As the owner of Nobel Prize for Literature, Saul Bellow＇s （1915-2005） fiction has always been a great concern in literary world. It has been studied from various perspectives since its publication. While comparativ...As the owner of Nobel Prize for Literature, Saul Bellow＇s （1915-2005） fiction has always been a great concern in literary world. It has been studied from various perspectives since its publication. While comparatively speaking, few studies were made from the historical lens. Actually, in his fiction, history is presented by fiction which contributes to the making of history. The purpose of the present paper is through close reading of his novels to find out the different historic periods of American Jews from ＂the strangers＂ to ＂the natives＂, the ＂More than Human＂ and ＂Less than Human＂ to the ＂Exact Human＂ presented in his fiction and thus help readers to have a better understanding about the Jewish life and identity.展开更多
Mendel, a survivor of Auschwitz who lives in Israel, remains silent for forty years after his traumatic experiences. However, Mendel, for no reason that his daughter Bella, also a survivor, can discern, begins to test...Mendel, a survivor of Auschwitz who lives in Israel, remains silent for forty years after his traumatic experiences. However, Mendel, for no reason that his daughter Bella, also a survivor, can discern, begins to testify to his horrific ordeals during the Holocaust at putatively inopportune times, such as religious holidays and family celebrations. When his granddaughter Hayuta plans an engagement party, the social and historical incongruities of the Holocaust in the context of contemporary Israeli society become apparent. Ordinary pleasures are matters of moral obloquy in the face of the unfathomable black hole of the Holocaust. While critics have charged Mendel＇s daughter with preoccupation with invidious social climbing and his granddaughter Hayuta with moral reprehensible compartmentalization of her historical and familial existences, Liebrecht unwittingly implies that historical trauma has very diverse and inexplicable effects on different family members： Some, like the daughter Bella, eventually wish to hear more about the experiences of her father （while feeling that his words will ＂＇ruin＂ her social life）, while Hayuta and Shifra his daughter-in-law react by shunning the speech of Mendel, which they experience as destroying their quotidian happiness.展开更多
Increasingly, scholars of Holocaust memory stress its globalization： the ways in which the Holocaust has become a model or reference point for remembered events that belong to quite different historical and cultural ...Increasingly, scholars of Holocaust memory stress its globalization： the ways in which the Holocaust has become a model or reference point for remembered events that belong to quite different historical and cultural contexts. The best of this literature acknowledges the ways in which the local, national, and global are in continual dialogue. This article looks at an instance in which memory remains stubbornly local and national even in contexts in which it is ostensibly internationalized. The article is concerned with history exhibitions about the Nazi era in Germany and Austria and examines one particular set of museum objects： household possessions that have been stored in homes since 1945 and that are typically presented by the museum as having ＂resurfaced＂ in the present. These objects are used to concretize abstract processes of remembering and forgetting, communication and silence, in the years from 1945 to the end of the twentieth century. As such, they form part of ongoing debates about how family memory operated during that period in Germany and Austria.展开更多
文摘As the owner of Nobel Prize for Literature, Saul Bellow＇s （1915-2005） fiction has always been a great concern in literary world. It has been studied from various perspectives since its publication. While comparatively speaking, few studies were made from the historical lens. Actually, in his fiction, history is presented by fiction which contributes to the making of history. The purpose of the present paper is through close reading of his novels to find out the different historic periods of American Jews from ＂the strangers＂ to ＂the natives＂, the ＂More than Human＂ and ＂Less than Human＂ to the ＂Exact Human＂ presented in his fiction and thus help readers to have a better understanding about the Jewish life and identity.
文摘Mendel, a survivor of Auschwitz who lives in Israel, remains silent for forty years after his traumatic experiences. However, Mendel, for no reason that his daughter Bella, also a survivor, can discern, begins to testify to his horrific ordeals during the Holocaust at putatively inopportune times, such as religious holidays and family celebrations. When his granddaughter Hayuta plans an engagement party, the social and historical incongruities of the Holocaust in the context of contemporary Israeli society become apparent. Ordinary pleasures are matters of moral obloquy in the face of the unfathomable black hole of the Holocaust. While critics have charged Mendel＇s daughter with preoccupation with invidious social climbing and his granddaughter Hayuta with moral reprehensible compartmentalization of her historical and familial existences, Liebrecht unwittingly implies that historical trauma has very diverse and inexplicable effects on different family members： Some, like the daughter Bella, eventually wish to hear more about the experiences of her father （while feeling that his words will ＂＇ruin＂ her social life）, while Hayuta and Shifra his daughter-in-law react by shunning the speech of Mendel, which they experience as destroying their quotidian happiness.
文摘Increasingly, scholars of Holocaust memory stress its globalization： the ways in which the Holocaust has become a model or reference point for remembered events that belong to quite different historical and cultural contexts. The best of this literature acknowledges the ways in which the local, national, and global are in continual dialogue. This article looks at an instance in which memory remains stubbornly local and national even in contexts in which it is ostensibly internationalized. The article is concerned with history exhibitions about the Nazi era in Germany and Austria and examines one particular set of museum objects： household possessions that have been stored in homes since 1945 and that are typically presented by the museum as having ＂resurfaced＂ in the present. These objects are used to concretize abstract processes of remembering and forgetting, communication and silence, in the years from 1945 to the end of the twentieth century. As such, they form part of ongoing debates about how family memory operated during that period in Germany and Austria.
