Charles Simic in 'Fearful Paradise'

Simic himself was an immigrant, who immigrated to USA in 1954. He considered USA a fearful paradise, since he wondered what people would think of him once he was there. He foresaw changes to come and did not foresee how to deal with them. He had problems with his life as an immigrant; in his work it is possible to find a contradictory life, social issues, identity uncertainty and complaints of overloads of work for the immigrant. A textual evidence for that is the passage: 'Once, you could say, he knew what he was, to what culture he belonged. Now he was no longer sure'. Simic emphasizes the mixed culture of an immigrant as changing of identity of a person, as for instance, an immigrant who worked in a factory in Chicago, and spoke a mixture of languages would end up changing views, some spoke English, some Polish, some Hungarian, and some Italian. On the other hand, he talks about these workers in a positive and contradictory perspective when he says:' Everybody I knew all of a sudden wanted to get educated.' So, at the same time they were changing their identities, they wanted to get educated, to be better positioned in society, in a capitalist society. For him, this was very contradictory because distinct social classes were then, wishing for the same thing: education, even the working class! What country was that! He also makes a criticism on the short memory of people when he says: 'Today, everybody behaves as if it was the rich who decided on their own to give their employees the forty-hour week with decent pay. Back then people knew how long it took to make a greedy share a portion of their profits', in the hope of creating awareness toward social injustice.

Simic makes a clear distinction of the self and the others. He tries to protect his own identity, and adds just what was relevant for him, even when giving value to other people's culture. Regarding that, he emphasizes it in a comparative and singular way with the passage: 'One of the great temptations for an immigrant is to go native the whole way, start eating canned soup, white bread, and Jell-O and hide one's passion for sausages smothered in onions and peppers and crackling in fat. I read Emerson and Thoreau and other New England writers, but I knew I was different.' He wanted more, he faced the fact that he had a glimpse and understanding inside other realities, as an immigrant he could perceive the other side of the coin. He could then, improve the way he wanted and help other to not become like them, Americans, since they were not, in many senses. Regarding that he states that there are ' More identities. More images to cook.' Here, he implies that the existence of the mixed culture in the life of an immigrant is not negative as long as one selects what is relevant for one's life, separating oneself from the other.