Singer, Isaac Bashevis - Joseph Sherman (essay date 1994)
Joseph Sherman (essay date 1994)
SOURCE: Sherman, Joseph. “What's Jews?: Isaac Bashevis Singer's Androgenus.” Prooftexts 14, no. 2 (May 1994): 167-88.
[In the following essay, Sherman explores the quest for spiritual self-fulfillment in Singer's story “Androygenus.”]
1
Na dir a groshn far dem oylem-habe, says a militant Maskil to his disciples near the beginning of one of Singer's monologue stories not yet published in English—bay mir yidishkayt iz oylem-haze. And with this emphatic assertion of what appears to be gross materialism, Singer launches into a remarkable critique of a once-vibrant movement toward spiritual renewal, which has fallen into decay. Through an investigation of the painful quest to find spiritual self-fulfillment of a devout but sexually ambivalent Jew, Singer's story “Androygenus”1 probes the possibility of accommodating the rigid injunctions of conventionally...
[The entire page is 10777 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
