Comparison of The Family Carnovsky and The Mirror

The ability to deal with change is one of life's necessities. Be it a change in marital status, career, or anything else, the difficulties surrounding change impose many challenges for one to overcome. Some people thrive on this type of challenge, while others can not bear it. One of the most difficult types of change is a change in location. Moving from one's childhood home to an unfamiliar culture, and in some cases a place where even the language is different, can prove detrimental to some people, while others seem to blend seamlessly into their new surroundings. Although adjusting to a new community almost always proves difficult, female figures in Yiddish literature find the change most challenging, if not impossible.

I. J. Singer created the character of Leah Carnovsky for his novel, The Family Carnovsky, in 1940, which ran serialized between 1940 and 1941 in the Jewish Daily Forward. (Braun) Leah was born and raised in a shtetl in called Melnitz. All of her friends and family live there, and she knows no other life. She marries David Carnovsky, a stubborn, but well-learned man. After a battle of wits between David and the local rabbi, in which David embarrasses the rabbi in front of his entire congregation, David whisks Leah off to begin anew inBerlin.

Despite outcry from her family, Leah agrees to the move, in order to please her husband. (Singer,I.J., 8) Leah is a classic picture of an Old World Jew. The only life she knows is that of the shtetl. When she moves to Berlin, she becomes a victim of culture shock, not knowing what to do or how to act. "Although she was companionable, good-natured, and liked to laugh, Leah could not make friends with the respectable ladies from the synagogue. She felt alien among them and afraid." (Singer, I.J., 15) Leah feels completely lost in a sea of people who are completely different from anyone she has ever known.

A large difference exists between the Judaism in Melnitz and its counterpart in Berlin, and Leah deeply feels this difference. "And just as alien to her [as the respectable ladies of Berlin] were the prayers of the cantor in the synagogue. Although they were said in Hebrew, they sounded as if they were spoken by a priest. And just as un-Jewish to her were the choir and Dr. Speier's sermons...Neither did she understand the prayer book in German translation, which did not transmit to her the flavor of Jewishness." (Singer, I.J., 15-16) As a Jew from the shtetl, Leah has many superstitious beliefs. She makes sure her son kisses the doorpost amulets every night to avoid danger (Singer, I. J., 12), and she engages in various superstitious behaviors, such as spitting three times to ward off the Evil Eye (Singer, I. J., 61). In her worship of God, she prefers to call Him "Papa", in a loving way (Singer, I. J., 16), but the German Jews look down on this practice, as well as the superstitious practices Leah engages in. (Singer, I. J., 69). The German Jews feel those practices are best left in the dark, unenlighted Jewishness of the past, and certainly not here in the modern world. To Leah, even God is alien in this new place.

Though the religious differences in Berlin seem callous to Leah, the most difficult adjustment for her is linguistic. In her Polish shtetl, Leah spoke Yiddish with her friends and family. To her, Yiddish is comforting, loving, and feels like home. (Singer,I.J., 18). She never learns to speak acceptable German, which embarrasses her husband, and effectively isolates Leah. (Singer,I.J., 18) After a while, she ceases to accompany David to the few events he pushes her to attend, and rarely goes out at all. Her language barrier is devastating to her personally, because she is unable to assimilate, or even worship God in the synagogue. It even alienates her from her husband. He told her that, "She had to accustom herself to converse with educated people and to associate with respectable ladies. She also had to improve herself and read as he did, so that she would not disgrace him. Above all, she had to improve her speech, her grammar, and always speak German instead of that Melnitz Yiddish that crippled her pronunciation." (Singer,I.J., 18) Even her own husband cannot accept Leah for what she is in this new world. She feels as though she is completely and totally alone in . It is a hell of her husband's design, which she must reconcile herself with every day.

In 1973 I. B. Singer created the character Zirel for his short story "The Mirror". (Isaac) Zirel was born and raised in the city of Crakow, . Her father deals in timber, and her husband sends the logs to him in Danzig. (Singer,I.B., 77). By some circumstance that is unnamed in the story, Zirel and her husband move to the village of Krashnik, a shtetl in . Zirel, having always lived in the city, does not adjust well to her new life in the shtetl.

Zirel is a Jewish woman wholly opposite to Leah. She has many qualities which many would perceive as negative attributes. Her vanity consumes her. One of Zirel's favorite things to do is to go up into her attic room and stare at herself naked in the mirror, and the room itself is extravagant. "But Zirel had an attic which she called her boudoir, and where hung a mirror as blue as water on the point of freezing. The mirror had a crack in the middle, and it was set in a golden frame, which was decorated with snakes, knobs, roses and adders. In front of the mirror lay a bearskin and close beside it was a chair with armrests of ivory and a cushioned seat." (Singer, I. B., 78) While she does possess beauty, she sits in the chair for hours obsessively staring at her own attractive good looks. "Her skin was as white as satin, her breasts as full as wineskins, her hair fell across her shoulders and her legs were as slender as hind's." (Singer, I. B., 78) Zirel becomes neurotically infatuated with the only person that remains to remind her of the old life she used to lead in the city, herself.

Zirel's husband propagates her vanity and growing withdrawal from others by buying her many expensive things. "The pretty dresses her husband bought her hung in the closet. Her pearls and diamonds lay in her jewelry box. No one ever saw her silk slips, her lace petticoats, nor her red hair which was hidden under a wig, not even her husband." (Singer, I. B., 78) "Her husband had brought her perfumes from Lenczyc, and she smelled of rosewater and carnations. He presented her with a coral necklace which hung around her neck." (Singer, I. B., 82) She grows to be very much in love with herself and the expensive things her husband bestows upon her. In turn, these gifts further lessen her desire to associate with her new neighbors whom she already thinks of as below her.

"The other Krashnik housewives wore men's boots, ground buckwheat on millstones, plucked feathers, cooked broths, bore children, and attended funerals." (Singer, I. B., 78) Zirel has two servants of her own to do most of these chores for her. She is a well-educated, very beautiful woman from the city, and she finds nothing in common with the women of the shtetl. (Singer, I. B., 48) She feels as though they are beneath her, and in her arrogance, sits in self-imposed isolation from the goings-on around her. "And so she preferred to read her German songbook, and embroider Moses and Ziporah, David and Bathsheba, Ahasuereus and Queen Esther on canvas." (Singer, I. B., 78) The poverty-stricken women of the shtetl have not the education to read German nor do they have the time and materials to embroider as elaborately as Zirel does in the story.

As Zirel sits in her isolation, reveling in her vanity, she finds a visitor inside of her mirror. The visitor is a demon, who manifests himself within the mirrors of people. "God has bestowed vanity on the female, particularly on the rich, the pretty, the barren, the young, who have much time and little company." (Singer, I. B., 78) The demon woos Zirel by complimenting her (Singer, I. J., 79) and tries to lure Zirel into the mirror. He promises her that, "You'll sit on Asmodeus' lap and plait tresses in his beard. You'll eat almonds and drink porter; evenings you'll dance for him. Bells will be attached to your ankles and devils will whir with you." Zirel takes the bait, but ends up getting more than she bargained for.

Zirel is an incredibly impious Jew. In order to go with demon, she must commit many sins. He says to her, "Make some dough with the whitest of flour. Add honey, menstrual blood and an egg with a blood spot, a measure of pork fat, a thimble of suet, a goblet of libatory wine. Light a fire on the Sabbath and bakethe mixture on the coals. Now call your husband to the bed and make him eat the cake you have baked. Awaken him with lies and put him to sleep with profanity. Then, when he begins to snore, cut off one half of his beard and one earlock, steal his gold, burn his promissory notes, and tear up the marriage contract. After that throw your jewels under the pig butcher's window - this will be my engagement gift. Before leaving your house throw a prayer book into the rubbish and spit on the mezuzah, at the precise spot where the word Shadai is written. Then come straight to me." (Singer, I. B., 84) Any pious Jew would be offended at the very suggestion of this desecration. However, Zirel goes through with this list of demands, desecrating the institution of marriage, kosher dietary restrictions, holy objects and herself, simply by undertaking these actions. At this point, Zirel has self-ostracized herself from her small community. She has no children or chores to occupy her time and a husband in relative absentia. The combination of these factors has left her with only a demon as a companion.

When Zirel goes through the mirror, she ends up in hell and realizes she has been tricked; however it is too late for her salvation. Zirel's arrogant isolation has lead her into a trap. She cut herself off from the world, thinking she was better than her neighbors, thus allowing the demon to prey on her. She simply cannot adjust to her relocation from the city to the shtetl, and her impious vanity leads her to her own demise.

Leah Carnovsky and Zirel are opposite characters. Zirel is preoccupied with herself. She stares at herself naked in a mirror for hours. Her husband spoils her with fancy clothes, expensive jewelry and perfumes from the city. Leah, on the other hand, is a modest woman from the shtetl. Her husband is well off, and adequately provides for her, but even when she dresses in her finest clothing and jewels for synagogue on the High Holidays, she feels out of place, as though she comes from an entirely other world. (Singer, I. J., 15) She certainly never feels as though she is better than anyone she sees in the street.

Leah is also very pious, though she is superstitious. In the shtetl, she attended synagogue regularly, though a language barrier keeps her from doing so in Berlin. She says her prayers, observes holidays and Sabbaths, wards off the Evil Eye, prays to the angels to keep her children safe (Singer, I. J., 13), and refers to God lovingly as "Papa". (Singer, I. J., 15) Zirel, however, is not pious. In the story, there is no reference to Zirel attending synagogue, or observing her religion in any way. The only reference to religious affairs is the means by which she must desecrate them in order to accompany the demon. He draws her into his web, although she knows from the start that he is a demon, and her intellectual curiosity gets the best of her, over her devotion to her faith. (Singer, I. J., 82)

The most interesting point, in the context of these two opposite characters, is that the events of their lives run parallel to each other. Zirel and Leah Carnovsky have absolutely nothing in common when comparing their personality traits and characteristics. Only when one examines events in their lives does he see a common theme. Both women leave behind the familiar and relocate to a place that is so unfamiliar, they cannot even make normal social contact. They live with only their own thoughts, and the occasional interaction with family. Other than that, they are completely shut out of the world around them, causing them to feel a way they normally would not, or behave in a way they normally would not.

In the case of Leah Carnovsky, Berlin becomes a living hell. She lives in misery, completely alone amidst the endless whir of the city, despite the fact that she is "good natured and companionable". (Singer, I. J., 15) She has no one other than her husband to turn to, and even he shuns and chastises her for using Yiddish, instead of his favored German. Her hell devours her to the point where she will not even go out anymore, for fear of embarrassing herself or her family. (Singer, I. J., 17) The shame and embarrassment of her simplicity compounds her suffering, leaving Leah with only her personal hell of forced silence and isolation.

Though Zirel's isolation is of a different nature than Leah's, it is still just as potent. She is brought up in the city, where she becomes well learned and cultured, unlike her new neighbors in the shtetl. (Singer, I. B., 78) In the seeming malaise of the simple shtetl life, she withdraws, not knowing how to relate to these people who are so wholly different from herself. Sitting alone in her "boudoir", her mind has time to wander from the lack of intellectual stimulation, to a point where her processes of logical thought seem to end. All alone and thinking that nothing of this simple world could ever fulfill her, she takes the bait of the demon. Had she never left the city, this temptation probably would not fool her. She would be a sociable, respectable lady. However, with no chores to take care of (Singer, I. B., 78), no children to raise (Singer, I. B., 77), and no friends to occupy her time (Singer, I. B., 78), she becomes lost within herself, making her easy prey for the demon. As reward for her actions, she is damned to spend eternity in hell.

The living hell Leah Carnovsky endures in Berlin is different than the literal hell Zirel occupies, but no less poignant. Neither woman adapts to her new environment. Each woman's situation leaves her completely to herself in a foreign land due to her respective shortcomings. The consequences of Leah and Zirel's feelings or actions tortures them. They feel left behind by the change, while their husbands seem to transition seamlessly into their new lives. Each woman's isolation ushers her down the path to her own lonely prison.