The Many Functions of the Demoniac and the Supernatural in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Short Stories
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35699/1982-3053.2022.42279Keywords:
Demons, Jewish Religion and Folklore, Yiddish LiteratureAbstract
This article aims at discussing some of the functions that demons and other
supernatural beings have in the short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer. It examines texts
by Singer in which the demon appears either as a character or as narrator in an attempt
to clarify what is precisely modern in Singer’s literary approach to the folklore of the
Jews from Eastern Europe. In the stories by Singer we find dybbukim, imps and
domestic demons who live behind the stove, people who pretend to be demons in
order to have their way in life, and also actual demons who take charge of the writer’s
pen to tell stories related to the destruction of the Polish Jews in the 20th century.
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