THE WASHWOMAN BY ISAAC B. SINGER

THE WASHWOMAN by

Isaac Bashevis Singer Biography

AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY

Born: July 14, 1904

Radzymin, Poland

Died: July 24, 1991

Miami, Florida 

Isaac Bashevis Singer, a Polish-American author, was admired for his recreation of the forgotten world of nineteenth-century Poland and his depiction of a timeless Jewish ghetto (a city neighborhood where a minority group lives).

Early life

Isaac Bashevis Singer was born on July 14, 1904, in Radzymin, Poland. His family moved to Warsaw, Poland, when he was four years old. Both of his grandfathers were rabbis (Jewish spiritual leaders), and Singer was also groomed for Hasidism, a strict spiritual practice, and attended a seminary (a school to train rabbis). However, he decided on a writing career. His older brother, Israel Joseph, was a well-known Yiddish (a language spoken by Jewish people in eastern Europe) writer. Growing up, Singer was impressed by the Jewish folk tales told by his parents. These tales set the groundwork for some of Singer's fictional characters and religious faith.

After Singer completed his seminary studies, he worked as a journalist for the Yiddish press in various parts of Poland. Moving to the United States in 1935, Singer became a reporter for the Daily Forward in New York City, America's largest Yiddish newspaper. Although he personally adapted to his new habitat, his early literary efforts display an appreciation for the "old country." The subjects seem part of a distant past remembered from vivid tales of Polish storytellers.

First works

Singer's first novel, The Family Moskat (1950), was likened by critics to the narratives of the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883) and the French writer Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Based on Singer's own family, the novel succeeds in translating the reality of an orthodox (traditional) Jewish home into a universal reality. Two short stories, "Satan in Goray" and "The Dybbuk and the Golem" (1955), treat the superstition and foolishness of eastern European peasants (people from the lower, working class). A collection of short narratives, Gimpel, the Fool, and Other Stories (1957), reworked earlier themes but skillfully avoided repetition. Beneath the grotesque and folk elements, Singer included in "Gimpel" a psychological-theo-logical (religious) moral conflict in which an uncomplicated man finds his existence threatened by black magic and sorcery (powers from evil spirits).

Modern man is the subject of Singer's novel The Magician of Lublin (1960), which portrays a protagonist (main character) who dares to violate the holiness of tradition. The novel lacks the superb intricacy of The Family Moskat and the haunting suspense of "Gimpel." Still grappling with the modern experience in his next work, Singer set the eleven short pieces of The Spinoza of Market Street (1961) in a ghetto after World War II (1939–45; a war in which the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union fought against Germany, Japan, and Italy). Having departed from his quaintly unsophisticated world into contemporary urban madness, Singer revealed the stylistic limitations of his simple, flowing writings. "I've always stayed in my same nook, my same corner," Singer once reflected. "If a writer ventures out of his corner he is nothing."

HISTORICAL  BACKGROUND: Isaac Singer- shared much of his experiences growing up in the city of Warsaw and being Jewish in his writing.

EXPECTATIONS: In my opinion, I think this story tells us the life of young woman who needs to work hard to help her family. This woman is a single-mother, so that obligates her to work every day to maintain her two kids. I think this woman is discriminated because of her race. She is so happy although she lives a difficult situation.

CONNECTION BETWEEN LITERARY WORK AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In “The Washwoman,” Singer recalls the woman who did his family’s laundry when he was a child in Poland.  Singer never forgets her courage and endurance. She was a woman of integrity and self-respect who walked for miles to pick up and deliver laundry in order to earn money for her family. It is also about the relationships between Jews and Gentiles and mothers and sons.

LITERARY MOVEMENT: Early 20^th Century

COUNTRY: Poland

GENRE: Narrative Essay.

WHERE MY PREDICTIONS CORRECT?

My predictions do not quite coincide with some aspects of the real story.

For example, I thought of young woman who needs to work hard to help her family.

I also thought this woman was a single-mother, so that obligated her to work every day to maintain her two kids but the real situation was this: 

The washwoman was a Gentile working for a Jewish family among many others; she was in

her seventies but did her work and did it well despite the hardships of laundering – having no faucet,

the washwoman had to go to a pump and get water, she also carried the large bundle of clothes on

her back for a walk that lasted about an hour and a half; with these and other hardships, the woman had

a lot to endure for her low-paying job.

REFERENCES

Farrell, Grace, ed. Critical

Essays on Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: G. K. Hall, 1996.

Goran, Lester. The

Bright Streets of Surfside: The Memoir of a Friendship with Isaac Bashevis

Singer. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1994.

Hadda, Janet. Isaac

Bashevis Singer: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Siegel, Ben. Isaac

Bashevis Singer. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969.

Singer, Isaac Bashevis. In

My Father's Court. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966.

Zamir, Israel. Journey

to My Father, Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: Arcade, 1995