The Day I Got Lost

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The Day I Got Lost

Author’s biography
Isaac Bashevis Singer

Author(1904–1991)

Singer gave from Young on July 14, 1904 as his date of birth, possibly to avoid military service. For this reason, in 2004 the centenary of its birth was celebrated

He was son and grandson of rabbins. He grew up in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. Singer also spent several years in Biłgoraj, a town full of Jewish tradition, where his maternal grandfather was a rabbi. He received an education of the Jewish tradition and the study of the texts in Hebrew and Aramaic.

He began to write stories when his everyone of his family told stories as the same as the young man.Although he was being groomed to become a Hasidic rabbi like his father, Singer followed in his older brother's footsteps instead expressing a preference to become a writer rather than a religious leader as his family´s fluence wanted.

Historical background

According with the history, when he received the Nobel Prize, 1978; he was recognized as the only author who would be awarded for the creation of a remarkable literary work in Yiddish language. Therefore, the language that had sustained that activity and through which they communicated in Europe about 11 million people – Yiddish – was now added to the group of "Endangered Languages
 
Although his success in journalism, Singer's passion for literature would not be suppressed. He started writing short stories on the side. In 1925, The history said that his family always talk about spirits that took possession of life humans. Singer's first novel, Satan in Goray, was published. His characters, like his creator, are discussed between the sacred and the profane. Demons, associated with passions and sensuality, insistently populate their world of fiction, reflecting their perception of the surrounding reality and their own, torn, inner life.

Perhaps the charm of his work  at least in part, to the happy combination between his ancestral Jewish roots and a modernist style, a consequence of contemporary European influences as the background of them, which gave him universal significance for his life and his work.


Expectations/Predictions about the text

Conscience is one of my expectations about the text. I think the author is trying to find himself, about his life, feelings and thinking. Another expectation is to see if the author explain the reasons why he got lost, or when he notice that got lost and about what. Also I would like to know the author´s main feeling about the text.

Analysis or Connection between literary work and historical background

There is a connection with the attitude and with the way they both acts, the main character does not have problems with people; as the same with the author, can be problems with himself that he recognized and he might is accepting it. They are based on the memories to remember things that they normally do and have.


Literary movement

The literature in Yiddish is the written in Yiddish, the language of the Askenazíes Jews, related to the medieval German. It is often considered that literature in Yiddish has had three stages: ancient Yídica literature (1300-1780); Hasidic and Haskalah Literature (1780-H. 1890); and modern Yídica Literature (1864-Currently). This literature can be combine with his literary movement because he started to write in this language and that is why the readers thouhgt that is a different and unusal way to express literature with his orignal language

Realism- modernism
The author represent the social life and the reality with the human life. He describes and provided with a natural vocabulary that is understandable for whoever. However he wrote about spirits and souls in sorrow and that is a modern thinking about the reincarnation but he knew that God would not send souls to the world for once, and also that connect the realism as a movement.

Country: Poland, Yiddish (Judeo-German)

Genre / Type: Short story


Did you confirm your predictions? Were they correct? Were they wrong? How? Why?

My predictions are wrong because I thought that the author was doing something bad or incorrect and because of that the title is that he got lost. Otherwise is something that is happening to his mind, he loses memories, he forgets things and he misplaces things. However I noticed that the feeling of him is about his memory but he was not really frustrated for that, he accepted it and try a different way to remember.

References
Biography.com E.. (April, 2014). Isaac Bashevis Singer Biography.com. 2014, de A&E Television Networks Sitio web: https://www.biography.com/people/isaac-bashevis-singer-9484987

Gale Casajús, E.. (2013). Relatos de I.B. Singer. 2013, de I.E.S. "RÍO ARBA" Sitio web: http://www.literaturaeuropea.es/obras/cuentos-de-singer/