Communication and Society in Jewish American Short Stories: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, Grace Paley and Philip Roth

EXPOSÉ


“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant
factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer
without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it
will be.”
(http://www.memorablequotations.com)

This quotation by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov deals with two fundamental issues of this paper: “change” and “society”. All of our protagonists will, as is one of the characteristics of the short story, be shown at a turning point effecting change in their lives. Also, I am going to concentrate on the relationship between the tales (central) characters and society. Do they need society as a point of reference, or are they leading their lives independently from and with no relationship to the culture surrounding them? Do they come from another, for example Eastern European, background? If yes, can they adapt easily, do they have difficulties adapting or do they not intend to adapt at all?

Pointing out that Isaac Asimov is Jewish and therefore potentially relevant for this paper is superfluous. Yet not every author who happens to be Jewish can automatically be significant for this paper. For me, a certain amount of “Jewishness”, that is Jewish characters, a piece of Jewish tradition, religion or the presence of a Jewish neighborhood, was required for a tale to be considered.

This restriction would still leave thousands of authors and millions of narratives. Therefore I chose to treat only New York authors and selected their stories, among other criteria, according to setting, that is, their main location had to be New York City. Hence I included Grace Paley and left out perhaps better known writers, for example Saul Bellow, who is generally associated with Chicago more than any other city. [...]