Reflection of Jewish Identity in Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Abstract

The Present paper highlights how Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay focuses on the Jewish identity in the twenty-first century American Literature. Jewish Identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Jew and relating to being Jewish. It does not need to imply religious orthodoxy, and it can be cultural in nature. Chabon's works have characterized the themes such as nostalgia, divorce, abandonment, fatherhood, and most notably issues of Jewish Identity. His novels also include gay, bisexual, and Jewish characters in his work. The novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay delineates the lives of two Jewish cousins, Czech artist Joe Kavalier and Brooklyn-born writer Sammy Clay, before, during, and after World War II. The novel is set in the 1930s and 1940s about magic, manhood, superheroes, and growing up Jewish in America. In this novel, the two Jewish cousins Kavalier and Clay struggled in the comic industry for their identity. It also concentrates to identify the Jewish identity in the light of the struggles of the protagonists, who are trying to eliminate their fragmented identity and achieve a sense of wholeness.