The Strong Jacob: On the Intertextual Relation of Yakub in The Brothers Ashkenazi and Jacob in The Slave

Abstract

Through the two intertextually related works by the Singer brothers, it can be said the elder brother’s influence on the younger brother even continues after his death. Bashevis Singer answers his elder brother’s question, despite in a different time period, but his answer is beyond time. This question-answer relationship reveals the special literary-familial link between the two brothers, although this relationship is quite rare in the circle of Yiddish literature. Even though this relationship is not so common, it really functions on Bashevis Singer in a mysterious way. When Joshua Singer published his The Brothers Ashkenazi in America, “the fans began to fantasize that the committee in Stockholm might cast its gaze on this Yiddish writer,” and after forty years, Bashevis Singer got this extraordinary honor. And it was exactly after Joshua Singer’s death, Bashevis Singer regained the talent of writing novels and stories. Under this familial influence, the true story between the brothers is very “Bashevisian,” just like what Bashevis writes in one of his short stories, “Getzel the Monkey”: “Getzel became Todrus and I saw it happen with my own eyes.”