"Enemies - A Love Story"

Paper Summary:

A discussion of how Singer portrays the Holocaust and the personalities of Holocaust survivors in his book, "Enemies - A Love Story". It tells the story of the entangled fates of several people who have survived the Holocaust and made it to the United States and to New York City. It explains how Singer manages to keep the book sufficiently neutral so that it is suitable for both Gentile and Jewish readers.

From the Paper:

"Indeed: in the author's note to Enemies: A Love Story, Singer writes that "(a)lthough I did not have the privilege of going through the Hitler holocaust, I have lived for years in New York with refugees from this ordeal." He goes on to state that having said this, he wants the reader to understand that the experiences of the characters in the novel are far from representative of the "regular" refugee, but that, in the end, no one is "regular," and everyone inflects the experience of severe trauma with his or her own personality and fate. In other words, while there is no one way that anyone got through the Holocaust, there are ways to speak to and of the experiences of many survivors in such a manner that they are representative and, therefore, resonant of and for large numbers of people, including those who have never experienced such a thing."

More papers on "Enemies - A Love Story":

• Comparison Essay # 94303 : "Anti-Feminist Views"
• Comparison Essay # 26289 : "Fools Rush In" and "Love Story"
• Book Review # 94104 : "Isaac Bashevis Singer"

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