The Construction Of Jewish Identity Under The "Postmemory" Of The Holocaust

Nathan Englander is one of the most important novelists in contemporary American Jewish literature.He takes his unique life experience as his creative background and pays close attention to the reality of Jewish life in contemporary society in the United States.His works are deeply rooted in the folk memory and Orthodox tradition of the Jews who immigrated to the United States,depicting a colorful picture of Jewish community life.His works profoundly reveal the situation that contemporary American Jews face.They are eager to be recognized and understood by their families which reflects the general dilemma of the lack of Jewish cultural tradition for ordinary Jews.Since the 21st century,the output and influence of Nathan Englander’s works have continued to rise,which has drawn more and more western scholars to analyze and interpret his works,especially the Jewish image and trauma theme in his works.Previous scholars have paid more attention to the theme and identity issues of Nathan Englander’s works.This dissertation intends to focus on the main reasons for the formation of the theme of Nathan Englander’s works,especially on how he works in“postmemory” and how to reconstruct the real life from magic realistic perspective.And the connection between the new problems and new demands encountered by Jews in the process of seeking a new life shall be revealed in this dissertation.This dissertation will explore and clarify the impact and role of “postmemory”on the construction of identity for Nathan Englander,a third-generation American Jewish writer living a contemporary social life.For the descendants of survivors who have never experienced the Holocaust,but have always been living in its shadow,in order to further explore the relationship reflected in the “postmemory” generation of American Jews on their own identity construction,questions including how they look upon the Holocaust and how they deal with the extreme behavior of anti-Semitism,and how the secular world people accept the Jewish people are worth studying.Based on Marianne Hirsch’s theory of “postmemory”,this dissertation will discuss the narrative strategies Nathan Englander uses.Since the third generation of American Jewish immigrant writers,compared with the first generation and the second generation of writers,has a natural greater distance from the Holocaust,having no direct memory of the event,they can only write through the memory of the Holocaust trauma and pre-trauma experience of the previous generations.Therefore,the narrative perspective occupies a more intermediary and indirect position and cannot be directly narrated.Instead,some narrative strategies or counterpoint strategies are used to balance them.Therefore,the description of the Holocaust is much more obscure than that of the first-and second-generation writers.In view of the practical significance of studying Nathan Englander’s writing of Jewish living and psychological conditions based on the “postmemory” theory,this dissertation selects Nathan Englander’s two short story collections including For the Relief of Unbearable Urges and What We Talk about When We Talk about Anne Frank and three novels named The Ministry of Special Cases,Dinner at the Center of the Earth,and Kaddish.com as study objects.This dissertation will discuss his“postmemory” writing and the formation of his Jewish identity from three perspectives,namely the classification of characters,narrative strategies and the identity construction process.For the survivors’ offspring without Holocaust experience,“postmemory”becomes their direct memory,in which their mind and feelings linger,and their concerns of the Holocaust memory and apprehension of reality can be mediated.Based on different “postmemory” experiences,survivors’ offspring do live in different conditions,so they also derive a variety of different character configurations,such as victim,avenger,builder and mediator.By analyzing different themes in Nathan Englander’s creation,this dissertation studies how different narrative strategies serve the corresponding themes.Through the above discussion,this dissertation argues that Nathan Englander,as a third-generation American Jewish writer,no longer entangles himself in the bewilderment of Jewish identity in assimilation;instead of trying to hide or renounce his Jewish identity,he publicizes his Jewish identity in a high-profile manner and actively returns to Jewish doctrines and rituals,tries to coordinate with the mainstream American culture,and pays close attention to the Holocaust,its historical fact and influence.Previous Jewish American writers tended to avoid the Holocaust theme,but Nathan Englander’s work focuses on the Holocaust and its effect.He questions the Holocaust-based construction of Jewish identity.And on how to resolve the traumatic violence caused by the Holocaust,Nathan Englander reflected on the mainstream narrative of the Holocaust.Therefore,the study of Nathan Englander’s works is of great value to the study of Jewish identity,Holocaust theme and revenge of the "postmemory" generation of Jewish writers living in a diversified new era.