrible soup, often works. Her ways keep people healthy and alive, even if her soup doesn't go down easy.

Why does Eddie leave Arty and Jay with Grandma?

Eddie has taken money from a loan shark in order to pay for his wife's medical expenses in the last portion of her life to keep her comfortable before she died. Now, he has a year to pay the man back $9000. With the war on he can make more money than before, but he has to hit the road selling scrap metal in order to do so, and he can't take his kids with him. Therefore, he must leave them with their grandmother while he earns the money.

What does Grandma Kurnitz mean when she says she is steel?

Grandma tells Jay and Arty that she has become like steel through her life. What she means is that she has faced great tragedy and has had to choose whether to give up and cry or to simply carry on with her life. She uses the metaphor of steel to suggest that she has chosen to carry on and be strong, rather than become vulnerable. She believes that her being like steel is what saved her life and she tries to teach everyone in her family to be the same way. She doesn't seek to be liked, but rather to teach her children and grandchildren to stay alive.

How does the play address the theme of childhood?

On one level, the play is about childhood because so much of the action is perceived through the experience of Arty and Jay, who are old enough to have sound judgment, but not old enough to take care of themselves and live on their own. In many ways, they are the two wisest characters in the play, and the moral barometer against which the eccentricities of the Kurnitz clan is measured.

The theme of childhood is also explored through the character of Bella, who is in a state of arrested development. While she is 35 years old, she is forgetful and has the brainpower of someone much younger. In this way, she is herself a child, even though, as she tells her mother, she feels like a woman. In Bella, the lines between adulthood and childhood are blurred.

Is the play a comedy or a drama?

Lost in Yonkers has elements of both comedy and drama. While the stakes are often high and the pain experienced by the characters incredibly acute, the characters always seem to get through their issues and find peace. Against all odds, they fight to make sure their lives are not tragedies. Even Grandma, who doesn't seem to have a comedic bone in her body, finds a way to access humor in the final scene, when she tells her grandsons they should have looked for her money behind the malted machine. The presence of Arty and Jay, two innocents, is what imbues the play with its comedic bent, in that we experience all of the eccentricities and peculiarities of the narrative through their young eyes. The most tragic figure is Bella, because she is unable to live the life she wants to given her cognitive limitations. However, even by the end, she is able to start to live more independently and find some glimmer of hope and happiness. Thus, the play is both a comedy and a drama.