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 11-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
Despite the muddiness of spring, Esther is happy in school and with her friends. During the summer, the Rudomins focus on raising their potato crop. When life in the shared hut becomes unbearable, Samuel gets permission for them to move to an empty hut in another part of the village. The Rudomins move; the Kaftals choose to stay behind. For Esther, “the wretched little hut [becomes her] dream house” (131). The Rudomins delight in their new privacy. Working to create a vegetable garden brings back memories of Grandfather, and Grandmother is relieved that Esther remembers him.
The Rudomins’ enjoyment of their hut is interrupted when they are assigned a tenant to move in with them. Esther is concerned when she discovers that the new tenant is a village beggar, “Vanya the bum” (134). The Rudomins discover that Vanya’s name is Ivan Petrovich. Ivan turns out to be an agreeable, well-mannered housemate; to the Rudomins and to the rest of the village, he transforms from his former identity as a mere beggar. Just as suddenly as he arrived, Ivan disappears.
Chapter 12 Summary
During the second summer in Siberia, the village faces a typhus outbreak and a drought. Esther indulges in attending movies, and despite the hard physical labor she is assigned, she and the other children enjoy it. Samuel receives a letter instructing him to report “near the front lines to work in a labor brigade” (142). Esther is crushed but tries to comfort her mother. Samuel encourages Esther that she has grown up so much and tells Raya that she is a strong woman. Samuel hopes that the war will end soon and he will be sent from the front lines to Poland; Raya silently doubts him. The Rudomins’ fears about a hungry winter are eclipsed by their grief at Samuel leaving. Esther recalls, “The day Father left was the worst day of my whole life” (145).
Chapter 13 Summary
After Samuel leaves, one of the most pressing concerns is the need for fuel to keep the hut warm. Although it stings her pride, Esther joins other children in stealing coal by the train tracks and wood shavings from the lumberyard at night.
A deadly flu epidemic comes through the village, and Esther is kept in bed for weeks with a mild case. Fears and questions about Samuel hang over her, as no letters arrive with information about him. To cheer Esther up, Raya throws her a birthday party. Although it does not compare to the lavish parties the family enjoyed in Vilna, it gives them laughter and joy, if only for one day.
Chapter 14 Summary
A letter finally arrives from Samuel, and in it he tries to be cheerful and optimistic. Raya, Grandmother, and Esther hope that the war will end before he is sent near the front, but the news they receive of the war is only bad. Raya experiences a “dreadful foreboding” about the family members they left behind in Vilna.
One day, Esther carries the remaining money the family has for the month to purchase her lunches at school. Despite Raya’s repeated warnings not to lose it, and despite her efforts to be careful, Esther loses the money. Raya and Grandmother respond graciously, trying to cheer Esther up. Esther sells some bread and determines to earn rubles for the family. Despite Raya’s protests, Esther tries to earn money by knitting and embroidering. She finally receives her first order and is paid in milk and potatoes.
The need for fuel pushes Raya to consider asking their friends Uncle Yozia and Aunt Zaya for help. Uncle Yozia and Aunt Zaya are fellow Jews but part of a higher social rank; up until this point, Raya has refused to accept anything from them except for a cake of soap. Esther asks Raya if Yozia can tell his friends about her knitting; Raya suggests that they first ask “the handsome lady” (166)—a complete stranger—whom they have seen at the market.
Chapter 15 Summary
Esther goes to the village market—the baracholka—to meet the wealthy woman, whose name is Marya Nikolayevna. Marya asks Esther if she can knit a sweater out of an old torn skirt; Esther agrees and measures her. Marya promises to pay her with milk from her newly purchased cow.
Despite Grandmother and Raya’s doubts, Esther works painstakingly to clean the wool, unravel it, and reknit it into a sweater. When Marya comes to collect it, Esther is angered by the scornful way she examines the hut. When Marya takes off her sealskin coat, Esther is horrified to see that she has gained weight.
Marya explains that the milk of the cow has made her “fat” and Esther should have considered this when she knit the sweater. She instructs Esther to reknit it. Esther is crushed and dissolves into tears when Marya leaves. Raya, however, cannot help but laugh at the irony of the situation.
Chapters 11-15 Analysis
In this section, Esther and her family struggle with meeting their needs, becoming even more desperate after Samuel leaves. The immediate need for food and fuel changes the characters in different ways. Esther becomes “skilled in the ways of deception” and takes on the adult responsibility of trying to earn extra money (158). Although Raya resists Esther taking up these burdens, she resigns herself to it. Raya and Grandmother—“two women whose code did not permit them to take so much as a crumb belonging to someone else” (148)—appreciate the scraps of fuel that Esther steals. Although all the Rudomins cling to their pride, their pride is “being battered, eroded—and changed—by the years in Siberia” (170).
Once again, non-material needs press on the Rudomins just as heavily as practical needs. Although she is desperate and has learned to barter ruthlessly at the market, Raya is more comfortable asking a stranger for help than her friends Yozia and Zaya. Her connection to Yozia and Zaya, and her own sense of pride, sustain her in ways that food cannot. When Samuel leaves, Esther compares losing his presence to their physical hunger: “But the emptiness in our bellies would still be nothing compared to the emptiness of our hut without Father” (145). The need for Samuel’s optimism, and the need for the family to stay together, surpass the need for food. Raya recognizes these needs, and she tries to take up Samuel’s optimism. When Esther is in despair, Raya “recklessly” uses the family’s remaining potatoes to throw her a birthday party. She sacrifices the food they need for joy and social interaction.
Throughout the book, the author uses foreshadowing, and this device is evident in this section. Sometimes, this foreshadowing is immediately fulfilled. For example, Esther feels “an ill wind blow through the hut” when she sees the letter calling Samuel to the front (142). At other times, the foreshadowing hints at something that is yet to unfold. In Chapter 14, Raya begins to experience a “dreadful foreboding” about their extended family members, but their fate is not discovered until near the end of the book.
