“Without
proper calcium, his infant body had to allocate its resources judiciously, and
his right arm drew the short straw” (pg. 166). This bizarre malady of Safran
was the groundwork of intertwined literature genius. In addition, he was “like
a wagon with no breaks, he never stopped short,” which means that he never
could reach orgasm (pg. 168). This was all a direct consequence of Safran
having teeth at birth, a common occurrence that happens in about one in every
2,000 to 3,000 babies (Fotek). However, that notion the malnutrition would
result in the consequences observed within Safran does not seem to be very
likely, although it is possible. Within the story Everything is Illuminated the character Safran exhibits a couple
irrelevant and inexplicable details with his dead arm and inability to orgasm.
However, as random as it may appear, it is relevant to the narrative framework
as a whole and it is included because of the love, death, lack of guilt, and
the questions that arise throughout the novel.
Love
and romance with Safran was a troublesome situation from a very young age. All
starting with Rose W who, “thought it was pity that she felt for the crippled
boy who had come on behalf of the Sloucher congregation to help clean the
house” (Pg. 179). Rose W was his first lover at the young age of ten and this
lovemaking would continue for four years. It is an interesting coincidence that
he was visiting her under the name of charity. She herself happened to be an
elderly woman, also presumed to be infertile and could be looked upon as being
limited, like Safran, because of her age. These two factors made her the
perfect candidate to get the wheels of the love story of Safran turning. The
book mentions that her last thought was about his arm, a common lure to hook in
many of the women with whom Safran had sexual encounters. In addition, this
hook, in combination with his inability to orgasm, led to sexual experiences
with 132 more women. This was all, of course, before he had met anyone he
loved, because, “can one miss something one has never known? Besides, he never
loved any of his lovers. He never confused anything he felt for love” (pg.
168). So is Safran able to love?
It
is debatable if he ever truly loved a person, however it is suggested that the
closes he ever came to loving a woman was between the Gypsy girl and Zosha. The
greatest bit of evidence for whom he may have loved is, “Seven months later,
June 18, 1941, as the first display of German bombing lit the Trachimbrod skies
electric, as my grandfather had his first orgasm (his first and only pleasure,
of which she was not the cause) she slit her wrist” (pg. 239). The bombing, in
correlation to the orgasm, is an important detail because it is as if the
orgasm is blowing up the one he did love. It is unclear if he is in love with
the Gypsy girl or Zosha, who gave him his first orgasm. It is clear that his
dead arm is what put him into this situation and that him being able to orgasm
here is significant to the story because it shows an evolution of him having
sexual encounters solely for entertainment to actually doing it out of love. A
conversation with the Dial is what truly illuminates the individual that Safran
does love:
The Gypsy girl.
What ever became of her? She was nice.
What?
The
Gypsy girl? The one you loved.
It’s not
her that I love. It is my girl. My girl.
You love the baby in Zosha’s
belly. (pg. 263-264)
This
baby is the last remaining bit of the female that Safran did love. The baby may
be within Zosha’s stomach; however, it is not Zosha that he loves, but the baby
within. It was the Gypsy girl all along that he did love, and it was the Gypsy
girl who was on his mind when the baby was conceived.
Love
with Safran is a complex situation and it is hard to tell many times throughout
the story who he does love, yet there is strong evidence that he loved the
gypsy girl and thus the baby he conceived when he was thinking of her. However,
it was the connection between his inability to orgasm and his dead arm that
strung his story together. This is to say that had if he had a normal childhood,
he would never have met Zosha or the Gypsy girl because he would have been content
with the first few women that he met. Thus, it must be assumed that his life
events would not have taken shape had it not been for is maladies.
The
next great theme of Safran’s life is his overwhelming luck with escaping death
because of his dead arm:
It
was because his arm died that he never worked in the menacing flourmill,
but
in the tannery just outside the shtetl, and that he was exempted from
the
draft that sent his schoolmates off to be killed in hopeless battles against
the
Nazis. His arm would save him again when it kept him from swimming back
to Trachimbrod to save his only love (who died
in the river with the rest of
them),
and again when it kept him from drowning himself. His arm
saved
him again when it caused Augustine to fall in love with him and
save
him, and it saved him once again, years later, when it prevented him
from
boarding the New Ancestry to Ellis Island, which would be turned
back
on orders of U.S. immigration officials, and whose passengers
would
all eventually perish in the Treblinka death camp. (Pg. 166)
The
numerous times that his dead arm saved him is astounding. Some of the notable
events that stand out is the Flour Mill, where it is not guaranteed Safran
would have died, however, it is a good bet based on other occurrences there.
Escaping the draft was no doubt fortunate because it would have surely been a
death sentence. The drowning part ties in with the last theme of love because
it talks about how his dead arm is what kept him from saving the thing he
loved; one has to wonder if it were not for the dead arm could he have saved
the baby? The most important one of all is Augustine saving him because that is
the person trying to be found all throughout the book. Then lastly, his arm
prevented him from boarding a ship that would have led to his death. It is
clear that his malady saved him more times than once from death. Thus, it is
clear why the author chose Safran to have such a hideous deformity because it
needed to hinder him. This hindrance also needed to attract, such as in the
case of having Augustine fall in love with him. Therefore, this alienates
Safran from the other people of Trachimbrod and allows him to survive where he
would not have otherwise.
“Wasn’t
everything that had happened, from his first kiss to this, his first marital
infidelity the inevitable result of circumstances over which he had no control?”
(Pg 165). Safran’s life style was not in his control, thus he is not to blame
for his actions. Looking back at some of these events, it can be seen that his
dead arm and lack of orgasm led to this event because it is to say that if he
lacked these, he would not have been in a sexual encounter with Maya. This
quote is also an acknowledgment by Safran that everything from the start of his
life was out of his control, in fact it is almost as if the situations he was
given were put in place just with the sole purpose to make the perfect story.
This is to say that Safran’s string of events is not realistic in the least bit;
however, it makes for a great story.
Throughout
the story, Alex offers up some great commentary. He says, “Why do women love
your grandfather because of his dead arm? Do they love it because it enables
them to feel strong over him? Do they love it because they are commiserating
it, and we love the things that we commiserate? Do they love it because it is a
momentous symbol of death? I ask because I do not know” (Pg. 179). As with many
of his letters, it is clear that he is serving as the mediator of the two
stories. It is clear through Alex’s questions, that even he is a little
confused about why exactly women loved Safran’s dead arm. This is a great quote
because for the first time, the audience is offered some great suggestions on
why the author chose to use a dead arm over some other malady. Alex’s confusion
mirrors that of the audience and makes them question once more, what the symbol
of the dead arm could be and what it means.
Alex
is also quoted as saying, “I could hate you! Why will you not permit your
grandfather to be in love with the Gypsy girl, and show her his love? Who is
ordering you to write in such a manner?” (pg. 240). This helps the reader to
understand who Safran did love because it shows that even Alex recognizes that
the story should have been Safran loving the Gypsy. Yet, at the same time, it
serves to remind the audience that as much as this appears to be fiction, the
author wants to give off the appearance of non-fiction. This is why Jonathan is
careful to make sure what he writes is “true,” yet strangely, the stories do
not seem to align.
“Who you think saved your grandfather from the
Nazis” (Pg. 60). In conclusion, this was a story that was about trying to find
Augustine, yet what the audience discovered from the journey was so much more.
“If there is no love in the world, we will make a new world,” this is to say
that Safran evolved the story and kept it moving with his whimsical tale, he in
a sense, is making a new world (Pg. 82). It is clear that while Safran’s dead
arm and lack of ability to orgasm may be an irrelevant or inexplicable detail,
the story as a whole would not have worked without it. The whole concept of
love of Safran cannot happen without his arm and inability to orgasm. As he
states, his whole life was a series of events that happened just right for them
to take place. If just one event had fallen out of place, Safran would have
died at the hands of the Nazi’s and his story may have never been told.
Bibliographical
References
Foer, Jonathan. “Everything is
Illuminated”. Harper Perennial. 2002
Fotek, Paul.
"Natal Teeth: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia." U.S National Library
of Medicine. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.
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