Eli, the Fanatic talks about the postwar American Jews who are taking to the American lifestyle with open arms. It is a short story about a young lawyer, Eli, dealing with ethical issues in his community. Eli has been assimilated, and his main goal is to get the Jewish man in the old, black suit to follow his footsteps in changing first his character, by wearing the green suit, and then change his identity. Leo Tzuref is a survivor of the war that stands for the man in the black suit. Because he believes one should not have to give up ones morals and identity to fit in. Eli is stuck between choosing a man in a lawyer’s suit and his neighborhood. He goes as far to tell Tzuref that it would have been better in prewar Europe "for Jews and Gentiles to live beside each other in amity" Roth's challenges Eli, a lawyer, with two opposing ideas, one of man's expedient law and the other God's absolute Law. There is a biblical illusion that comes to mind when you think of the assimilated Eli. When Eli takes the greenhorn's black suit, we may think of Eliyahu, (1 Kings 21) taking on his mantle, and being devoted to the Lord and not to Baal. Through the underwear, the new Byzantine mosaic entrance to Ted's shoe shop, and the ironic statement of the passage "Excuse me, rabbi, but you're wanted…in the temple", Roth deepens the crisis in which Eli is going through. Maybe it is Eli that is flipping out or is it that he is purely agreeing with Tzuref?
At the start Eli is focused and determined, but we later find that Eli is actually mixed up because of his wife, career and surroundings. He is determined that man in the suit to take off what he is wearing (the black suit - identity) and put on Eli’s green, lawyer suit (assimilation). The Black suit represents old, traditional, European ways. By changing suits, the man would have to change his culture. The Black suit shows that the man is not assimilated, especially since all the traditional Jewish males wore them. It represents their isolationism from the world. The men that wear the Black suits have their own attire, language and culture. Something that Eli gave up when he put on this green suit. Of course a suite dose not make a man who he is. It is the man inside of the suite that makes the man wearing it. I think Eli is so into his American way that he has lost his memory of who he used to be and what he believed.
http://www.enotes.com/short-story-criticism/roth-philip-milton
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This is really interesting, especially the biblical reference, but it's hard to tell what ideas are from the website, and what ideas are your own.
It's necessary to use quotation marks to indicate the difference, and to frame passages you quote in your own words. Even with the citation at the bottom, this is dangerously close to plagiarism! especially as "enotes" doesn't constitute research!
What are YOUR thoughts?
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