Character Analysis
Pop, Deborah's grandfather, came to the U.S. from Latvia. He has a major chip on his shoulder.
Where do we begin?
Pop has a clubfoot and gets made fun of a lot for it. He also deals with prejudice because he's Jewish. A self-made businessman, he became very successful, but he has always been angry about how hard he had had to fight for it: "He had come to America a young man, poor, and foreign and lame, and he had borne down on his new life as if it were an enemy. In anger he had educated himself; in anger he had gone into business..." (5.13).
It's not exactly the healthiest way to live. The book never mentions his blood pressure, but we're guessing it was on the high side.
Pop lived in a wealthy, non-Jewish neighborhood where his neighbors despised him because he was Jewish. He knows it and has railed against it all his life. And he's made sure that both Esther and Deborah know it.
Some people need anger management but never quite make it to those classes.