On The Art World Of Singer's Short Stories

Isaac Bashevis Singer, who is an American-Jewish writer and winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature, is a great fabulist and short story writer in the 20 th century. His supernatural short stories, which is the most distinctive part of his works, shows a very distinct writing style and personal charisma intensively and distinctly. His dozens of masterpieces, which are filled up with the fascinating figures of man and demon, bring the interior life of the modern Jewish to light, as well as the reflection of emotional emptiness and anxiety from a special point and expression. He appeals to his religion emotions and tries to awaken the Jews who are in perplexities and confusions.What’s more, he is worried about living conditions of the modern Polish-Jewish so much that he exceeds to the narrow national boundaries with a special concern of the whole Human Spiritual World.The first chapter takes the literature creation of Singer as a starting point, in order to analyze the supernatural world of his in a macroscopical view. Then it makes a brief survey of the theoretical study of Singer’s novels and defines the meanings and characteristics. This part introduces the topic by writing views, which shows the real Jewish life in two aspects: the secular and the religious. It also reveals the essence of the Jews’ anxiety and confusion by uncovering eerie appearance from a macroscopical view.By analyzing some typical works and reading his Chinese version carefully and thoroughly, the second chapter aims to focus on the interpretation of the real and the surreal context. In order to interpret his main subjects, which is desertion-return, and reveal the spiritual wasteland and the unusual events of the modern Jewish. Protagonists, who are succumbing to the lure of secularity, are at a loss among different lifestyles and cultural heterogeneity. Also, revealing struggle with conflict between national and modern civilization is an important theme.The third chapter Probes into the narrative art which is passionate and rooted in Judaic tradition in Poland from three following respects:introversion narrative perspective, the changeable narrative space and the symbolic imagery.The fourth chapter rests on Singer’s autobiographical masterpiece My Father’s Court to explore the causes of fantastic genre stories from writer identity, personal experience and educational background. Divided into two sections, this part turn to two areas, that is the factors of the nationality- family factors and social-historical factors, for future research. Section One focuses on the analysis of circumstance: Eastern European Jewish community and intro-family. Section two researches on the complex identity of the author who exiled America as a Jewish refugee.Conclusion part summarizes the whole thesis and rediscovers the trend of the Jewish Wandering and the quest for Self-identity. It also reveals the attention of mankind through the perception of Singer’s fantastic art world.