In the Basement (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Isaac Babel
- First Published: 1931
- Type of Plot: Autobiographical
- Time of Work: 1906
- Setting: Odessa, Ukraine
- Principal Characters: The narrator, Mark Borgman, Leive-Itzhok, Bobka, Simon
- Genres: Short fiction, Autobiographical fiction
- Subjects: Family or family life, Suicide, Art or artists, Class consciousness, Asia or Asians, Jews or Jewish life, Storytelling, Imagination, Loneliness
- Locales: Odessa, Ukraine
The Story
The narrator and protagonist of the story is a lonely and fanciful boy from a poor and odd Jewish family living in a basement. The reader learns about the boy's imaginative and artistic powers and his artistic method at the beginning of the story. In the first scene, the narrator overhears his rich classmate, Mark Borgman, telling the other boys about the Spanish Inquisition. Having just read a book on Baruch Spinoza, and disappointed with the lack of poetry in Mark's narration, the protagonist gives a brilliant picture of old Amsterdam, the philosophers who cut...
[The entire page is 1312 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
See Also
