Androgynous Characters in Isaac Bashevis Singer's Literary Shtetl

What about in Singer?

In the historical shtetl, women and men were clearly bound to binary gender roles, which were primarily derived from religious texts and their interpretation. Historical sources that deal with the violation of these gender roles and the negotiation of an “in-between” are rare. 

At least five of the short stories set in Singer’s literary shtetl feature androgynous characters. Many people are probably familiar with Yentl from Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy (1963), who assumes the role of the Yeshiva student Anshel so she can study Torah. In doing so, she mainly uses her external appearance to conceal her identity. When she falls in love with another Yeshiva student and later – in her role as a man – marries a woman, all lines are suddenly blurred: both between genders and between queerness and heterosexuality. This makes the story of Yentl a good example of how androgynous characters are often used in Singer’s stories to explore the theme of homosexuality. By having the androgynous character switch between genders, heteronormative societal rules are experimented with and put to the test.

Pinchosl from Disguised (1986) and Zissel/Zissa from Two (1976) are less well known. Both grow up as boys, marry a woman unwillingly, and finally flee both the marriage and the shtetl to live in a larger city – with a man and in the role of a woman. Pinchosl’s story is told from the perspective of the wife he leaves behind, while Zissel/Zissa is the protagonist of the story. Both characters maintain their faith, or at least their practice of faith, even though they are clearly guilty of sin in the eyes of the narrator and other characters because of their “cross-dressing”.

The short story Androygenus (1975) is a reflection on theological questions told from the perspective of a Rabbi, including reflexions through the physically and behaviorally androgynous character Shevach. For the first time, a figure is depicted who is clearly also biologically “in-between”, and only here is the androgyny not really a subject of the story, but rather serves as a metaphor for dealing with theological questions.

Faith and Modernity

In the eyes of the narrators, the actions of Singer’s androgynous characters are judged to be at least questionable from a religious and moral perspective, but they are not denied their Jewish faith. One thing almost all of them have in common is that, despite being aware (or believing themselves to be aware) of “sinning” in their liminal gender expression, they still retain their faith. The clearest example of this is Yentl, for whom nothing is more important than learning the Torah – even if to do so she must, according to some interpretations, break with religious precepts. Here, it must be asked whether any character in Singer is ever represented as actually being morally or religiously flawless, since both his realist narratives and his more supernatural texts depict people in all their subtleties, well beyond simplistic moral classifications. Instead, his characters become the focal points of his intensive, complex interrogation of faith and modernity.

It becomes clear that the self-appraisal of their own androgyny as religiously and morally questionable improves the standing of the androgynous character in Singer’s shtetl. His stories of characters with this self-appraisal, who even show something like remorse, have happier endings. In addition, there are clear differences in the moral evaluation of homosexuality depending on whether or not it happens within the framework of an imitation of heteronormative binary structures or not. Zeitl and Rickel, for example, are judged more harshly than Pinchosl, whose marriage maintains the appearance of heterosexuality.

In Singer’s short stories, clothing and marriage are, among other things, central to the breaking of gender binaries. Cross-dressing becomes an effective tool of fluid transformation between the genders, and marriage represents the basis of the binary gender framework in which the characters operate. Within heteronormative marriage, sexuality becomes a topic that can be spoken about; homosexuality, on the other hand, is only treated in relation to same-sex love and infatuation, not really in terms of homosexual desire and homosexual intercourse.

Ultimately, none of the characters discussed here are really granted an unconditional, true happy ending. Their stories end at best with a life of concealment or heartache, and at worst in an unmarked grave. Does this perhaps make the themes of androgyny and homosexuality easier to digest for a conservative readership? Is Singer leading them to a “just”, punitive fate? Or is he merely depicting a reality? To explore these questions, I would like to delve even deeper into Singer’s work in the future – and everyone is highly recommended to take a look at the stories for themselves.

Helena Lutz is studying Jewish and Cultural Studies at the University of Potsdam. Since 2023, she has been a student assistant in the Digital & Publishing team at the Jewish Museum Berlin. This essay is an abbreviated version of her Bachelor’s thesis, Yentl, Anshel, Zissa: Androgyne Figuren in den Kurzgeschichten Isaac Bashevis Singers (Eng: Yentl, Anshel, Zissa: Adrogynous Characters in the Short Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer; forthcoming at medaon.de).