The Image of the Jewish Grandfather in the “Formation’s Narratives” by Ilse Losa and Samuel Rawet

Abstract

The figure of the Jewish grandfather occupies a central position in the two autobiographic narratives: O mundo em que vivi (1949) by Ilse Losa and “Gringuinho”, by Samuel Rawet’s collection Contos do Imigrante (1956). In these narratives, the role of the grandfather is extremely important for the consolidation of the Jewish identity in the childhood of the characters, transmitting an ethical and affective Judaism. In the historical context surrounding the II World War, marked by anti-Semitism in the native land and xenophobia in the foreign country, such figure of the Jewish grandfather assumes a fundamental communitarian support regarding the threat of disintegration of the Jewish familial core. We thus proposeby means of literary analysis of the two narratives, a social-historical reflection on such figure, which can be linked to the biblical elder. We pretend as well, to widen the definitions of novel of formation while literary genre, taking as a starting point the Rawet’s short story.