Gimpel the Fool is a Yiddish short story by the Polish-American writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, published in 1953 and translated into English that same year by Saul Bellow; it later gave its title to a 1957 English-language collection of Singer's stories. The story is narrated by Gimpel, a simple village bread baker who becomes the target of his townspeople's constant ridicule and practical jokes, and whose wife Elka repeatedly betrays him, yet who chooses again and again to believe what he is told rather than assume the worst of others. The narrative turns on a moment of temptation in which the devil urges Gimpel to take revenge on the town by contaminating his bread, a course he ultimately refuses, and the scholar David Roskies has read the story as a modernist reworking of an earlier tale by the Hasidic master Nachman of Bratslav, with Gimpel's stubborn faith in others read as a form of holy foolishness.
Facts
Classification
Original Language Composed, From (Year) In the Other Atlases
- Also in Divinity Atlas: Yiddish, original language there.
- Also in Geography Atlas: United States, originated there.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Gimpel the Fool
WikipediaLead paragraphQuote, Lead paragraph
"Gimpel the Fool" (1953) is a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, translated into English by Saul Bellow in 1953. It tells the story of Gimpel, a simple bread maker who is the butt of many of his town's jokes. It also gives its name to the collection first published in 1957. David Roskies has put forward the view that the story constitutes a modernist revision of a story by Nachman of Bratslav.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.