The Wicked Son
''The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Jewish self-hatred, and the Jews'' is a collection of essays by playwright David Mamet, published by Nextbook/Schocken in 2006. Mamet addresses the book "To the Jews…whose favorite Jew is Anne Frank…who bow the head reverently at a baptism and have never attended a bris – to you, who find your religion and race repulsive, your ignorance of your history a satisfaction, here is a book from your brother." Mamet confronts his readers: "The world hates Jews. ... The world hates you." Summary In the Passover Seder, four different sons ask a question. The wicked son asks, "What does this ritual mean to ''you''?", in essence separating himself from the group by sarcastically and scornfully declaring that the ritual has no personal meaning for him. In a series of related essays, Mamet uses this concept of the wicked son as a symbol of the atheistic or agnostic self-hating Jew in Western society. Israel Mamet gives his own personal, unapologetic exp ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  

Essays
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal and informal: formal essays are characterized by "serious purpose, dignity, logical organization, length," whereas the informal essay is characterized by "the personal element (self-revelation, individual tastes and experiences, confidential manner), humor, graceful style, rambling structure, unconventionality or novelty of theme," etc. Essays are commonly used as literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g., Alexander Pope's ''An Essay on Criticism'' and ''An Essay on Man''). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's ''A ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]