The artistic construction of the Hebrew story My story “And the Crooked Becomes Straight, Tehillah” by the writer Shmuel Yosef Aknon is an example

Abstract

This research focuses on the subject of the short story “Tehillah, and the crooked becomes straight” by one of the writers of Hebrew literature, who has the highest literary importance among Hebrew writers, and he is the writer (Shmuel Yosef Aknon - שמואל יוסף עגנון), who is considered one of the most capable contemporary Jewish authors in the field of writing. Short stories.

        It is worth noting that during his first stay in Palestine, Aknon published his first most important stories, which played a major role in gaining his fame and raising his status among Hebrew readers. These stories are (עגונות - Abandoned Women, 1908) and (והיה העקוב למישור - And the crooked becomes straight, 1912). Aknoun's migration to Palestine and his beginning to publish his stories there represented the integration and maturity of his narrative style, which appeared at its best.

       It is noticeable that, despite Aknoun's presence in an environment other than the one he lived in, he continued to depict his reality and his old world of his childhood and his city. However, he was able to depict in a number of his stories some Palestinian cities, especially the city of Jerusalem, as is the case in the story (תהלה - Tehillah), which It is considered one of Aknon's prominent Hasidic stories. Although the story focuses on the city of Jerusalem and its religious importance to the Jews on the one hand and on the one hand of symbolism, it is symbolic and clear on the other hand. However, it greatly highlights the value of the Hasidic man and his lack of underestimation, even by the Jews themselves.

       However, each of Aknoun's stories is distinguished by its different artistic form. Despite this, these stories are united and integrated into one world, which is the world of Judaism. That world, which Aknoun depicts, is a world full of faith that illuminates the darkness of material need, and awakens confidence and hope that extinguish the stings of ills and alleviate suffering. Therefore, the heroes of Aknoun's stories are mostly religious and practice their religious rituals, and this is what we find in the story (And the crooked becomes straight). Its hero is a man who fell into the mire of sins and the struggles of fate. However, this character is filled with sparkling flashes of faith.

        It seems that most of Aknoun's stories are dominated by the characteristic of popular Hasidic stories, which are dominated by the atmosphere of myths and legends, especially his story (והיה העקוב למישור - And the crooked becomes straight). It is essentially a popular story from its beginning to its end, as it was written in the form of popular stories for the pious and Hasidic people, and it is called Aknoun. Unleash the imagination of the hero of the story, Menashe Haim, who lost his wealth after he and his wife lived in ease, and in his wanderings in the world he lost his human identity after he descended to begging in order to return to his city. But the news of his death spread in his city, so his wife declared mourning for her husband, and after a while she married again, and when Haim returned, he found the truth before him, so he returned to where he came from and died with a broken heart. Here, Aknoun brought the Hasidic and popular sides together in a homogeneous manner.

  Accordingly, I have shed light on the biography of the writer Aknoun, and I have also tried to shed light on the artistic construction of his stories in the subject of the research (תהלה - Tehillah) and (והיה העקוב למישור - And the crooked becomes straight) and the most important linguistic phenomena that distinguished his linguistic style. These stories represent a bright spot in the history of contemporary Hebrew narrative literature.