Personal Aspects Of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Life Present In The Two Short Stories: “Zlateh The Goat” And “A Boy Philosopher”

Orquídea Rodríguez
Personal Aspects of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Life Present in the Two Short Stories: “Zlateh the Goat” and “A Boy Philosopher”
Why should we talk about Isaac Bashevis Singer in our North American Literature course? To begin with, I should mention that he was a prolific Polish-American writer who grew in a family of rabbis. His father was the head of a Hasidic community wherethey followed strict religious rules. Then, the German occupation to his native country, Poland, forced him to find freedom in the United States of America, where he found himself adapting to a new culture. In general, Singer not only wrote for adults, but also for children. His works for adults address issues of his personal life as a Jewish immigrant, his life back in Poland, and also thediscrimination that Jewish people suffered from many years. He wrote a collection of memoirs called In My Fathers Court where he depicts his life in Poland and later in the US. There he showed his position towards Judaism and describe important aspects about his family, like religious struggles. From this book we can see why, even though when he was raised in a family of rabbis and his brothers followedin his father’s footsteps by becoming rabbis, Singer chose to follow another path.
In relation to his stories for children, critics say that he created a world full of Jewish mythology and fantasy. Even when he was against some aspects of Judaism, Singer considered important to keep Jewish traditions alive, and his works reflect such concerns. To him, this was paramount for in the times during andafter the War, it helped to give Jews some sense of cultural and religious union despite the fact they were suffering from racial discrimination. I consider that he felt commited to his people, they were being persecuted and killed and he wanted to rescue their memories and traditions. Singer’s children stories were full of messages like moral values; for example, to value espiritual things morethan the material ones, and also the repect towards animals and other human beings. As a matter of fact he was vegetarian. In one of his collections of short stories called Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories, published by Harper Collins Publishers, we read the following:
I dedicate this book to to the many children who had no chance to grow up because of stupid wars and cruel persecutions whichdevastated cities and destroyed innocent families. I hope that when the readers of these stories become men and women they will love not only their own children but all good children everywhere.( Foreword written by the author, pag. 4).
These lines make reference to all that children that died because of the holocaust and other massacres. It also could make reference to his first son, the onewhom he left with his mother when he moved to New York. All those things influenced his works, where he exposed the importance of keeping the traditions and strengthening family values. For this paper I’m going to argue how in two of his short stories: “Zlateh the Goat” and “A Boy Philosopher” the author reflects common human conditions in terms of religion, moral values and the importance of thefamily. In these short stories, we see the many contradictions a person may encounter in his/her life: on one side, the reinforcement of faith, but on the other side, we see a religious struggle; in one story, we see the division of the family, but in the other we see the reinforcement of family love. The paper is dividaed in the following sections: The Importance of Family, Religious Struggle andThe Importance of Keeping Traditions Alive, The Search and The Young Aaron and The Little Boy. This order simbolizes the order of importance that this subjects had in Singer’s life.
The Importance of Family
We all know that the family is very important to societies. We grow up in a family that teaches values, traditions, and helps us to live in society. The family becomes a more relevant...