A Study Guide for Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Zlateh the Goat"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Zlateh the Goat," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535843522

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09

Zlateh the Goat

Isaac Bashevis Singer

1966

Introduction

The short story Zlateh the Goat, written by the Yiddish author Isaac Bashevis Singer, was first published in 1966 in Zlateh the Goat, and Other Stories. The collection is based on old Jewish folktales and is narrated just as a traditional folktale would be. Unlike many of the other stories in the collection, Zlateh the Goat is a realistic story that contains no magical or miraculous elements. At the same time, this story sits squarely within the Singer canon in its Jewish and folkloric overtones, which appear not only in Zlateh the Goat, and Other Stories but in virtually all of Singer's work. Indeed, Singer is best known as an author writing in the Jewish American or Yiddish literary tradition. His work is mostly written for adults, though he has written numerous short stories for younger readers.

Zlateh the Goat, and Other Stories was met with popular and critical acclaim, winning a prestigious Newbery Honor in 1967. The story is ostensibly about a young boy who, due to circumstance, must take the beloved family goat to the butcher, but the boy and the goat are lost in a blizzard on their way there. The story, though written for children, has also captivated older readers. A 1984 edition of Zlateh the Goat, and Other Stories is still in print.

Author Biography

Isaac Bashevis Singer was born Icek-Hersz Zynger on, according to some sources, July 14, 1904, in Radzymin, Poland, near Warsaw. Some sources claim that Singer was born on November 21, 1902, in Leoncin, Poland, and that his 1904 birth date was a fabrication meant to help him avoid the draft. Singer's father, Pinchos Menachem, was a rabbi, and his mother, Bathsheba (Zylberman) Singer, was the daughter of a rabbi. Singer had a younger brother and two elder siblings (a sister and a brother), both of whom were also writers. The family often moved around Poland, depending upon Pinchos Menachem's changing positions as a rabbi, and in 1908 they settled in Warsaw, where Singer spent most of his childhood, receiving a traditional Jewish education. The upheaval that came with World War I caused the family to separate, and Singer moved with his mother and younger brother to Bilgoraj (or Bilgoray), his mother's hometown.

By 1921, Singer had returned to Warsaw, entering the Tachkemoni Rabbinical