Triangles of History and the Slippery Slope of Jewish American Identity in Two Stories by Cynthia Ozick

"Envy; or, Yiddish in America," also utilizes the triangular structure to encourage the reader to construct a complex version of Jewish American identity, yet the reader may find the construction of Edelshtein's identity even more difficult than that of Kornfeld. Not only are all three characters that make up the discourse triangle in "Envy; or, Yiddish in America" unattractive, but none of them communicate their identities in a consistent manner. All of their identities are shifting due to a struggle between collective and personal history, which makes the reader's task of interpreting their discourses more difficult.

The main character of the story is Edelshtein, a Jewish American poet who writes in Yiddish and is frustrated by his anonymity. He asserts that his goal is to save Yiddish, which has been destroyed by the Holocaust: "a language that never had a territory except Jewish mouths, and half the Jewish mouths on earth already stopped up with German worms" (74). He warns all who will listen, "whoever forgets Yiddish courts amnesia of history" (74). As critic Vera Kielsky asserts, Yiddish is not only a language, but symbolizes the bond between Jewish people, is the location of Jewish culture, and is the "storehouse" of history (154). Edelshtein quotes the Talmud to reinforce the importance of Yiddish to Jewish identity in America: "in Talmud if you save a life it's as if you saved the world." He continues, self-indulgently, "And if you save a language? Worlds maybe. Galaxies. The whole universe" (83).

These assertions may, on the surface, lead the reader to believe that Edelshtein is sincere and selfless in his effort to resurrect Yiddish, and by extension, Jewish history and culture. His use of Jewish history, however, makes him feel superior to other Jews rather than creating a bond of memory and connection with them (Powers 91). Futhermore, Edelshtein's solution to his problem reveals his hypocrisy; he wants to procure an interpreter. Obviously, translating his poetry into English will do nothing to save Yiddish, but it will, he believes, rescue him from obscurity. At heart, Edelshtein is languishing from envy of Ostrover, the Yiddish writer who is translated into English and enjoys immense fame. Edelshtein's only venue for his poetry is an obscure Yiddish periodical edited by his friend Baumzweig called Bitterer Yam,(1) while Ostrover is the subject of graduate dissertations and gives densely attended readings to adoring fans.

Edelshtein attends one such reading where Ostrover reads a new story that is a thinly disguised parable about Edelshtein. In the story, the main character gives one fourth of his soul to Satan to learn a new language that will guarantee his fame as a writer. However, this new language does not achieve the desired effect, and the writer makes the same bargain for another language, and then another, and then another. As a result, he loses his soul and arrives in hell where he must toss each page he writes into flames, but he declares, "No difference, no difference! It was the same up there!" (60). Ostrover's point is that it is Edelshtein's lack of talent, and not his lack of access to English, that causes his lack of fame.