Difference of a Different Kind. Iris Idelson-Shein
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in the memoirs.15 Still, given the linguistic variations between the tales, it is difficult to ascertain whether Glikl was indeed familiar with the Perlhefter’s manuscript or whether she copied her story directly from it, perhaps from a copy no longer extant. The inclusion of the story in a second Jewish manuscript may simply attest to its popularity during the period.
The exact origins of the story notwithstanding, it is clear that in her memoirs Glikl appropriated the story for herself and interweaved it into her personal life narrative. Indeed, it is my contention that we should read the story as Glikl’s own, not only because it is the longest and most complex tale appearing in the memoirs; more importantly, as Turniansky, has observed, Glikl tends to borrow existing stories and to assimilate them into the framework of her memoirs in such a way as to make them her own.16 This understanding of Glikl’s autobiographical use of existing stories is reinforced by what appears to be her careful and conscientious selection of stories with which to pepper her text. Her choice of stories creates a recurring motif of filicide in the memoirs, which implies a fascination with the issue, almost an obsession with it. Of the seventeen full stories appearing in the memoirs, including the one discussed here, I have counted six in which Glikl discusses parents who killed or almost killed their children, either intentionally or unintentionally, directly or indirectly (G. Tur., 30–33; 107–180; 236–239; 376–383; 504–519). Thus, Glikl tells of a father bird that drops its young into the ocean, and also offers an adaptation of the story of David and Absalom. The child death motif is evident also in the three stories Glikl supposedly took from Beer sheva, all of which raise the possibility of the intentional or accidental killing of a child by its parent. Thus, for instance, in both Glikl’s memoirs and in Beer sheva we find a story about a prince whose friends conspire to have his father, the king, kill him.17 Additional references to filicide are also made in the memoirs, for instance, when Glikl twice mentions the biblical story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, in a comical reference to the story of King Solmon’s trial (where once again we encounter the notion of a bisected baby), or when Glikl compares herself to King David, who grieves the slaying of his son by his own men (G. Tur., 34–35, 132–137, 168–169, 552–553). The appearance of the filicidal motif in such a text, which the author explicitly addresses to her children (e.g., G. Tur., 10–13, 26–29), is (to put it mildly) somewhat confounding. It becomes even more surprising when we consider Glikl’s own biography as a bereaved mother and widow. How, then, are we to interpret the dominance of child murder in the memoirs?
Glikl’s intense preoccupation with filicide challenges the traditional scholarly portrayal of the memoirs as the work of a prototypical “Yiddishe mame,” someone constantly preoccupied with her children’s well-being and the quest for an ideal family life. One critic complains that scholarly overreliance on Glikl’s memoirs has resulted in an inaccurately positive depiction of early modern Jewish family life. Glikl, it is argued, “provides a picturesque portrait of the ideal family in action, but other memoirs fill out the impression by depicting what everyday Jewish life meant for many others.”18 Such readings of Glikl dominate literary, historical, and psychological analysis of the text, and can even be observed in slight deviations from the source text in modern-day translations. Thus, for example, while musing on the issue of divine absolution, Glikl writes: “God forbid if the Holy One had no more mercy on us than parents [eltern] have for children! Because if a person [mentsh] has a bad child he helps and takes trouble over him two, three times but at length grows tired and thrusts the child, allowing him to go his own way, even though he knows it means his ruin” (G. Tur. 16). Significantly, in two separate translations of the memoirs (one into English, the other into Hebrew), this paragraph is (mis)translated: “God forbid if the Holy One had no more mercy on us than a human father has for his children.”19 In contrast, Glikl discusses the love parents in general (eltern) have for their children, not merely paternal love. This telling deviation from the source text demonstrates the scholarly tendency to overlook or downplay Glikl’s ambivalence toward the meanings and nature of maternity. In fact, even though a less idealized image of Glikl has emerged in recent years, her doubts, anxieties, and convictions concerning motherhood have yet to be adequately addressed.20
I suggest that in her usage of the image of the cannibalistic mother, Glikl unwittingly partakes in two of the most interesting debates of her time: the debate concerning the nature and limits of maternal devotion and the debate surrounding the nature and limits of civilization. Throughout the eighteenth century, these two discussions were often interwoven, and the image of the murderous mother ran through them, binding them together with strands of exoticism, mystery, and horror. A review of these two debates, both together and apart, will allow a better understanding of Glikl’s preoccupation with the image of the infanticidal savage, and the ways in which this image corresponds with the major cultural trends of Glikl’s time.
THE EROTIC ENCOUNTER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY COLONIAL LITERATURE
Glikl’s story corresponds with what was perhaps the most popular short story of eighteenth-century Europe. One of the earliest and certainly the most famous written versions of the story is Richard Steele’s “History of Inkle and Yarico,” which appeared in The Spectator in 1711. Steele tells of an English sailor by the name of Thomas Inkle who is stranded on a Caribbean island inhabited by savage cannibals. Inkle is saved by an “Indian maid” by the name of Yarico, and the two fall instantly in love. However, within time, Inkle tires of his exotic lover, and after being rescued by a European ship he decides to sell Yarico into slavery. In her desperation, Yarico calls to him and tells him that she is pregnant with his child, but he, in response, merely raises her price.21
Steele’s story was extremely popular throughout the eighteenth century, and it was adapted into ballads, children’s stories, songs, a few comedies, and a famous opera by George Colman. It was used in order to deliver various messages concerning such issues as slavery, colonialism, ethical trade, and women’s rights.22 But though they vary in detail, language, and genre, as well as in their meanings and motivations, almost all versions of the story share at least three components: (a) they are all love stories; (b) they all share a sense of sympathy toward the savage woman; and (c) they are all critical of the behavior of her European lover. Let us shortly review each of these components before returning to Glikl’s version of the tale.
Stories of the Inkle and Yarico trope are part of a longstanding tradition of colonial romances, which employ eroticism to describe the conquest of the New World. The sexual potential of the colonial encounter is already alluded to in Amerigo Vespucci’s 1504 letter to Pier Soderini. Like Columbus before him, Vespucci makes special note of the natives’ nudity and adds: “The greatest sign of friendship which they show you is that they give you their wives and their daughters, and a father or a mother deems himself or herself highly honored when they bring you a daughter, even though she be a young virgin, if you sleep with her, and hereunto they use every expression of friendship.”23 Such erotic formulations of the conquest were continued throughout the early modern period, both in literature and in art.24 An infamous example is Walter Raleigh’s graphic 1595 description of Guiana as a country “that hath yet her maidenhead, never sacked, turned nor wrought.”25 A less familiar but no less suggestive formulation is found in Thomas Morton’s 1637 description of New England as “a faire virgin, longing to be sped, / And meete her lover in a Nuptiall bed, / Deck’d in rich ornaments t’advaunce her state,” or Roger Wolcott’s 1725 description of the English settlers who press forward upon “the virgin stream, who had, as yet, Never been violated with a ship.”26 These eroticized descriptions of the conquest were, of course, a pervasive colonialist tool. The feminization of the land and its inhabitants provided Europeans with a language by means of which it was possible to present European hegemony in the New World as a natural and even benevolent state of affairs, much like the husband’s authority over his wife.27 As Zantop has observed, stories like Steele’s “History of Inkle and Yarico,” which envisioned the conquest as a mutually desirable affair, offered readers “a model for successful, ‘humane’ colonization.”28 A recurring motif in such colonial romances, one which features in all versions of the Inkle and Yarico story, is the half-European, half-native child, born to a member of the native royalty or nobility. This hybrid child, who