There is no Analogy in History: On the Use of Myth in Early Hebrew Holocaust Fiction

Abstract

This paper explores how classical myth served as a narrative tool in two Holocaust-themed short stories by Aharon Appelfeld and Michal Govrin, allowing the writers to grapple with the unrepresentable horror of the Shoah. Examining Aharon Appelfeld’s Odyssean reference in the short story ‘Bertha’ and Michal Govrin’s Aeschylean inspiration in the story ‘The End of the Pythia,’ the paper argues that the use of myth provides an analogical framework, bypassing the limitations of realism and the taboo of the incomparability of the Holocaust. Special attention is given to the generational difference of the writers, their relationship to the Holocaust, their narrative choices, and different modes of engagement with myth itself. Furthermore, the article addresses the complex relationship between classical culture and Jewish culture in the post-Holocaust era, acknowledging both the appropriation of classics by Nazi and fascist regimes and the writers’ reclamation, however troubled, of this cultural patrimony.