DOCSLIB.ORG

Methods of Estrangement in Amos Oz's a Tale of Love and Darkness

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Methods of Estrangement in Amos Oz's a Tale of Love and Darkness Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 10 (2014 7) 1661-1671 ~ ~ ~ УДК 821.411.16 Methods of Estrangement in Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness Yulia E. Valkova* Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia Received 18.07.2014, received in revised form 14.08.2014, accepted 07.09.2014 The present paper characterizes specific stylistic features of a distinguished Israeli author and scholar Amos Oz on the material of non-fiction A Tale of Love and Darkness. The analysis is focused on the method of estrangement in particular, since this stylistic device is of key importance for understanding the ambivalent connection of both the book and the author with European and especially Russian literature in the reflection of modern Hebrew literature. The method of estrangement is also considered as meaningful for equivalent and adequate translating. Keywords: Amos Oz, estrangement, A Tale of Love and Darkness, Israel, Hebrew, translation. Research area: 10.00.00 – philology. Introduction author attempts to write a biography, though it can Amos Oz, being one of the most popular turn out to be pseudobiography in the end. When Israeli authors and at the same time recognized the author starts to revive his childhood memories, intellectual and a professor of literature at Ben- he is trying to perceive them as happening again, Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, is a prominent this literary device is called estrangement. novelist and his works deserve greater attention Estrangement concerns not only remembrance of than currently in Russia. The research is oriented the past, but revival of the things that have gone more on A Tale of Love and Darkness (2002), as away, these are (for any Israeli author) – the times this is a partly autobiographical and non-fiction of galut (exile), native languages of the places novel, translated into 28 languages so far. One where Jewish diaspora lived, trade and cultural of the topical features of contemporary literature connections of the past times, not to mention is balancing between two worlds – new and old, some subtle psychological patterns realized in West and East, traditional and challenging. When writing novels. Estrangement is a vivid feature in globalization prevails, authors appear to have a all works of A. Oz and characteristically in A Tale temptation to leave far behind cultural roots and of Love and Darkness. The further study will be attune to cosmopolitan writing, which can be concentrated on whether this estrangement is kept written and read everywhere. Still some rootedness in translation and useful methods of translating is hard to get away from, especially when the estrangement or making up for it. © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected] – 1661 – Yulia E. Valkova. Methods of Estrangement in Amos Oz’s a Tale of Love and Darkness Theoretical framework Let us begin with the definition, which The present study follows mainly works will be reviewed briefly as the wider and of authors of Israeli origin and those English- all-encompassing examination of the notion speaking researchers who are interested in the extends beyond the scope of the present paper. modern Hebrew literature and its connection Estrangement here will be understood as the with the traditional one, which was written distancing effect (estrangement derives from before the revival of the Hebrew language in the estrange, which means: to cause someone 20th century. These works are based on peering to be no longer friendly or close to another at struggle for identity, on the idea of heterotopy person or group; to cause someone to be no of the narrator, which means a deviation longer involved or connected with something; from normal state; abnormal placement. to remove from customary environment or A. Mendelson-Maoz also speaks about association; to arouse especially mutual enmity dialectical difference between aliyah (migration or indifference in where there had formerly to Israel with the positive connotation) and been love, affection, or friendliness (Merriam- immigration. Moreover, scientists note that Webster Dictionary). In another dictionary A. Oz, being a member of the peace movement, estrangement is the fact of no longer being while investigating the Jewish-Arab conflict on friendly terms or part of a social group; tries to distance himself from both parties and the fact of no longer living with one’s spouse find some reconciliation. or partner; separation (Oxford Dictionary). Researchers largely contrast works of This distancing effect allows for unbiased, A. Oz to the works of other authors of his age objective approach, especially necessary when or fortune, such as to S. Yishar (Sh. E. Jelen, the philological analysis deals with pseudo- R. Omer-Sherman), Mary Antin (N. K. Miller), biography, which has both fictional and non- S.Y. Agnon, H. Bartov, A. Appelfeld, S. Michael, fictional nature. E. Amir (A. Mendelson-Maoz), A.B. Yehoshua, Estrangement in philological sense is D. Grossman (H. Halkin), Y. Orpaz, M. Tammuz, close to the term "defamiliarization", which D. Shahar (Sh. Peled), A. Cohen (K. Grumberg), was introduced in 1917 by V. Shklovsky in his A. Appelfeld, Y. Kaniuk, H. Gouri (G. Shaked), essay "Art as Technique"). To illustrate what he A. Camus, S. Yishar (G. Piterberg). A. Balaban means by defamiliarization, V. Shklovsky uses speaking about panentheism and religious examples from L. Tolstoy, whom he cites as using framework in The Trappist Monastery the technique throughout his works. The story draws parallels between A. Oz, his literary "Kholstomer" is told as if anew, from the point of contemporaries and predecessors and a horse. Defamiliarization also includes the use philosophers, including F.W. Schelling. of foreign languages within a work. It is akin to The objective of this paper is to examine automatization, but avoids over-automatization the realization of estrangement in A. Oz’s A Tale (for further details cf. C. Emerson). Moving of Love and Darkness, so we have three tasks: forward a little, we will see that the use of to define what estrangement is, to observe the different languages, languages of different researchers’ approaches to estrangement in cultures and automatization is a commonplace A. Oz’s works and to concentrate on the author’s for A Tale of Love and Darkness. application of estrangement on the material of the Estrangement from the viewpoint of particular novel. psychology is state of increased distance from – 1662 – Yulia E. Valkova. Methods of Estrangement in Amos Oz’s a Tale of Love and Darkness oneself of others; decrease in contact where close • Rethinking of the past contact once occured (Psychology Dictionary). • Difficulty of self-identification Again, later we will see the realization of these • Failure of the parents’ generation to blend directions in the analyzed work. in (in particular, A. Mendelson-Maoz Though there is a number of both ambiguous mentions it) terms for the phenomenon and different definitions • Connection with European origins, which of estrangement, the current purpose is not on the hardens involvement into community differentiating the terminology, rather on looking "His experience in that moment appears at specific examples narrowly. to be an acceptance of his universe as The next step on our way to examination of distinctly nonindigenous" (Sh.J. Jelen, estrangement in A Tale of Love and Darkness is p.512). to refer to the already existing theoretical works • Mixture of different cultures in Israel devoted to estrangement either in the whole • "Absent memory" of Holocaust and literary corpus of A. Oz, or letting into the topic other horrors, postmemory of the third of estrangement in A Tale of Love and Darkness generation. This absent memory brings in particular. Let us form a comprehensive list of pressure to young generation, which has reasons for estrangement before (in the following not experienced the traumas of the World section) we will look for specific purposes of War II, but feels them as if phantom usage of estrangement. pains. The narrower meaning of the term So scientists attribute A. Oz’s estrangement concerns more private individualistic to matters. M. McNay applies the notion • Leaving relatives, intellectualism, old of absent memory to the family secrets and bookworm culture, as Sh. E. Jelen that underlie these narratives and reflect aptly articulates, his trajectory from on questions raised by such secrets–and Jerusalem to "Kibbutz" marked his own by incomplete narrative inheritances–for personal journey away from that which the children burdened with them (cf. he considered a parochial Europeanism. M. McNay). Still, the heroes as other characters in • Trauma at the suicide of author’s mother, A. Oz’s fiction feel uprooted and alienated odd behavior of the mother "Fania’s in a new, unfamiliar place (Feldman, nocturnal migrations from her room to p. 395). Yet the recently written story, that of her pubescent son are presented, painfully revelatory "Little Boy" (2012), from Amos’s perspective, without pity "reveals that even the kibbutz’s native- and with an admirable avoidance of born sometimes endure traumatic retrospective commentary and diagnosis" estrangement" (R. Omer-Sherman, book (Carmy, p. 58). Ch. Schachan and review). K. Grumberg discuss it in the terms of • Attempt to create new literature in a new spectropoetics introduced by Jacques language (modern Hebrew is still new Derrida. K. Grumberg also addresses and lacks some words) Freud’s term "unheimlich" (uncanny) • Attraction in the youth to the risky allures and the concept of exile as mingling of the Gnostic defiance (Y.S. Feldman), of the homely and the unhomely (cf. which is hard to detach from K. Grumberg, p. 383). – 1663 – Yulia E. Valkova. Methods of Estrangement in Amos Oz’s a Tale of Love and Darkness • Individual expression fighting collective "<…> the desert serves potentially as a consciousness, objective versus transformative space that lays bare the subjective.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Israel Resource Cards (Digital Use)
    WESTERN WALL ַה ּכֹו ֶתל ַה ַּמ ַעָר ִבי The Western Wall, known as the Kotel, is revered as the holiest site for the Jewish people. A part of the outer retaining wall of the Second Temple that was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, it is the place closest to the ancient Holy of Holies, where only the Kohanim— —Jewish priests were allowed access. When Israel gained independence in 1948, Jordan controlled the Western Wall and all of the Old City of Jerusalem; the city was reunified in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Western Wall is considered an Orthodox synagogue by Israeli authorities, with separate prayer spaces for men and women. A mixed egalitarian prayer area operates along a nearby section of the Temple’s retaining wall, raising to the forefront contemporary ideas of religious expression—a prime example of how Israel navigates between past and present. SITES AND INSIGHTS theicenter.org SHUK ׁשוּק Every Israeli city has an open-air market, or shuk, where vendors sell everything from fresh fruits and vegetables to clothing, appliances, and souvenirs. There’s no other place that feels more authentically Israeli than a shuk on Friday afternoon, as seemingly everyone shops for Shabbat. Drawn by the freshness and variety of produce, Israelis and tourists alike flock to the shuk, turning it into a microcosm of the country. Shuks in smaller cities and towns operate just one day per week, while larger markets often play a key role in the city’s cultural life. At night, after the vendors go home, Machaneh Yehuda— —Jerusalem’s shuk, turns into the city’s nightlife hub.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel: Growing Pains at 60
    Viewpoints Special Edition Israel: Growing Pains at 60 The Middle East Institute Washington, DC Middle East Institute The mission of the Middle East Institute is to promote knowledge of the Middle East in Amer- ica and strengthen understanding of the United States by the people and governments of the region. For more than 60 years, MEI has dealt with the momentous events in the Middle East — from the birth of the state of Israel to the invasion of Iraq. Today, MEI is a foremost authority on contemporary Middle East issues. It pro- vides a vital forum for honest and open debate that attracts politicians, scholars, government officials, and policy experts from the US, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. MEI enjoys wide access to political and business leaders in countries throughout the region. Along with information exchanges, facilities for research, objective analysis, and thoughtful commentary, MEI’s programs and publications help counter simplistic notions about the Middle East and America. We are at the forefront of private sector public diplomacy. Viewpoints are another MEI service to audiences interested in learning more about the complexities of issues affecting the Middle East and US rela- tions with the region. To learn more about the Middle East Institute, visit our website at http://www.mideasti.org The maps on pages 96-103 are copyright The Foundation for Middle East Peace. Our thanks to the Foundation for graciously allowing the inclusion of the maps in this publication. Cover photo in the top row, middle is © Tom Spender/IRIN, as is the photo in the bottom row, extreme left.
    [Show full text]
  • Ebook Download the Amos Oz Reader
    THE AMOS OZ READER PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Mr Amos Oz,Professor Nitza Ben Dov,Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature Robert Alter | 392 pages | 14 Apr 2009 | Cengage Learning, Inc | 9780156035668 | English | Belmont, CA, United States The Amos Oz Reader PDF Book Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Rodrigo Bauler rated it it was amazing Feb 28, Details if other :. Amy rated it really liked it Jun 15, As with all inner legitimacy, so this, too, is mysterious, semivisible, spurning all generalizations and definitions. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Enabling JavaScript in your browser will allow you to experience all the features of our site. Related Articles. Joan Lieberman rated it it was amazing Aug 10, Home 1 Books 2. Jenny Maria rated it it was amazing Sep 07, Amos Oz. Friendship includes a measure of sensitivity, attentiveness, generosity, and finely tuned sense of moderation. Devout Jews, Ashkenazim in fur hats, and elderly Sephardim in striped robes. Paperback , pages. View Product. He lives in Arad. Myrthe Chorfi rated it it was amazing Nov 25, At the age of fifteen, he left home, and lived and worked for many years on a kibbutz. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. The Amos Oz Reader Writer They quiz me about parochial atmosphere, et cetera. I must stress that I do not mean that there are many unsolved problems at the moment, but that in the nature of things there are more problems in the world than solutions. More Details Friend Reviews.
    [Show full text]
  • Around the World in 30 Classics
    AROUND THE WORLD IN 30 CLASSICS ... 1) Let’s take a trip to .... SCOTLAND with Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s novel Sunset Song. Few people outside of Scotland have read this wonderful novel, but in a 2005 poll conducted in Scotland, the Scots voted it their favourite book of all time! It was published in 1932 and was written by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (whose real name was James Leslie Mitchell). It forms part of a trilogy called A Scot’s Quair (with the other two novels being Cloud Howe and Grey Granite). It would be hard to find a novel more quintessentially Scottish than this one. It is written in Scot’s dialect, which does make it a challenge to read, but the prose is more like poetry and I think it is one of the most beautifully written novels I have ever read. It is generally considered to be the most important Scottish novel of the 20thC. Sunset Song tells the story of Chris Guthrie who grows up on a farm called Kinraddie in the Mearns district of north-east Scotland. She is intelligent and does well at school, and has ambitions to train as a teacher; but family tragedy intervenes and she has to stay home and look after her father. She falls in love with, and marries, a Highland farmer named Ewan Tavendale, and bears a son, but World War I intrudes on her happiness and the life of the farmers in the Mearns is irrevocably changed by the war. The novel is about Scottish national identity, but is also a lyrical hymn to the beauty, and hardship, of the landscape.
    [Show full text]
  • Gazeta Spring 2019 Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) Albert Einstein in His Office, Princeton University, New Jersey, 1942
    Volume 26, No. 1 Gazeta Spring 2019 Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) Albert Einstein in his office, Princeton University, New Jersey, 1942. Gelatin Silver print. The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley, gift of Mara Vishniac Kohn, 2016.6.10. A quarterly publication of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies and Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture Editorial & Design: Tressa Berman, Fay Bussgang, Julian Bussgang, Shana Penn, Antony Polonsky, Adam Schorin, Maayan Stanton, Agnieszka Ilwicka, William Zeisel, LaserCom Design. CONTENTS Message from Irene Pipes ............................................................................................... 2 Message from Tad Taube and Shana Penn ................................................................... 3 FEATURES The Road to September 1939 Jehuda Reinharz and Yaacov Shavit ........................................................................................ 4 Honoring the Memory of Paweł Adamowicz Antony Polonsky .................................................................................................................... 8 Roman Vishniac Archive Gifted to Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life Francesco Spagnolo ............................................................................................................ 11 Keeping Jewish Memory Alive in Poland Leora Tec ............................................................................................................................ 15 The Untorn Life of Yaakov
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Dr. Baruch LINK LCM 113 Spring, 2011 Monday-Wednesday 14:45
    Dr. Baruch LINK LCM 113 Spring, 2011 Monday-Wednesday 14:45-16:00 Room 310 LOVE AND WAR IN MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE: This course will focus on two major motifs, love and war. These motifs will be taught in texts and movies that will depict them together and/or separately. We also will consider how these texts and movies contributed to the social and moral conversation in Israeli society. We will concentrate on a close reading and analysis of the texts and movies. We will consider the context of the texts and movies in the historical development of Modern Hebrew Literature and Modern Israeli culture. In the process of our reading and study, we will introduce and use literary terms and concepts from literary criticism. Objectives 1. Enrich understanding of the development of major cultural influences that molded the collective perspective of Modern Israeli culture. 2. Explore the influence of war on the Israeli collective and private psyche. 3. Improve critical thinking and writing skills. We will study the literature and poetry of the following authors: 1. Yehuda Amichai 2. Chaim Gouri 3. Amir Gilboa 4. S. Yizhar 5. Benjamin Tammuz 6. Dahlia Ravikovitch 7. A. B. Yehoshua 8. Yehudit Hendel 9. Amos Oz 10. Yona Wallach We will view the following movies: 1. “Kippur” 2. “Lemon Tree” 3. “Turn Left at the end of the World” 4. “My Michael” 5. “Yossi and Jagger” 6. “Summer Blues” 1 Author Text or Movie papers assigned and due Week Introduction to course 1 Yehuda Amichai A life in Poetry, 1948-1994 1 & 2 Chaim Gouri and Amir Poems (Handout), Paper Assigned 3 Gilboa Movie “Kippur” 4 S.
    [Show full text]
  • The Gospel of Amos Oz
    The Gospel of Amos Oz Yigal Schwartz I have been called a traitor many times in my life. The first time was when I was twelve and a quarter and I lived in a neighborhood at the edge of Jerusalem. It was during the summer holidays, less than a year before the British left the country and the State of Israel was born out of the midst of war. Amos Oz, Panther in the Basement , trans. Nicholas de Lange, 1997, p.1 A. Like many Israelis of my generation and slightly older or younger, I read the works of Amos Oz in the order of their publication, book after book after book. In the ninth grade, I studied stories from Where the Jackals Howl (Artzot Ha-Tan,1965), in the tenth grade, I read Elsewhere, Perhaps (Makom Acher, 1966) and fell in love with the character Noga Harish, also known as Stella Maris, and at the end of high school I was captivated by Hannah Gonen, the beautiful, cold Jerusalemite from My Michael (Michael Sheli, 1968), who can, at least to some extent, be blamed for my choice to study Hebrew literature at The Hebrew University. I read these three books in order of publication, but five years after they appeared in print. With the next several books, I caught up and read each one almost immediately after it was published. The fact that several generations of readers became acquainted with Oz’s works near the time they appeared in print influenced their understanding of him. Almost everyone who wrote about his work did so from the perspective of growth, from his beginnings to the point in time when each study was written.1 Moreover,
    [Show full text]
  • Miscegenation and the Literary Imagination in Israel-Palestine
    PRIVATE AFFECTIONS: MISCEGENATION AND THE LITERARY IMAGINATION IN ISRAEL-PALESTINE Hella Bloom Cohen, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2014 APPROVED: Masood Ashraf Raja, Major Professor Deborah Needleman Armintor, Committee Member Nicole D. Smith, Committee Member Laila Amine, Committee Member David Holdeman, Chair of the Department of English Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Cohen, Hella Bloom, Private Affections: Miscegenation and the Literary Imagination in Israel-Palestine. Doctor of Philosophy (English), May 2014, 188 pp., references, 133 titles. This study politicizes the mixed relationship in Israeli-Palestinian literature. I examine Arab-Jewish and interethnic Jewish intimacy in works by Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, canonical Israeli novelist A. B. Yehoshua, select anthologized Anglophone and translated Palestinian and Israeli poetry, and Israeli feminist writer Orly Castel-Bloom. I also examine the material cultural discourses issuing from Israel’s textile industry, in which Arabs and Jews interact. Drawing from the methodology of twentieth-century Brazilian miscegenation theorist Gilberto Freyre, I argue that mixed intimacies in the Israeli-Palestinian imaginary represent a desire to restructure a hegemonic public sphere in the same way Freyre’s Brazilian mestizo was meant to rhetorically undermine what he deemed a Western cult of uniformity. This project constitutes a threefold contribution. I offer one of the few postcolonial perspectives on Israeli literature, as it remains underrepresented in the field in comparison to its Palestinian counterparts. I also present the first sustained critique of the hetero relationship and the figure of the hybrid in Israeli-Palestinian literature, especially as I focus on its representation for political options rather than its aesthetic intrigue.
    [Show full text]
  • The Politics of Normalization: Israel Studies in the Academy Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements F
    The Politics of Normalization: Israel Studies in the Academy Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Miriam Shenkar, M.A. Graduate Program in Education: Educational Policy and Leadership The Ohio State University 2010 Dissertation Committee: Robert F. Lawson, Advisor Matt Goldish Douglas Macbeth Copyright by Miriam Shenkar 2010 Abstract This study will examine the emergence of Israel studies at the university level. Historical precedents for departments of Hebrew language instruction, Jewish studies centers and area studies will be examined to determine where Israel studies chair holders are emerging. After defining Israel studies, a qualitative methodological approach will be used to evaluate the disciplinary focus of this emerging area. Curriculum available from and degree granting capabilities of various programs will be examined. In addition surveys taken of Israel studies scholars will provide their assessments of the development of the subject. Four case studies will highlight Israel studies as it is emerging in two public (land grant institutions) versus two private universities. An emphasis will be placed on why Israel studies might be located outside Middle Eastern studies. Questions regarding the placing of Israel studies within Jewish studies or Near Eastern Languages and Culture departments will be addressed. The placing of Israel studies chairs and centers involves questions of national and global identity. How these identities are conceptualized by scholars in the field, as well as how they are reflected in the space found for Israel studies scholars are the motivating factors for the case studies.
    [Show full text]
  • Anita Shapira Hirbet Hizah Between Remembering and Forgetting
    Anita Shapira Hirbet Hizah Between Remembering and Forgetting Woe to the generation that has to commit the acts of “Hizah” and flees the pain of their recounting. —Ephraim Kleiman Memory—what, how, and when we remember—continues to fascinate scholars. It is elusive, complex, and difficult to define. Collective memory sits at the divide between the conscious and the subliminal, acknowledg- ment and denial, history and psychology. Currently in vogue is the con- struct of a “usable past”: collective memory as a product of national- cultural manipulation, which embeds those portions of the past that reinforce society’s self-image and foster its interests and agendas. This con- ception rejects the notion of spontaneous processes at work in the for- mation of collective memory. But if conscious intent does shape memory, who are its agents? What are their tools? In democracies, moreover, there is never one single guiding hand. How does the open arena of conflicting interests impact on memory’s configuration? When is a particular event stamped in memory? What processes catalyze its fixing; what forces act to submerge it? If the “usable past” ministers to present interests, what hap- pens to past segments that do not serve current goals? Are they relegated to oblivion? Or do past and present interact dynamically, transforming memory as changing circumstances impact on public consciousness? Memory confounds historical consciousness. The gray area between consciousness and memory is especially evident when dealing with top- ics hard to face, such as the departure/flight/removal/expulsion of Arabs in Israel’s War of Independence. This essay deals with changing represen- tations of the past and the interrelation of memory and reality.
    [Show full text]
  • Israeli Literature and the American Reader
    Israeli Literature and the American Reader by ALAN MINTZ A HE PAST 25 YEARS HAVE BEEN a heady time for lovers of Is- raeli literature. In the 1960s the Israeli literary scene began to explode, especially in terms of fiction. Until then, poetry had been at the center of literary activity. While S.Y. Agnon's eminence, rooted in a different place and time, persisted, the native-born writers who began to produce stories and novels after 1948 never seemed to be able to carry their ef- forts much beyond the struggles and controversies of the hour. Then suddenly there were the short stories of Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, and Amalia Kahana-Carmon, followed by their first and second novels. These writers were soon joined by Shulamit Hareven, Yehoshua Kenaz, Yaakov Shabtai, and David Grossman. Into the 1980s and 1990s the debuts of impressive new writers became more frequent, while the productivity of the by-now established ones only intensified. What was different about this new Israeli literature was the quality and inventiveness of its fictional techniques and its ability to explore univer- sal issues in the context of Israeli society. There was also a new audience for this literature; children of immigrants had become sophisticated He- brew readers. Many of the best books became not only critical successes but best-sellers as well. Was this a party to which outsiders were invited? Very few American Jews knew Hebrew well enough to read a serious modern Hebrew book, so that even if they were aware of the celebration, they could not hear the music.
    [Show full text]
  • Gender and Resistance in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: the Woman's Voice in The
    Gender and Resistance in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Woman's Voice in the Literary Works of Sahar Khalifeh and David Grossman Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Breanne White, B.A. Graduate Program in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures The Ohio State University 2013 Thesis Committee: Naomi Brenner, Advisor Joseph Zeidan Copyright by Breanne White 2013 Abstract Amidst the many literary voices in Arabic and Hebrew clamoring for prominence in the narration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are those that actively resist dominant social narratives, highlighting the multiplicity of experiences held by different members of society and how they are affected by the conflict. In this thesis I examine the literary works of two novelists, the Palestinian Sahar Khalifeh and the Israeli David Grossman, and the specific ways in which they resist dominant societal representations of the “other,” both in political and gendered terms. Sahar Khalifeh's The Inheritance focuses specifically on women's role in a society under occupation, while David Grossman's To The End of the Land looks at the military conflict through the lens of a mother concerned about her soldier son. Focusing on the woman's role in the family and in society, both Khalifeh and Grossman reveal the damaging effects that the conflict has on the social structures at the heart of both Israeli and Palestinian societies. In doing so, both Grossman and Khalifeh create new paradigms for portraying women and conflict in literature, ones that promote women as empowered subjects and highlight the varied experiences of women in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
    [Show full text]