Darbagel Delingus

Darlene McCoy
Bruce Thompson
LTMO 144D
31 May 2011
Ghosts in the Big City
    Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote short stories. He wrote stories about life, loss, love, religion, and his uncanny nack to do so at such a high ability earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. He was a man raised in the Jewish Orthodox tradition in a shtetl; and a man who brought his experiences there with him when he immigrated to the United States in 1935. He was a man who lived through the times of the Holocaust, and who saw the decimation of his people. He was a man who believed in the supernatural, and who wrote them into his tales of American-Jewish life. Two of his greatest tales, "The Cafeteria" and "A Wedding in Brownsville" are examples of his great work.
    Both of these works take place in New York, a place not particularly known for the supernatural and ghosts, yet Singer manages to make his stories seem plausible through his characters' musings and the settings where said characters ponder. The setting for each tale is essentially the title of the story --  in "A Wedding in Brownsville" action comes to pass at a wedding, and "The Cafeteria's" central plot revolves around a cafeteria. The two places share a common attribute: the local masses are a large presence in each setting. These local masses call themselves Jewish, but the protagonist of each story cringes at their self-description. Aaron, "The Cafeteria's" protagonist, describes the unruly masses he finds in the cafeteria as "People who try in their own way with all their means to grab as many honors and as much money and prestige as one can" (287-289). He does not see how they can call themselves Jewish, for the Jewish faith does not endorse a money-grubbing way of life. When he arrives at the wedding, Solomon, "A Wedding in Brownsville's" narrator notes the self-indulgent joy taking place in the room, "The room was filled with people and music, with tables heaped with food, a bar stacked with bottles. Guests kept arriving, pushing their way through the crowd, some still in their hats and coats, munching hors d'oeuvres, drinking schnapps" (46). All of the people in attendance of the wedding denote themselves as Jewish as well, but the Solomon does not feel that a self-indulgent lifestyle is much of the Jewish tradition. He even feels that some of the attendees will regard him as a snob for not wanting to take part in the festivities as other guests. The main theme that emerges from both of these settings is that American Judaism has evolved into a way of life that is no longer traditionally Jewish. It is plausible that the more traditionally Jewish people may be seen as ghosts of the past.
    The two protagonists of the tales share a common trait as well: they are mostly alone in the world. Aaron is a single bachelor who is quite devoted to his work as a writer. His main interaction with other people comes from his visits to the cafeteria, but he sees them as people who come and go, and does not care for anyone in particular. He describes his interactions with his community as, "I know each block, each house. There has been little building here on uptown Broadway in the last decades, and I have the illusion of having put down roots here. They known me in some of the stores and in the vegetarian restaurants. Even the pigeons know me" (288). Solomon is married, but he is married to a woman who best fits him, not the woman who he was madly in love with in the old country. Furthermore, Solomon attends the wedding alone, and the story describes his relationship with the other attendees as "Dr. Margolin knew everybody, and yet knew nobody" (46). Even among people who should be considered his own, he feel as if he is a misfit. A ghost among a crowd of living people would be quite misfitted, indeed.
    A more physical attribute of each setting is the simple fact that a significant number of people congregate at weddings and in cafeterias. While a ghost representing an old way of life would still be unexpected to appear, it is more plausible for a ghost to appear in a public area with lots of people than a secluded one without masses.
    Each tale is written from a limited point of view. "The Cafeteria" is a first person narrative, and "A Wedding in Brownsville" is written in a third-person limited point of view. The reader only knows as much as the narrator can see, and he can only recount his experience from his perspective to his audience. Therefore, the experiences in each tale may be quite different if told by another. This discernment allows for the idea of a more supernatural narrator to creep into the minds of the audience.
    At a point in the text of a well-written short story, a reader becomes engaged with the text. Since "The Cafeteria" and "A Wedding in Brownsville" are regarded as well written short stories, there are points of engagement in each tale. The exact point of engagement will differ from reader to reader, since all people think differently and have different interests, but the point that seems most prominent as the point of engagement in these two tales is the point in the short story where there is a mentioning of fallen Jewish values. In "The Cafeteria," Aaron mentions that "None of us learn from all of these deaths. Old age does not cleanse us. We don't repent at the gate of hell" (288). These words imply that simply growing old does not wash the sins of youth away. In "A Wedding in Brownsville," the narrator says, in regards to Solomon's wife Gretl, "Even she, born a Christian, could see that American Judaism was a mess" (43). These points in each text seem so prominent because of the original audience these short stories were published for. "The Cafeteria" and "A Wedding in Brownsville" were both originally written in Yiddish and published in Jewish newspapers in New York, the greatest center for Jewish life in the world at the time. The fall of Jewish values would have been quite the issue for the population of that place, at that time.
    Another general goal of short story telling is to invoke some sort of emotion out of the reader or audience. Singer's ability to invoke emotion is at its highest when he describes incredibly human values and feelings. In "The Cafeteria," one of the stories Aaron hears is about a man who had a shop in Auschwitz, the largest German concentration camp. When he inquires more about the tale, a man responds, "God help us. He kept his merchandise in the straw where he slept - a rotten potato, sometimes a piece of soap, a tin spoon, a little fat. Still, he did business. Later, in Germany, he became such a big smuggler that they took forty thousand dollars away from him" (293). The image of a man selling "merchandise" out of the very straw he sleeps on to other people in the same, grotesque situation as he, is not only heartbreaking, but infuriating. How could this man even think to call himself Jewish? How could he deny any help to others in sure dire need? Is money worth humanity? This small little story in Singer's larger tale is one to tug at the heartstrings of all who call themselves human. It invokes horrid images, and even more horrid behavior due to situations that should have never been fathomed as reality. In "A Wedding in Brownsville," the narrator states at the beginning of the story that Solomon never married his true love, Raizel. At the end of the tale, Solomon is reunited with this young lady, and the narrator describes the situation in fantastic detail, "He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, but at any moment someone might come in. He stood besides her, ashamed that he had married someone else, that he had not personally confirmed the reports of her death" (48). The moment at which a person reunited with a long lost love is not a moment to be scoffed at. It is a wonderful, amazing beautiful moment and also a moment that many a human has the ability to imagine. The idea of love is also one that is universally moving. People sometimes die for love and whatnot. It's quite the emotion.
    Because ghosts in New York city are a little out of the ordinary, it comes as a surprise to the reader that there are ghosts in these stories. Singer is extremely skilled at turning a story upside down in a line or two. In "A Wedding in Brownsville," the plot takes an unexpected twist when the Solomon realizes that the girl before him is indeed Raizel, but she is of the age that he knew her back in the old country. He is older. The progression of time makes no sense in his head, as it should, so he begins to consider other, otherworldly reasons why Raizel stands before him. Solomon comes to the conclusion that he may have died as well. He might have died earlier in the story, when his taxi cab's driver slammed on the breaks due to a collision in front of them. He realizes that he has no clue as to whether he is living or dead. He then recalls dancing in a drunk-dead state. A drunken dead state would be much out of the Jewish tradition, and it might have just "killed" his Jewishness and converted him to the American-Jewish tradition he is so unaffectionate towards. He might have gained the ability to see Raizel through death, because she, in his eyes, is dead, and has been. "The Cafeteria's" plot twist comes as just as much as a surprise as the one in "A Wedding in Brownsville." Aaron, while at the cafeteria, meets a woman named Esther, and continues to have casual, sparatic, and strange relations with her. They become friends, but Esther sometimes disappears for random amounts of time, and Aaron generally does not have much of an idea about her whereabouts. One day, Esther tells Aaron that she has been deemed insane by many a person. He inquires as to why anyone would think so, and she tells him a little tale. One late night, she could not sleep, so she decided to wander the streets of Broadway around three AM. She came upon a cafeteria, and observed an eerie, glowing light emitting from he building. She could not peer in due to drawn blinds, but when she opened the revolving door to the premises, she saw a scene that would haunt her, and cause her insanity. Esther says that she saw Hitler and some fellow followers sitting around a table, dressed in white robes. She stood in terror, shocked, until one of the followers noticed her, and then she fled. She found the building burnt to the ground the following day, and attributed it to the scene she had seen the night before. Later in the tale, Aaron is wandering about Broadway late at night when he spies Esther, in the best shape he had ever seen her, with an old man from his past. Due to time constraints, Aaron decides not to make contact with her, and instead spends nights wondering who exactly the man with her was. In order to learn more, he inquires about Esther a few days later at the cafeteria. A man there tells Aaron that she had committed suicide quite some time ago. Confused and baffled, Aaron comes to the conclusion that ghosts could walk the streets of New York, and therefore, there is no reason why Hitler would not be present at a cafeteria in New York. He draws the conclusion that Esther and Hitler would both be ghosts, but his perception of the world only allowed him to see Esther.
    These elements of the two short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer are small scratches at the meaning behind his words. They are simply general elements of most short stories, and therefore more readily discussable. He was indeed, a fantastic author whose work will echo throughout Jewish literature for times to come.