ESSAY CEMETERY

In the latter half of the twentieth century, several Jewish American writers have taken on the task of representing the Holocaust and its victims in their art. Even though Isaac Bashevis Singer, Art Spiegelman and Cynthia Ozick are did not experience the Holocaust themselves, several of their works center on this sensitive issue. Through their short story, graphic novel and novella they explore the difficulty of writing about a topic that is for them as American Jews both near and distant, and raise issues regarding American society's treatment of Holocaust victims. Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus embodies the artist's struggle with depiction of the Holocaust on several levels. First, such a struggle is inherent the narrative's very form. For the depiction of a Holocaust story, Spiegelman chose the graphic novel, a medium he associates himself in the novel with the lighthearted fun of Walt Disney's cartoons (in a conversation with Vladek). Even though the su...

Isaac Bashevis Singer Themes ·        Plentiful food ·        Funeral parlor like cafeteria ·        Experience doesn't change us ·        A happy holocaust survivor ·        Care with emotions ·        Loss of a sense of decency in the war ·        Loss of idealism ·        Afterlife ·        The long-lived effect of Hitler ·        The reparation policies doing more harm than good (just like The Shawl ·        The past haunts the present ·        Personal trauma leads to social trauma ·        Fame of writers · ...

I Aaron, 60-70 year old writer and lecturer, in New York, often eats at a cafeteria where he meets people who speak Yiddish from Poland and other artist types and talks with them. He is extremely familiar with his neighborhood. He lived in Poland for 30 years and then in his neighborhood for the same amount of time. In the 1950s Esther joined the group who was a holocaust survivor. She was still happy and admired Aaron's work and this charmed him. Her father told him about life in Siberia. II Aaron had to leave for Israel and when he came back he couldn't find her. He goes to look for her in the cafeteria and find it has burned down. He can't be bothered to keep searching. Half a year later he goes to the library and finds her. She says she has been sick as has her father. She does not want an idiot husband or an uncouth husband. They discuss the afterlife; Aaron is optimistic whereas Esther is pessimistic. III The cafeterianiks came back. They keep talking...