Shevirah: On the Kabbalistic Writing in Ozick’s The Messiah of Stockholm

Abstract

Cynthia Ozick, a famous American Jewish female writer, focuses on the distinctive Jewishness in her works, which demonstrates her deep thinking about the absence of Jewish tradition in the modern Western context Ozick excels at representing traditional Jewish themes by using the mystical image and explores the means of returning to Jewish tradition in this writing process. The Messiah of Stockholm is a perfect illustration concerning this point. From the perspective of Jewish Kabbalistic mysticism, this paper takes The Messiah of Stockholm as an example to analyze the mystical dimension of “Stewpot” so that it explores how Ozick makes use of Jewish mysticism element to air her rebellion against mainstream American culture and her reflection on her own Jewish culture. With its deconstructive power, Shevirah can to some extent remove the idolatry elements contained in the mainstream American culture. With the aid of Shevirah, Ozick aims to shatter the shackles of mainstream American culture and achieve the goal to inherit the Jewish tradition and maintain the identity of Jewishness.