"Envy; Or, Yiddish in America"

Paper Summary:

This paper reviews and discusses the short story, "Envy; Or, Yiddish in America" by Cynthia Ozick. According to the paper, the story reveals the author's nuanced feelings toward the disappearance of the Yiddish language and culture. The paper discusses how, although on the surface "Envy" seems mostly critical of Yiddish writers-- as if they either are talentless or almost betray the Jewish community--its underlying message is that a once vibrant community has been destroyed to such an extent that its survivors are hopeless unless they are able to escape it. The paper reports that the story is about the need to rebuild in order to preserve at least some aspect of the Yiddish community Ozick loves and respects.

From the Paper:

"Ozick structures her essay around the claim that "in order to believe in the real possibility of translation, the translator must believe in certain impossible theses... [which are] important, useful and false" (Metaphor and Memory 200). The first false premise a translator must accept is that poems are "uncovered" rather than translated "because without this belief a translation can never be seen as a thing achieved, concluded finished" (Metaphor and Memory 200). Thus, the hack fails even Ozick's first premise for translation. Although Ozick's essay focuses on poetry, the hack's translation methods stray so far from those suggested by Ozick that it is reasonable to conclude Ozick disapproves of the hack's technique. The hack continues to search for synonyms until Ostrover chooses one to his liking--she strays from Ozick's ideal in which a work is "uncovered" and the translator determines the final form of the work."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Friedman, Lawrence S. Understanding Cynthia Ozick. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.
• Kauvar, Elaine M. Cynthia Ozick's Fiction: Tradition and Invention. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993.
• Lowin, Joseph. Cynthia Ozick. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988.
• Ozick, Cynthia. Art and Ardor. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983.
• ---. "Envy; Or, Yiddish in America." Jewish American Literature: A Norton Anthology. Eds. Jules Chametzky, John Felstiner, Hilene Flanzbaum, and Kathryn Hellerstein. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. 858-896.

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