SOURCE: "Y. L. Perets' 'Bontsye Shvayg': Perspectives on Passivity," in Slavic and Eastern European Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring, 1974, pp. 41-6.

In the following essay, Miller offers a close reading of the story 'Bontsye Shvayg.'

Yitskhok Leybush Perets' "Bontsye Shvayg" has enjoyed an unusual reception: it passed into the folk tradition within Perets' own lifetime, has seen numerous editions in Yiddish and in translation, and has been performed in stage and television adaptation. Yet there has been no agreement on the question which dominates the critical literature devoted to this tale about the death and subsequent trial in paradise of a poor, humble sufferer: is Bontsye an exemplary man or the embarrassingly passive object of the author's irony? Two recent books on the schlemiel come to contradictory conclusions. Sanford Pinsker argues that "the story of Bontsha is a heavy dose of Yiddish sentimentality which . . . served to suggest possibilities...