Enemies (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Isaac Bashevis Singer
- First Published: 1966
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: The postwar 1940’s
- Setting: New York City and upstate New York
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Love or romance, Suicide, New York City, Marriage, 1940’s, World War II, Polygamy or bigamy, Jews or Jewish life, Holocaust, Jewish, Judaism
- Locales: New York, NY
Characters Discussed
Herman Broder, a refugee from Poland, where the Nazis have destroyed his family. He lives in Brooklyn and makes a living by ghostwriting for a rabbi, though he tells his wife, Yadwiga, that he is a traveling book salesman so that he can spend time with his lover, Masha Tortshiner, in her apartment in the Bronx. He observes Jewish dietary laws but otherwise has largely forsaken his Jewish faith, having become utterly fatalistic. Perhaps it is this fatalistic attitude, coupled with a smoldering eroticism, that makes him attractive to the three women who love...
[The entire page is 862 words long]
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