Renouncement Of Identity and Jewish Life in Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question

Abstract

Identity crisis becomes the question of life when gentiles refuse the Jews not only their rights, their land but also their existence. Jews have gone through many existential plights and experiences full of agony. They are suppressed by the social system. The anti-Semitic activities have always alienated the Jews from the mainstream. Jews are exiled and boycotted from their host nations. They have to face anguish for mere survival. Simple peaceful life has eluded them. Identity is dynamic process. A single connotation cannot define this term. It takes different definitions from different perspectives. The question “Who am I?” often becomes an untold mystery for Jews. Howard Jacobson has projected the concept of identity in terms of Jews in his novel The Finkler Question. He has illustrated the quest of a Jew to adopt a non-Jewish identity and similarly a non-Jew wants to adopt a Jewish identity. Anti-Semitic view never forgives anyone whether the person belongs to Jewish identity or not. Therefore, in an anti-Semitic world everyone needs to struggle for his own existence. The present paper makes an attempt to show how anti-Semitic hostility has influenced the Jews and at the same time some of the gentile also in their quest for identities.