Short Friday

Short Friday, by I.B. Singer, is a short story describing the life of Shmul-Leibele and his wife, Shoshe. They are both devout members of the Jewish faith and follow the teachings of their religion to a t. While most of the story concentrates on the couple’s religious practices, there is a steady focus on the preparation and eating of food that the two reserve for the Sabbath. A considerable amount of the setting and action of Singer’s story follows this in great detail. Singer does this in order to create irony in the story. The couple so devoutly follows the Jewish religion and makes an effort to live their lives by the Jewish faith that it is ironic and strange to see them put so much effort and hard work into a meal that they eat on the day of rest. The amount of effort that Shoshe puts into finding the food and preparing meals that take “Shmul-Leibele’s breath away” (71) is intriguing. They live their lives based on prayer and skimp on meals through out the week to save for the extravagant meal on the Sabbath. It is as if Shmul-Leibele and Shoshe reward themselves with a fanciful feast for the good job that they do in following their faith so closely. They try to purge themselves of sins and temptations but then weigh themselves down with a huge meal that is laborious to make. The irony is continued at the end of the story. It is a short Friday and the Sabbath dinner has been consumed and Shmul-Leibele and Shoshe have gone to bed already, full and content from their meal of pike, whiskey, chicken soup, and dessert. Shmul-Leibele awakes, overcome by a desire for his wife. They do what married couples do and are about to fall back asleep when Shoshe is “afraid something is burning in the oven.” (73) She wants to go check on this but her husband discourages her. They go back to sleep and they wake up after a terrible nightmare to find that they are both dead and buried together. The irony that comes into play here is that they both are killed by the food that they work hard to make and indulge in. The food that they look forward to every week ultimately caused their demise.