Quest of Love in Isaac Bashevis Singer's Shosha – a Study

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Quest of Love in Isaac Bashevis Singer's Shosha – a Study www.ijcrt.org © 2021 IJCRT | Volume 9, Issue 6 June 2021 | ISSN: 2320-2882 Quest of Love in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Shosha – A Study Prof. Dr. Sheelu Singh Bhatia HOD, Department of English, The Wisdom Global School, India Abstract: Isaac Bashevis Singer has emerged as one of the major figures in American – Jewish literature. He is widely acclaimed as one of the most accomplished stylists and prolific writers of his generation showing remarkable versatility and range. Singer populates his novels with ordinary people, all of whom, he comments in. Singer’s view of human nature, his talent for realistically capturing generations of squabbling families, his keen ear for dialogue, and his interest in character and isolation of individual within the society are derived from various sources. Existential predicaments of an individual’s life clearly provide not only his major sources for learning about the world as a child, but also a fertile ground for studying how people adapt themselves and endure the pain of loss and disappointment of life, and how they adjust living with others, and yet continue to live and love. In Shosha, Singer’s fictionalized version of his memoir, a young man in search of love, the women are not strong survivors attempting to rehabilitate an emotionally crippled hero and build a new life for themselves. Their conflicting opinions are catalysts to his thinking. Their erotic beings, their confused psyches, their artistic yearnings and their spiritual dimensions take possession his imagination and demand expression. In this present research, I will be focusing on the quest of love in his book ‘Shosha’, from different angles. Key Words: Isaac Bashevis Singer, American-Jewish Literature, quest of love, Shosha, transformation, relationships, family values and emotions. Isaac Bashevis Singer has risen as one of the significant figures in American – Jewish writing. He is broadly acclaimed as one of the most practiced beauticians and productive essayists of his age demonstrating exceptional flexibility and range. Vocalist populates his books with common individuals, every one of whom, he remarks in. He energetically and entertainingly depicts a wide range of intriguing yet common individuals. Vocalist's perspective on human instinct, his ability for reasonably catching ages of quarrelling families, his sharp ear for exchange, and his enthusiasm for character and disconnection of individual inside the general public are gotten from different sources. Existential situations of a person's life IJCRT2106773 International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT) www.ijcrt.org g482 www.ijcrt.org © 2021 IJCRT | Volume 9, Issue 6 June 2021 | ISSN: 2320-2882 plainly give not just his significant hotspots for finding out about the world as a kid, yet additionally a fruitful ground for concentrating how individuals adjust and bear the torment of misfortune and frustration of life, and how they modify living with others, but then proceed to live and adore. All the significant clashes and focal topics of his works advance from this worry. Shosha may be a hauntingly lyrical romance set in Jewish Warsaw on the eve of its annihilation. Aaron Greidinger, an aspiring Yiddish writer and therefore the son of a distinguished Hasidic rabbi, struggles to be faithful his art when faced with the prospect at riches and a passport to America. But as he and therefore the remainder of the Writers' Club wait in horror for Third Reich to invade Poland, Aaron rediscovers Shosha, his childhood love-still living on Krochmalna Street, still mysteriously childlike herself-who has been expecting him of these years. In Shosha, Singer's fictionalized rendition of his diary, a youngster looking for affection, the ladies are not solid survivors endeavouring to restore a genuinely disabled legend and fabricate another life for themselves. Living in pre-Hitler Poland, and generally unconscious of approaching calamity, they serve basically as the topic for the essayist hero, Aaron Greidinger. They are not his ethical reformers but rather mid-spouses for his innovativeness. Their clashing assessments are impetuses to his reasoning. Their sensual creatures, their confounded minds, their aesthetic desires and their otherworldly measurements take ownership his creative mind and request articulation. "Shosha's eyes loaded up with caution. Arele, never state the world! No, Shosha, don't be apprehensive. I will make it with the goal that you will live for eternity." (7) Vocalist makes numerous ladies to enchant his heroes. They fulfil both Greidinger's solid hunger for sexual assorted variety and his undesirable Don Juanism forestalling his connection to any one lady. However, most importantly, they speak to the illegal mainstream world, making him oppose the restricting conventionality of his dads. As the enticing 'other,' the profane reasonableness, they widen his standpoint and the extent of his composition; they confound his life and add multifaceted nature to his work. In spite of the fact that the enticing ladies are not genuinely tempting ladies are not really enticing, their names are changed and they live in one more decade, their characters are like those of foes and just marginally camouflaged from their genuine partners in who, with their child, left him to go to Russia, Greidinger's first issue in Warsaw is with the Communist, Dora Stolnitz, who is more enamoured with the gathering than with him. She is Singer's political lady who endeavours to bait the writer from his wanton craft of narrating to compose parcels to influence general assessment and adjust the course of history. She adjusts to Schopenhauer's meaning of the lady as 'visually impaired confident person' for she accepts, as did the pre-war Tamar, that collectivist activity can realize a 'splendid tomorrow.' Her tenet mindset conflicts with Greidinger's creative personality yet their bodies stay cordial. In Singer's treatment of Eros, sexual delight is regularly upgraded as opposed to hurt by clashing belief systems. Nor does Singer permit Dora's Marxist inculcation to keep her from being a sustaining lady – preparing Greidinger lavish morning meals and loyally washing his clothing. Concerning the steadiness of her gathering dedication, it is brief. Visiting IJCRT2106773 International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT) www.ijcrt.org g483 www.ijcrt.org © 2021 IJCRT | Volume 9, Issue 6 June 2021 | ISSN: 2320-2882 the assumed ideal world and finding an oppressed world, Dora, similar to Singer's other female progressives, is harshly frustrated. Saved from the verge of self destruction, she shares Greidinger's view that one can't support humanity and that the individuals who stress a lot over the destiny of man should sometime get barbarous. In his anecdotal world, nonetheless, he can impact the change of character which he was feeble to realize in his own reality. Subsequently, Dora, the ideologue who had attempted to change over the craftsman, is rather changed over by him. In contrast to Singer's obstinate precedent-based law spouse, Dora doesn't act like an anticipated sort yet has the adaptability to change her perspectives. Greidinger, be that as it may, becomes satiated with middle age desire and abstract talk and before long picks a less developed relationship with his less entangled Polish worker, Tekla. To utilize Levi- Strauss' classes for the Gentile and the Jewish, Greidinger lean towards the 'crude' over the 'cooked.' The gentile lady offers to the Singer hero since she represents no peril of his recognizing her with his Jewish mother and getting caught in oedipal ties. What eventually makes Greidinger upbeat is to come back to his youth love that Singer compares Shosha with the Poland of his childhood; his anecdotal Shosha depends on a real Shosha. "I remained with Shosha for quite a while. I attempted to kiss her and she scolded me that it was illegal." (131) Singer's memorializes his valuable cherished companion toward the finish of his life account, A Day of Pleasure. Like her anecdotal namesake in Singer's story Short Friday, Shosha is the ideal partner – grateful, soothing, and magnanimous. At the point when Singer's family moves away, he always remembers her and in time Shosha becomes for him a picture of the past. This isn't the first run through in quite a while self-portrayals or his fiction that Singer has utilized a female to represent the Jewish past or the Jews of Poland. Like the Biblical prophets, Singer remembers visit references for his works to the individuals of Israel as a lady who is separated, bereaved, deserted, or assaulted. Shosha is additionally Singer's ghetto Jew for who affirmed quarters and diminished conditions are recognizable and in this manner best. Wary of an adjusted situation, she just briefly appreciates the wonders of the some time ago limited city which Greidinger, the future liberated Jew, needs to impart to her. Like the detainee who at first relishes his opportunity, she before long feels nervous in the wide region of Warsaw and needs to come back to her encompassed road. Like the detainee who at first relishes his opportunity, she before long feels unsettled in the wide field of Warsaw and needs to come back to her surrounded road. Rather than Rechele and the Jews of Goray, who have undermined themselves by grasping bogus boundaries, the anecdotal Shosha epitomizing pre-Hitler Polish Jewry, has saved her immaculateness regardless of the degenerate world about her. When Greidinger meets her again on Krochmalna Street, after twenty years, he is struck by her pristine honesty. In spite of the fact that horrifying conditions have kept Shosha a retrogressive kid, her hindered development has a critical favourable position for him. Her captured improvement makes conceivable the capture of time. Through her youngster's eyes, he considers IJCRT2106773 International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT) www.ijcrt.org g484 www.ijcrt.org © 2021 IJCRT | Volume 9, Issue 6 June 2021 | ISSN: 2320-2882 the to be as he had recalled that it.
Recommended publications
  • Journal of American Studies, 52(3), 660-681
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Explore Bristol Research Savvas, T. (2018). The Other Religion of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Journal of American Studies, 52(3), 660-681. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875817000445 Peer reviewed version Link to published version (if available): 10.1017/S0021875817000445 Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via CUP at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/other-religion-of-isaac- bashevis-singer/CD2A18F086FDF63F29F0884B520BE385. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms 1 The Other Religion of Isaac Bashevis Singer Theophilus Savvas, University of Bristol This essay analyzes the later fiction of Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer through the prism of his vegetarianism. Singer figured his adoption of a vegetarian diet in 1962 as a kind of conversion, pronouncing it a “religion” that was central to his being. Here I outline Singer’s vegetarian philosophy, and argue that it was the underlying ethical precept in the fiction written after the conversion. I demonstrate the way in which that ethic informs the presentation of both Judaism and women in Singer’s later writings.
    [Show full text]
  • THE MAGICIAN of LUBLIN by Isaac Bashevis Singer
    THE MAGICIAN OF LUBLIN by Isaac Bashevis Singer AUTHOR’S BIO Isaac Bashevis Singer immigrated to the United States in 1935, which was the year of his first novel Satan in Goray. Since then, he wrote in Yiddish more or less exclusively about the Jewish world of pre-war Poland, or more exactly, about the Hasidic world of pre-war Poland, into which he was born, the son of a rabbi, in 1904. Singer published his autobiography in four volumes: In My Father’s Court (1966), A Little Boy in Search of God (1976), A Young Man in Search of Love (1978), and Lost in America (1981). His best-known novels include The Magician of Lublin (1960), The Slave (1962), Enemies, a Love Story (1972), and Shosha (1978). In 1978, Singer received the Nobel Prize in Literature. The citation praised him for his art in narrative and noted that although the background of his works was the Polish-Jewish tradition, they revealed the human condition, which transcends cultural barriers. In his acceptance speech, Singer commented on the values that he had learned from the humble people whom he had known in childhood, who spoke in a vanishing tongue, the language of a people in exile. After a series of strokes, Singer died in Surfside, Florida, on July 24, 1991. ABOUT THE BOOK The Magician of Lublin Written in 1958, serialized in 1959, and published in English in 1960, The Magician of Lublin also deals with human passions, but it is not overcast with the gloom of past events. It reflects an expansiveness often missing in Singer’s works.
    [Show full text]
  • And Other Stories. Isaac Bashevis Singer
    Old Love: And Other Stories. Isaac Bashevis Singer 2001. 0099286467, 9780099286462. Old Love: And Other Stories. Isaac Bashevis Singer. Vintage, 2001. This classic collection explores the varieties of wisdom gained with age and especially those that teach us how to love, as "in love the young are just beginners and the art of loving matures with age and experience". Tales of curious marriages and divorce mingle with psychic experiences and curses, acts of bravery and loneliness, love and hatred. file download cebuxe.pdf Aug 1, 1979. 320 pages. Isaac Bashevis Singer. ISBN:0374515387. This book of twenty stories is Isaac Bashevis Singer's fifth collection and contains such classics as "The Cafeteria" and "On the Way to the Poorhouse.". Fiction. A Friend of Kafka Old Love: And Other Stories pdf download ISBN:0140048073. The magician of Lublin. 1980. Fiction. 200 pages. Isaac Bashevis Singer Love: pdf download The Manor. ISBN:0299205444. Fiction. 1979. Isaac Bashevis Singer. The Manor and The Estatecombined in this one-volume editionbold tales of Polish Jews in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time of rapid industrial growth and. 818 pages. & the Estate Short Friday. And Other Stories. 256 pages. Isaac Bashevis Singer. Fiction. ISBN:0374504407. 1964 Fiction. ISBN:9780374531539. The Penitent. 176 pages. Isaac Bashevis Singer. Nov 26, 2007. Joseph Shapiro, a New York businessman, experiences a mid-life crisis. He leaves his wife, his mistress, his business and goes to Israel in search of religious Orthodoxy pdf file May 16, 2003. ISBN:0374529116. Passions. 324 pages. Fiction. Isaac Bashevis Singer download ISBN:0374506809.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstract in the Novel Taken for Study, the Characters Doubt the Existence of God and Go in for Worldly Wisdom
    Online International Interdisciplinary Research Journal, {Bi-Monthly}, ISSN 2249-9598, Volume-09, Mar 2019 Special Issue (04) The Holocaust Survivors in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Shosha R.G.Rathika Assistant Professor of English,Nirmala College for Women, Coimbatore India Abstract In the novel taken for study, the characters doubt the existence of God and go in for worldly wisdom. They suffer and also make people around them suffer due to their worldly ways. Only at the end, they realize that without faith in God and His ways, they will perish. They return to God knowing that they will be safe only when they are in the hands of God. KEYWORDS-Holocaust, Jewishness, Polish Jews, Alter ego, Spiritual Autobiography Shosha, is a novel of remembrance. It invokes the past by different means and for different ends. Building a montage of eyewitness accounts, Singer emphasizes the shared horror of experiences that have permanently traumatized his major characters. So crucial is remembrance in shaping the novel’s texture that action and motivation are virtually indecipherable without reference to the past. In Shosha, however, the past is merely a backdrop for the personal reminiscences that Singer treats elsewhere as straightforward autobiography. Although it was published in English before The Penitent, Shosha is Singer’s latest novel in point of composition. Serialized in Yiddish in the Forward in 1974 as Soul Expeditions, Shosha was published in English in 1978, nearly simultaneously with A Young Man in Search of Love, a volume of memoirs. Shosha’s first-person narration and its slavish fidelity to actual events are unique among Singer’s translated novels, and highlight his growing tendency to rely upon his life for his fiction.
    [Show full text]
  • Between Concealment and Revelatiotpwoon Mystical Motifs in Selected Yiddish Works of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Their Sources in Kabbalistic Literature
    % % *EQ'8Tn4R Between Concealment and RevelatiotPwooN Mystical Motifs in Selected Yiddish Works of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Their Sources in Kabbalistic Literature Haike Beruriah Wiegand Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies University College London Degree: Ph.D. ProQuest Number: 10010417 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10010417 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract of Thesis Between Concealment and Revelation - Mystical Motifs in Selected Yiddish Works of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Their Sources in Kabbalistic Literature The subject of this study is an exploration of Jewish mystical motifs in the works of Yitskhok Bashevis Zinger (Isaac Bashevis Singer). The study is based on a close reading of the Yiddish original of all of Bashevis’s works investigated here. Changes or omissions in the English translations are mentioned and commented upon, wherever it is appropriate. This study consists of three major parts, apart from an introduction (Chapter 1) and a conclusion (Chapter 9). The first major part (Chapter 2) investigates the kabbalistic and hasidic influences on Bashevis’s life and the sources which inform the mystical aspects of his works.
    [Show full text]
  • Basic Facts About Yiddish
    Basic Facts about Yiddish This updated edition of the 1946 YIVO booklet was made possible by a generous grant from the Fishman Foundation for Yiddish Culture. Kinder: onfanger lernbukh farn ershtn yor by D. Tarant and D. Friedman. Illustration by William Gropper, 1929. (YIVO Library) 1. What is Yiddish? Yiddish has been the spoken language of a considerable portion of the Jewish people, the Ashkenazim, for the past one thousand years. It has served as the expression of everyday Jewish life, religious, secular, and every level in between. It possesses a significant literature, press and folklore and has a large musical component. Yiddish was the language of instruction in many Jewish schools and is currently taught in numerous colleges and universities throughout the world. © 2014 YIVO INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH RESEARCH 1 Yiddish is the vehicle of a rich cultural heritage; its idioms, proverbs, songs, and humor symbolize the patterns of Ashkenazic Jewish living and thinking. 2. The name “Yiddish” Yiddish means “Jewish” in the language itself. Many centuries ago, “Yiddish” is what Jews called the language, although for hundreds of years it was called a variety of other names, among them, Taytsh, Yidish-taytsh, Loshn-ashkenaz, and Zhargon, all of which have been outmoded for at least 100 years. In English usage, the name “Yiddish” was adopted around the middle of the nineteenth century in England, when Jewish immigrants starting coming to that country from Europe. With the rising immigration of the Jews to the United States, the name was also adopted there as well. 3. Yiddish in the United States and the World Over The United States census of 1940 provided the number of those who declared Yiddish to have been the language they spoke in early childhood.
    [Show full text]
  • Conversations with the Singers Grace Farrell Sacred Heart University
    Sacred Heart University Review Volume 1 Issue 2 Sacred Heart University Review, Volume I, Article 1 Number 2, Spring1981 Spring 1981 Conversations with the Singers Grace Farrell Sacred Heart University Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/shureview Recommended Citation Farrell, Grace (1981) "Conversations with the Singers," Sacred Heart University Review: Vol. 1 : Iss. 2 , Article 1. Available at: http://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/shureview/vol1/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the SHU Press Publications at DigitalCommons@SHU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sacred Heart University Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@SHU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Farrell: Conversations with the Singers GRACE FARRELL LEE Conversations with the Singers* ONE Isaac Bashevis Singer is used to questions. They fill his head; they fill the pages of his books; they take up all his time. Each of his stories hones a series of questions to a brittle edge, and then quickly, ever so fleetingly, opens up as if to reveal an answer, but never quite reveals it, only forms another question in its stead. "You don't get answers," Singer tells me. "Questions are all you get." The last line of "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy" reads, "Truth itself is often concealed in such a way that the harder you look for it, the harder it is to find."Now that I have come to know the man, I torture him, as he laughingly puts it, with my questions, until he asks with wonder, "Grace, do 1 know?" Isaac Bashevis Singer: We talk about philosophers, but I'm more interested now in psychic research.
    [Show full text]
  • I. B. Singers Misogyny
    A Book Essay by Evelyn Torton Beck I. B. Singers Misogyny Isaac Bashevis Singer, who recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature, is the one author by whom thousands of people the world over will measure both Yiddish literature and Jewish cul­ ture. Unfortunately, readers who are unfamiliar with Jewish history and culture may assume that Singer's portrayal of pre-war Polish Jewry is an authentic representation of reality. It is, instead, a rather distorted picture of shkll and city life, reflecting fringe elements of that soci­ ety rather than the norm. Singer is not interested in the ordinary life of the average Jew. His preoccupation with sex, for example, was hardly characteristic of the hard-working Jews of Eastern Europe, who had to wage a daily struggle for mere survival. His focus is not on the values or realities of Jewish life but on the aberrations of human psychol­ ogy. Unlike nineteenth-century Jewish writers who, while critical of Jewish life, believed in Jewish values and in the possibility of pre­ serving them, Singer is a pessimistic modernist who believes all humans are essentially depraved. While Singer presents men in terms of their individual psychological aberrations, he treats women as a class, making far more frequent use of cliches and stereotypes in depicting them than in depicting men. Singer's vision— combining the traditional Jewish image of woman as subservient and inferior with the misogynistic view of woman's nature in the philosophies of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud and Weininger—represents a powerful assault on the Jewish woman. Singer's thinking, epitomized in "Zeitl and Rickel" is that "old maids, you know, also end up half crazy.
    [Show full text]
  • Allegory in the Novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-1981 Allegory in the Novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer Norbert Louis Elliot III University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Elliot, Norbert Louis III, "Allegory in the Novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1981. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1501 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Norbert Louis Elliot III entitled "Allegory in the Novels of Isaac Bashevis Singer." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in English. Daniel J. Schneider, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Richard Penner, Martin Rice, Bain Stewart Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submi tting herewi th a dissertation wri tten by Norbert Louis El l iot III entitled "Al l esory in the Novel s of Isaac Bashevis Singer." I have examined the final copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in parti al ful­ fil lment of the requi rements for the degree of Doctor of Phil osophy, wi th a major in Engl ish.
    [Show full text]
  • David Fram: Lithuanian Yiddish Poet of the South African Diaspora And
    David Fram: Lithuanian Yiddish Poet of the South African Diaspora and Illuminating Love FRANKEL, Hazel Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/4914/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version FRANKEL, Hazel (2013) David Fram: Lithuanian Yiddish Poet of the South African Diaspora and Illuminating Love. Doctoral thesis, Sheffield Hallam University. Repository use policy Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in SHURA to facilitate their private study or for non- commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk David Fram: Lithuanian Yiddish Poet of the South African Diaspora and Illuminating Love Hazel Frankel A thesis and a novel submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Sheffield Hallam University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 2013 Abstract This thesis investigates the Yiddish poems of the South African Lithuanian immigrant David Fram. It locates Fram’s poetry and aesthetics in the context of Yiddish poetry in general and Lithuanian-South African Yiddish literature in particular. In doing this it identifies and investigates Fram’s main poetic themes, Diaspora, the memory of home and the condition of exile; landscape and people, nature and creator; his response to the Holocaust suggesting poetry is a legitimate means of expressing trauma.
    [Show full text]
  • Isaac Bashevis Singer
    Isaac Bashevis Singer: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center Descriptive Summary Creator: Singer, Isaac Bashevis, 1904-1991 Title: Isaac Bashevis Singer Papers Dates: 1923-1994 Extent: 176 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 120 galley folders (77 linear feet) Abstract: Most of Singer's fictional works and many of his nonfiction essays and reviews are represented in the papers. The Works series includes Singer's short stories, novels, radio scripts, stage and screenplays, articles, reviews, poems, introductions to books by other authors, and lectures. Most of Singer's translated novels and short stories appeared originally in Yiddish in the Jewish Daily Forward (Forverts) and so exist in both Yiddish and English, as well as other languages. Correspondence primarily consists of letters to Singer (although his outgoing letters to Alma Singer and a few others are present) and dates mostly from the 1940s until Singer's death in 1991. Singer's financial and legal papers, photographs and snapshots, notebooks and notes, various clippings and ephemera, and appointment books are also present, as are works about Singer and a variety of works by other authors. However, works by Singer's sister, Ester Kreytman, and brother Israel Joshua Singer, who were also novelists, are not included. Call Number: Manuscript Collection MS-3849 Language: English, Hebrew, Yiddish, German, Polish, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian Access: Open for research with the exception of some correspondence restricted until 2025 Administrative Information Acquisition:
    [Show full text]
  • Isaac Bashevis Singer: Speak English, Think Yiddish-- Adaptation Versus Assimilation
    East Tennessee State University Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University Electronic Theses and Dissertations Student Works 5-2001 Isaac Bashevis Singer: Speak English, Think Yiddish-- Adaptation versus Assimilation. Susan L. Gardberg East Tennessee State University Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.etsu.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Gardberg, Susan L., "Isaac Bashevis Singer: Speak English, Think iddY ish-- Adaptation versus Assimilation." (2001). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 95. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/95 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Works at Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Isaac Bashevis Singer: Speak English, Think Yiddish— Adaptation Versus Assimilation _______________ A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Department of English East Tennessee State University _______________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English ______________ by Susan L. Gardberg May 2001 ______________ Dr. Isabel Stanley, Chair Dr. Styron Harris Dr. Sonya Cashdan Keywords: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Holocaust, Polish Jewry, adaptation, assimilation ABSTRACT Isaac Bashevis Singer: Speak English, Think Yiddish— Adaptation Versus Assimilation by Susan L. Gardberg Critics use the words “vanished culture” to describe Isaac Bashevis Singer’s work for Polish Jewry had been destroyed. However, Singer’s characters survive the travails of anti-Semitism and resettle in America. This study explores Singer’s Polish Jews to determine whether they assimilate into their new culture; or maintain their strong Jewish traditions and adapt to the freedoms of America.
    [Show full text]