Introduction & Overview of Henne Fire

This Study Guide consists of approximately 39 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Henne Fire.

Introduction & Overview of Henne Fire

This Study Guide consists of approximately 39 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Henne Fire.
This section contains 230 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the Henne Fire Study Guide

Henne Fire Summary & Study Guide Description

Henne Fire Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:

This detailed literature summary also contains Bibliography on Henne Fire by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story "Henne Fire" first appeared in the magazine Playboy and then in his 1968 collection entitled The Séance. Singer wrote this story, as he did his other works, in Yiddish, despite being fluent in English; the author and Dorothea Straus translated the story into English. Many critics and readers considered Singer a master of the short story form; among his numerous awards, he received the 1978 Nobel Prize in literature.

"Henne Fire" takes place in a small Polish village sometime before World War I but after the middle of the nineteenth century. The story is filled with supernatural and magical elements, and is told by one of Henne's neighbors in a familiar and intimate style. Henne Fire is a woman whose erratic and frightening behavior prompts the tale's narrator to refer to her as "not a human being but a fire from Gehenna," an ancient word for hell. In the story, Henne's family flees her home, unable to tolerate the sting of her venomous words and physical abuse. Many of Henne's neighbors are afraid of her, as well, having witnessed her violence and paranoia, and simply want her to move to another town. Other villagers, including the local rabbi, try to make Henne's life bearable while striving to protect the townspeople from her wrath and her strange propensity to ignite nearly everything around her.

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This section contains 230 words
(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)
Buy the Henne Fire Study Guide
Copyrights
Gale
Henne Fire from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.