The Gentleman from Cracow | The Gentleman from Cracow

At a glance:

Author: Isaac Bashevis Singer
First Published: 1957
Type of Plot: Allegory
Time of Work: Unspecified
Setting: Frampol, a fictitious village near Cracow, Poland
Principal Characters: The gentleman from Cracow, Hodle, Rabbi Ozer
Genres: Short fiction, Allegory
Subjects: Tradition, Supernatural, Doctors, Poverty or poor people, Jews or Jewish life, Storms, Legends, Ethics, Miracles, Disasters, Natural disasters, Devils or demons, Generation gap, Talmud, Peasantry or peasants, Insects, Droughts, Satan or Satanism, Grasshoppers
Locales: Cracow, Poland

Isaac Bashevis Singer develops his narrative carefully in five parts. Part 1 introduces the fictitious little Polish village of Frampol, whose peasants are poor and whose Jewish villagers struggle against extreme impoverishment. Frampol's only asset is its children: boys who grow tall and strong and girls who bloom handsomely. Suddenly the whole area is stricken by a devastating drought that ends in a climactic hailstorm accompanied by supernatural events: “Locusts huge as birds came in the wake of the storm; human voices were said to issue from their...

The Gentleman from Cracow | The Gentleman from Cracow

At a glance:

The Story

Join eNotes