Storytelling: Ritual, Catharsis and Healing in the Jewish American Experience
Keywords:
Storytelling, Jewish American Experience, Catharsis, Healing, Autobiographical NovelsAbstract
This study investigates the role of storytelling in the works of Jewish American women writers, such as Kim Chernin and Anzia Yezierska. The authors use stories to connect themes from a shared past with reminiscences of elements that have traditionally opposed and victimized them. Through storytelling, the narrators or storytellers discover deep bonding that links them to their cultural, maternal, or psychic backgrounds. This study focuses on two novels by these authors, In My Mother's House and Bread Givers, which relate the lives and times of four generations of Russian Jews who have escaped from the shtetl and arrived in New York. Both novels are autobiographical and narrated in the first person singular. The stories serve as a means of healing and catharsis for the characters, allowing them to confront and process traumatic events from their past.
(The abstract and keywords were prepared retrospectively for indexing purposes using AI-assisted tools and editorial review, based on the original article. They did not appear in the original publication.)
References
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