STUDY QUESTIONS

Israel Joshua Singer, "Pearls" in The River Breaks Up: A Volume of Stories Trans. from the Yiddish by Maurice Samuel (New York, 1966): 25-67

1) What in the story suggests the period of time in which it takes place?

2) How are characteristic features of urban architecture, social organization and life used in the story to increase impact and to emphasize the point?

3) Are all of Spielrein's tenants Jewish? Or does the author indicate that the areas in which the old man owned property were integrated?

4) How "Polish" are the Warsaw Jews in the story? To which European culture do the more educated appear to subscribe?

5) What is ironic and what appropriate (i.e., symbolic) about Singer's choice of Lessing's Nathan the Wise as Spielrein's "favorite" reading material? (You may need to look up a summary of this play in a reference book on either German, European, or world literature.)

6) What is Singer's attitude towards the characters he portrays in the story? Give examples to support your answer (hint: references to loss and hardship, exploitation, hierarchy, cameraderie, Schiller's The Robbers, etc.).

7) What role, if any, does religion play in the life of the main character? (You may want to contrast Spielrein with the father character in Bread Givers.)

8) Can one ascribe a symbolic significance to the various forms of property described in the story?

9) How does Spielrein describe the "new generation"? How does he suggest times had changed?

10) How does Singer explore the clash between the sacred and the profane? Is there a "clash"?