The Study Of Foolish Figures In Singer’s Children Stories

Isaac Bashevis Singer is the famous American jewish writer in the twentieth century. Hisworks not only penetrate profound cultural tradition of Polish jewish people, but also describeand reflect the general situation of all humanity. Because of this outstanding contribution onworld literatures, Singer won the Nobel Prize for literature in1978.Singer’s creationachievement is quite abundant. He is the one of the most productive contemporary jewishwriter.His representative long and short stories are well-known for a long time in the worldliterature. However, Singer’s children stories also made outstanding achievements in his lateyears. This paper will make a more systematic interpretation and explanation about differentcharacteristics, their valuable dimension, cultural causes of the foolish figures in Singer’schildren stories by the method of cultural criticism. It will have a certain value to furtherunderstand the creation of Singer and grasp Singer’s literature ideas.This paper consists of the introduction, the body and the conclusion.The introduction is the summary of domestic and foreign research situation about Singer.This part tries to point out the value and significance of the foolish figures.The first chapter will study the characteristics of the different foolish figures combinedwith the text. A fool in Singer’s children stories has a special definition. The fool is the pureand holy people in the spirit world.The author thinks that, the various characters in Singer’schildren stories can be classified as a category. So everyone is a fool in the stories. Singer notonly pay attention to the external behaviors of foolish figures, but also be more interested inthem as a kind of spirit and the existence of the spirit realm. So not only adult fools are theauthor’s research scope, the children fools is also the focus of the author.The second chapter will analysis the valuable dimension of the foolish figures. Theknowledgeble fools contain the essence of life and spirit content about old Judaism. Thereligious beliefs of the god is the main form of their spirit of redemption. Their stories inspireus, faith itself is beneficial for the human. Returning to faith is one of the ways of the humanspirit of redemption. Ordinary people fools convey existence wisdom in the jews daily life.They reflect the views of the meaning of human existence, reveal the important dimensions in the human spirit world. The individual’s attention is strengthened. The children fools have aninnate and authenticity consciousness of human life, which makes them freely to reserve thehuman independent thinking, beautiful and full of power of the imagination and differentviewes of the world. They provide a comprehensive answer for "how to become anindependent person".The third chapter will discuss the cultural reasons for foolish figures. The "silly" specialtemperament of the foolish figures are full of solid polish jewish culture. They are the uniqueaccumulation of jewish culture. They are the Singer’s long-term observation and thinkingabout the American modern society. These three foolish images not only embody the jewishnational ways of Singer and the thinking about the present situation of the American modernsociety, also convey the Singer’s ultimate care for human spirit world and the hopes for thefine and ideal human society in future.The conclusion will make a further explanation of the foolish figures. It will more deeplydiscuss the reason for that the fool become the main body of Singer’s children stories, pointout that foolish images also provide a new spirit valuable system and a new communicationmode for all humanity. They fully reflect Singer’s idea of the human nature and understandingrelationships between people, as well as the concern for human spirit and value.