American Jewish literature

To truly understand a country, I think it is very necessary to understand its literature, and its cultural background is the basis for understanding the national reality. Recently, I read some materials about American Jewish literature, which is quite thoughtful. I hope I can share it with you.

American Jewish literature is an indispensable part of American literature. American Jewish writers, especially those who published novels after 1950s, have made remarkable achievements and become the focus of readers and literary critics. They have successively won important national and even international awards. More importantly, they write not only for people of a certain ethnic group, but for all modern people. They described the suffering, marginal state, victimization, alienation and redemption of modern ordinary people.

Saul Bellow, bernard malamud and Cynthia Ozick are the most famous American Jewish writers. This paper aims to reveal how they absorbed the essence of Jewish culture and mainstream American culture and sought a new ideal country by studying their experiences and novels of the second generation of American Jewish immigrants, so as to correct the predicament of American society.

In 1950s and 1960s, the assimilation process of the second generation of American Jewish immigrants greatly changed their thoughts and concerns, especially American Jewish novelists as artists. In terms of cultural assimilation, American immigrants absorbed a lot of mainstream American cultural values and democratic norms, and their Jewish beliefs, Jewish cultural values and behavioral norms were reduced to the so-called "symbolic Judaism." In the assimilation of social structure, many years of efforts have made most American Jews rise to the middle class status, and they have greatly improved in politics, economy and society compared with the previous generation. Therefore, their attitude towards the attribute problem has also changed greatly. At least as far as educated middle-class Jews in the United States are concerned, they think that they are Americans first and then Jews. Their Judaism has been weakened to the minimum. However, because they can't completely get rid of the influence of Jewish cultural traditions, they are concerned about issues related to Jews. However, as American citizens, they are more concerned about American social problems. This is especially true for American Jewish writers. They will show some themes related to Jews, such as culture, identity and marginality. But these themes are often of universal value, not just related to their race.

Bellow, Malamud and Ozick are all American Jews, and their novels pay attention to the whole American society. However, when they interpret the sufferings of modern American society from the perspective of prototype, they are inspired by Jewish culture. No matter which nation has the experience of suffering, in Jewish culture, the long history of suffering aliens makes their explanation of suffering enough to cover the suffering of the whole human race.

First of all, they believe that people's suffering comes from the illusion of the American dream, that is, the United States is a model of democracy. They realized that cultural assimilation could not guarantee the disappearance of anti-Semitism. However, anti-Semitism is just one example of many inequalities in American society. Malamud's Kiev Complaint was published in 1960s, when the civil rights movement was in full swing. The book links the sufferings of Yakov, the protagonist, not only with the fate of the Jewish nation, but also with other oppressed minorities, revealing that various inequalities in American society are a betrayal of American democratic norms and values. At the same time, three American Jewish writers also show that the whole American society is increasingly controlled by a few rich people, most people are controlled by social machines, individuals are ignored, and life is devalued. Bellow's Herzog fully shows this theme. In addition, another core of the American dream-success-has increasingly become the crazy pursuit of money and fame. Bellow reveals that the whole society is full of money worship, egoism, emptiness and pain, and lacks spiritual pursuit through the image of Wilm in Seize the Day.

Bellow, Malamud and Ozick also expounded the problem of suffering from the perspective of Jewish tradition. One explanation is that pain is innate and incomprehensible, and human suffering is due to being in an unreasonable sacred structure, which is reflected in the Book of Job in the Bible and also reappeared in the fate of Lira Wenshaer in Bellow's Victims. The second explanation is that suffering should be understood as suffering for others. This explanation is embodied in Yakov in Malamud's novel Kyiv Complaint and Morris in Shop Assistant. The third explanation is that suffering is God's punishment for people who don't believe in God but worship idols. Bellow linked idolatry with honour worship in Seize the Day and Humboldt's Gift, while Ozick equated idolatry with honour worship in the usurpation (other people's stories), idolatry with indulging in sensuality and money in Rosa, and idolatry with assimilated life worship in Rosa. At the same time, she also warned about this: the pursuit of sensual material enjoyment.

In addition, three American Jewish writers also believe that pain comes from human evil, and evil comes from destructive human desires, such as the infinite expansion of self, the desire for sensual material enjoyment and fame and fortune. Malamud even imagined in God's grace that one day human evil would destroy the whole human society.

Bellow, Malamud and Ozick show a pursuit of an ideal society when they analyze the various forces that lead to pain in their novels, which has a lot to do with Plato, Augustine and Thomas Moore's classical utopian thought and modern political philosophy, but there are also many differences. This kind of utopia in the philosophical sense usually refers to an ideal country, an orderly place, a country with perfect social, political and moral aspects. It includes two aspects: the country or the government and the people. Classical utopian thought pays more attention to the control and restraint of people, and it often formulates various norms and requires people to strictly abide by them. Later, in modern political philosophy, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Thomas Payne and other philosophers put forward ideas about government systems, institutions and institutions. However, in classical utopia, because people are strictly bound, they have no right to choose freely and lack individuality, so it is desirable to expect to achieve a perfect state of society by formulating norms and forcing people to abide by them.

Bellow, Malamud and Ozick all explored the possibility of establishing a traditional ideal country in their novels. Bellow explored the ideals of political intellectuals in The Adventures of Auggie March, suggesting that American intellectuals' hopes for the Soviet political model in the 1930s and 1940s ended in disappointment. Bellow also proved in a trip to Jerusalem that Israel, a nation-state, is only a territory for all Jews to settle down in the face of total extinction, not an ideal country. In addition, Ozick established Bart Mesa's utopia in the classical tradition through clean government, while Malamud, with the grace of God, enabled Cohen to establish an utopia dominated by reason and wisdom and avoiding all kinds of evil in modern society. But both of them ended in failure and were destroyed in the infinite expansion of desire. In fact, Ozick pointed out that only the afterlife can enjoy the happiness of heaven, and only there can desire and reason be balanced, people can be easily satisfied, and there will be no evil desire to tempt people to do evil.

However, Bellow, Malamud and Ozick all want to build an ideal country on the present American land. They are concerned about how to establish an effective democratic political system according to the political ideal of the Enlightenment, but they are more concerned about improving people's quality from the perspective of humanism according to the classical utopian tradition. For them, American bourgeois democracy is based on the great political ideal of the Enlightenment. Theoretically, without human corruption, it would have been the most perfect and favorable political system at present. Therefore, the key is to solve the problem from a humanistic perspective. But unlike traditional Utopianism, they don't expect to achieve a perfect state of society by formulating norms and restraining people's behavior. Their utopia is not a fixed ultimate goal. They pay attention to improving social conditions by educating people, so that people and society can make continuous progress and move towards perfection. Compared with classical utopianism, this new utopian thought gives people more opportunities to freely choose and develop their individuality.

When three American Jewish writers explore and construct an ideal living state from the humanistic perspective, due to their cultural influence, the tradition and essence of Jewish culture and American mainstream culture have formed a new utopian thought.

On the one hand, they found the power to resist the negative influence of evil and human desire from the Jewish tradition, and believed that suffering had the function of educating and saving people, and that suffering experience could improve people's moral cultivation and character, so that the whole society could make continuous progress and develop towards an ideal state.

First, as malamud implied in Kyiv Complaint and Shop Assistant, people can accept the ideas handed down from generation to generation through suffering, or rise up against evil and other destructive forces from suffering. Secondly, in the new utopian thoughts of Bellow, Malamud and Ozick, the importance of the collective in personal life is highlighted: the experience of suffering has taught people the meaning of being involved in the collective, subduing their own desires in the collective, and the collective power will eventually curb the spread of evil and reduce their own suffering. Bellow pointed out through Herzog's experience that people should devote themselves to ordinary life instead of pursuing unique destiny. In Rosa, Ozick also emphasized that we should devote ourselves to a collective and energetic life, which is a real victory over the greatest evil of mankind-the Holocaust. At the same time, Bellow, Malamud and Ozick all believe that a dynamic and powerful group should have a healthy interpersonal relationship. Malamud said in Levin of Angels and Tenant that a healthy interpersonal relationship includes not only love between people, but also unity, love and peace among different nationalities. In addition, Malamud pointed out in Shop Assistant and New Life that participating in the collective also means learning to take responsibility and live a moral life. Thirdly, Bellow, Malamud and Ozick explored a new concept of God, which shows that if people can master this connotation of God and use it as a reference and guidance in life, they can fight evil and reduce their suffering. In modern times, the concept of God is more a cultural tradition than a religious belief. It means more the moral power in people's life and the social power to adjust the relationship between people. From the novels of Bellow, Malamud and Ozick, five aspects of the new concept of God can be summarized. First, it means redemption, which means that people should strive to properly coordinate their natural impulse and desire in order to realize a complete personality; At the same time, it also means trying to eliminate injustice and disputes in order to achieve a good social order, so that everyone can cooperate with each other and have the opportunity to express themselves to the maximum extent. Secondly, it means that people are responsible for their own free choices and for the nation and the country. Third, it means love, kindness, sympathy and justice. Fourth, God is a force, not a supernatural life. This kind of power contains a dialectical relationship, which is similar to Taoism's interdependence of fortunes and Confucianism's neutralization thought, that is, no matter what you do, going to extremes may lead to the opposite. Ozick's novels especially embody this idea: emotions and desires are inherent in life, and suppressing people's emotions or desires will not lead to a happy and satisfactory life; However, if emotions and desires are allowed to expand indefinitely, it will become idolatry-the worship of sensory material enjoyment, fame and power, which will bring disaster to people. Only by understanding and implementing this dialectical thought can we achieve the balance between desire and reason. The fifth is to connect God with the soul, that is, people should pay more attention to the soul rather than the body, and strengthen the connection between the soul and God in order to seek a meaningful life.

On the other hand, the new utopia is based on the essence of the American dream in the mainstream American culture. The American Dream refers to the ideas and ideals born in American territory and an immigrant country. It includes freedom, equality, protection of people's right to life, property rights and pursuit of happiness. It also means success, material success or recognition by others through personal efforts and struggles. Bellow, Malamud and Ozick believe that the American dream in the eyes of immigrants can be better realized through the following two aspects: truly realizing freedom and equality, protecting people's right to life and pursuing happiness, and realizing a happy life.

First of all, they believe that the key to social progress and improvement lies in an enlightened and intelligent government, so it is important to choose a wise leader who can guide and serve the people. They also believe that the legal system can effectively prevent those in power from abusing their power and protect human rights, but it is corroded by some money-oriented lawyers. If the government or those in power are not satisfied, the spirit of democracy shows that people can disobey or rise up to resist. However, because these three writers are more willing to gradually improve the society through improvement, they advocate the quality of cultivating leaders to govern the country by virtue. This still reflects the three writers' ideal of building an ideal country from the perspective of humanism and cultivating people's virtue and quality. Malamud comprehensively expressed these thoughts in New Life. In addition, the rights of freedom, equality and the pursuit of happiness are just empty words unless they are extended to ethnic minorities and women. However, in the works of many great male writers, including Bellow and Malamud, gender discrimination is reflected in the stereotype, distortion and neglect of female images. Ozick provides vivid female images for the literary world and reveals the rights and status that women should have in an ideal country.

Secondly, Bellow, Malamud and Ozick revealed that the idea of success through personal struggle has made people and society more energetic and developed, but it has gone to extremes in American society, prompting people to indulge in material success and fame and fortune, leading to evil and pain. They put forward that art can cultivate people's imagination, activate people's thoughts, make people pay more attention to spiritual life than material life, and rejuvenate people's souls, so as to counter the negative factors of American successful thought.

Jewish culture is closely related to the spirit of the American dream. Bellow, Malamud and Ozick absorbed the essence of Jewish tradition and the parts with universal value. Humanism in the Jewish tradition originated from the western enlightenment tradition, while American democratic norms and values also originated from the western humanistic tradition, and they are unified.

Utopia is always unrealistic, and the new utopia of these three American Jewish writers is no exception. First of all, in their attitude towards the democratic system, on the one hand, they clearly realize the illusory nature of the so-called democratic model under modern conditions, and on the other hand, because of the education of the bourgeoisie, they believe that justice, equality and freedom can be truly realized if it is not the corruption of those in power. Secondly, they don't want to change the society, government, institutions and systems, but believe in education and the cultivation of people's moral quality. But this is a long process, and reformism is weak in the face of oppression, inequality and atrocities. In addition, it should be noted that the ideal of male and female writers does not involve the constructive relationship structure between men and women.

Despite its defects, The New Republic is of great significance in the post-modern American atmosphere. Postmodernism provides a useful perspective for us to know the world, but if we accept it completely, it will be destructive, because postmodernism doubts universal values and "grand narrative". Three American Jewish writers admit that there is a distance between reality and universal values, and reality can deviate from universal values and ideals, but this does not mean that they do not exist. They believe that people can realize universal values through hard work. The significance of the new ideal country lies in its hope and belief that society is constantly improving and perfecting; Although there is no final perfect state, it is an optimistic concept, active struggle and pursuit.

The research on the novels of Bellow, Malamud and Ozick shows that different cultures have their precious heritage, but they share some common values. The pursuit of utopia expressed in the novels of these three American Jewish writers not only reflects the wishes of American Jewish readers, but also reflects the wishes of other readers. Although there is a long way to go, this spirit of pursuit still resonates with many readers, which is thought-provoking and inspiring.