ENGL 1F97 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Roy Cohn, Mythic Journeys, Great Trek
10 Dec 2016
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Play starts with death (think about implications-where play ends) Sarah ironson, is being commemorated by her family and community, now. Rabbi isador chemelwitz narrates the story of the great trek of jewish. Her grandchildren, only one generation later, mostly have christian names. Sarah"s children all have jewish names: morris, abraham, samuel, ester and. American myth: the great journey: (cid:498))n you that journey )s(cid:499) One response of crisis is to return to a (cid:498)golden past(cid:499) (cid:498)make american great again(cid:499) Benjamin"s notion of redemption involves (cid:498)weak messianic power(cid:499)- responsibility to the dead (cid:523)angel of history wants to (cid:498)fix what has been broken(cid:499)(cid:524) creates possibility of better future. Source of identity and value located in the past. Another response to difficulty, loss, suffering is to look to the future for. Walter benjamin"s (cid:498)angel of history (cid:498) invites us to question notions of progress, and yet movement, migration, change, transmutation is everywhere in the play.
