Thane Rosenbaum: Elijah Visible - a mirror of Jewish life torn between history and tradition and contemporary American society

Franziska Lottes

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9783640427215
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1, Martin Luther University, language: English, abstract: Introduction"He writes like he talks and talks like he writes"Although the cruelties people of Europe had to suffer from during the early decades ofthe 20th century, when Adolf Hitler began to establish his Nazi-regime, are part of a sad anddark chapter in German history, the aftermaths of the Rassengesetze, the war itself and theconcentration camps are still shaking the minds of those who are faced with this issue duringtheir studies, as well as the memories and lives of the people which either had to liveaccording to the ideologies of the Third Reich and experience the tortures and pain the Nazishad brought upon them, or belong to the younger generation of those people's descendants.Thane Rosenbaum himself is one of them, a member of the generation whose parentshad been there, had to live during the Third Reich and had survived the Holocaust. His novelElijah Visible treats the issue of Nazi-Germany, the concentration camps and theconsequences of this brutal era of German politics and ideologies from a rather indirectJewish point of view (for further explanation cf. 2.1).During the tenor of this work the author, Thane Rosenbaum, shall be introduced andhis novel-in-stories Elijah Visible will be analyzed with the help of three selected shortstories; the structure of the complete novel and connections between single stories will beillustrated. It is expounded in how far and in which manner the author's past and familybackground have influenced the (events described throughout the) stories and thus, whichautobiographical elements can be found. The last chapter will lay the focus on Rosenbaum'slanguage and style as well as the purpose of writing his novel.This work is written in American English.[...]

Table of contents

• Introduction 31 The author 42 Elijah Visible 72.1 Structure and general context 72.2 The protagonist 82.3 Themes approached in the short stories- problems of the Jews 102.4 The author as protagonist? 143 Selected stories 173.1 Cattle Car Complex 173.1.1 Characters and their relationship, context and structure 173.1.2 References to the past 193.2 The Rabbi Double-faults 213.2.2 Characters and their relationships, context and structure 213.2.2 Observation of the story’s end 243.3 An Act of Defiance 253.3.1 Characters and their relationships 253.3.2 A posthumous victory? 294 Criticism and conclusion 314.1 Language and style- the use of Jewish elements and phrases 314.2 The connection between structure and context and the stories within 324.3 Conclusion- Elijah Visible: a means of warning or of coping? 34Bibliography 36
• 1 The author
• 2 Elijah Visible
• 3 Selected stories
• 4 Criticism and conclusion
• Bibliography