86 pages • 2 hours read
Esther HautzigThe Endless Steppe
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 16-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
Esther describes how children travel to school in a convoy to survive the winter wind and how the library is a warm haven to her. Esther finishes Marya’s larger sweater and happily receives a piece of furniture as payment from her next customer.
Uncle Yozia and Aunt Zaya’s friendship has become a lifeline for Raya, and when the hut’s freezing temperatures begin to worry her, she reaches out to them for help. Through Yozia, Raya is offered a job with a factory director. In exchange for caring for his house during his wife’s absence, Raya and Esther will live in the warmth of his home. Grandmother is unable to come but insists that Raya and Esther must take the opportunity. She moves to the Kaftals’ temporarily.
The factory director, Yosif Isayevich, “was a genial man who shared his food generously, kept his wooden house warm, and treated Mother with great respect” (182). Raya and Esther are happy to work for him, and, as a frequent visitor, Grandmother gains food and warmth from the arrangement.
Chapter 17 Summary
Esther enters a declamation contest in school, selecting Tatyana’s dream from Eugene Onegin as her chosen piece to recite. Esther’s focus on preparing for her speech is briefly interrupted when Yosif’s wife returns earlier than planned. Raya and Esther move into a hut with a young couple, Natasha and Nikolay, and their baby, Katia.
The morning of the declamation contest, Esther is nervous. She rises early and tries to decide what to wear. Esther is the first to arrive at the school, and her teacher, Raisa Nikitovna, coldly informs her that she cannot perform without shoes. In a panic, Esther runs back to her hut to see if she can find any shoes to wear. Esther finds her mother’s slippers, which are “enormous” on her. “Like a deranged duck” (195), she returns to the school auditorium.
Disheveled and out of breath from running to the hut and back on a hot day, Esther recites her piece mechanically. Esther does not win the contest, but she does earn a look of “grudging respect” from Raisa Nikitovna. She returns her mother’s slippers and determines to find herself a pair of shoes.
Chapter 18 Summary
Esther hears that a man in the village—who somehow has access to various luxuries that he sells at inflated prices—has a pair of shoes. Esther nags him for a pair, and when he finds her some, they make her feel “rich, elegant, and the equal of anyone in the village” (198).
Uncle Yozia arranges for Esther to attend a new school; she appreciates his intentions but secretly longs for her “old familiar school” (198). Amongst her privileged classmates, “once again [she is] the outsider” (199). Esther does love the teachers at the school, however, and manages to make a few friends.
As winter approaches, Raya and Esther once again face the possibility of starvation. Esther offers her crocheting services to a dressmaker; one day, while delivering her order, Esther gets caught in a severe storm. She panics and prays, aware that many people have died in such storms. Esther hears her mother’s voice calling her name and reciting the first words of the Jewish Shema. Esther follows the sound of her mother’s voice and collapses into her arms.
Chapter 19 Summary
Esther feels her identity as a Polish deportee blurring into a new identity as a Siberian girl. Living with Natasha and helping care for Katia, Esther is happy. This happiness is interrupted by bits of information about the genocide of Jewish people taking place in German-occupied areas.
Uncle Yozia and Aunt Zaya ask Esther to help them sell items at the market and insist that she keep half the profits. When Esther sells books, she is horrified to learn that illiterate villagers use their pages to roll cigarettes. To Esther, “books [are] sacred” (211). Esther’s love of books has been further fueled by her Russian literature teacher, who challenges her and stirs her with passion. Raya is “stingy with compliments” (212), but she is proud of her daughter and the attention she receives from her teacher.
While researching for a literature paper, Esther decides to apply as editor for a student newspaper. Her primary motivation is a romantic interest in a boy named Yuri.
Chapters 16-19 Analysis
As time passes, Esther is transitioning from a child to a young woman. In these chapters, she is further developing her skills and interests; books are a sacred haven for her, and she excels in reading and writing. Although Esther is in an extreme circumstance, she, like many preteens, keenly feels the need to belong to a group of friends and even develops romantic feelings for another student. Esther is growing up and is often stubbornly independent. More and more, she and Raya operate as a team in Samuel’s absence; for example, they both work for the factory director in his home. However, the scene where Raya rescues Esther from the winter storm is a powerful illustration of the need Esther still has for her mother. The family is typically constrained by manners and self-control, but in this scene Raya’s sacrificial love for her daughter is laid bare. While Esther feels that her identity is shifting, as she seeks to belong in Siberia, it is an expression of her Jewish identity—Raya’s recitation of the Jewish prayer the Shema—that anchors her in the storm.
In the story of the declamation contest, Esther weaves together lighthearted narration and sobering content. Esther’s bare feet are a symbol of her poverty and shame; her teacher’s cold demeanor is an example of the anti-Semitism that the Rudomins face. However, Esther’s self-deprecating comments—noting that she “came from a long line of stubborn idiots” (185); comparing herself to “a deranged duck” (195)—add humor to the anecdote. This experience develops the symbolism of clothing that runs throughout the book, as shoes become an obsession for Esther and a symbol of status.
