From Deviation To Return:Yasha's Self-redemption In Singer's The Magician Of Lublin

Isaac Bashevis Singer is one of the most influential Jewish writers in America and The Magician of Lublin is considered to be his masterpiece.Yasha,the protagonist in the novel,was a famous magician and also a Jew who suffered prejudice and discrimination because of anti-Semitism.Being dissatisfied with the status quo,Yasha was often full of contradiction and confusion in his mind.Driven by desire and ambition,he deviated from the Jewish traditional culture and thus lost himself.However,after entering the synagogue three times and repenting in his cell for three years,he found himself and returned to the Jewish traditional culture.By employing Stephen Greenblatt's theory of Cultural Poetics,this thesis attempts to analyze the theme of Yasha's deviation and return in the context of the Jewish history and the Jewish traditional culture.The thesis falls into three chapters plus an introduction and a conclusion part.The first chapter firstly makes a brief introduction of two important Ideas that symbolize the Jewish identity: the Idea of “the Chosen People” and the Idea of Covenant.Then the author describes and analyzes Yasha's deviation from the Jewish identity from three aspects: his abandonment of Jewish traditional dressing and customs,his suspicious attitudes toward God as well as his eagerness for assimilation into the Gentile world.Chapter Two explores how Yasha violated the Jewish traditional morals which are mainly recorded in Torah and the Ten Commandments in the Hebrew Bible.He betrayed his wife and had adultery with his three mistresses.He constantly deceived them and committed the evil of theft as well as other evils.Then the author summarizes the factors that led to Yasha's deviation from the Jewish traditional culture: the Industrial Revolution,Haskalah as well as anti-Semitism.Chapter Three discusses Yasha's return to the Jewish traditional culture which is divided into return to the Jewish identity and return to the Jewish traditional morals.His community and family's call let him not lose himself completely.He entered the Jewish synagogue three times when encountering troubles,and rebuilt his Jewish identity.Yasha's goodness by nature made him always remember the Jewishtraditional morals.Finally,he shut himself in a cell and prayed to God every day,as a result of which he completely returned to the Jewish traditional culture.The thesis attempts to demonstrate the influence of the Jewish traditional culture on Singer's creation of the novel,so as to shed some light on studies on Singer and his works in China.