Alone by Isaac Bashevis Singer
"Alone" by Isaac Bashevis Singer is a short story that explores themes of isolation, human connection, and moral introspection. The narrative is set in Miami Beach and revolves around a Jewish man who seeks solitude from the noisy guests at his hotel due to his hay fever. He expresses a wish to be alone, which is ironically granted when the hotel closes, leaving him as the sole occupant of a cheap, nearly deserted lodging.
As the story unfolds, the protagonist encounters a hunchbacked Cuban girl who works at the hotel. During a hurricane, she seeks shelter in his room, revealing her life of suffering and hardship. Despite her vulnerability, the narrator rejects her advances out of fidelity to his wife, but he simultaneously grapples with feelings of superiority and pride. The story suggests that his wish for solitude and his disdain for others reflect deeper moral failings. Ultimately, "Alone" critiques the human tendency to isolate oneself while ignoring the shared struggles of others, highlighting the complexities of sin and human connection in a modern, morally ambiguous world.
On this Page
Alone by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: “Aleyn,” 1962 (collected in Collected Stories: “Gimpel the Fool” to “The Letter Writer,” 2004)
Type of work: Short story
The Work
After he moved to the United States, Singer wrote a number of stories such as “Alone,” which reflect his conviction that the modern world is corrupt and doomed. Some of these stories are set in New York, others in Miami. “Alone” is particularly interesting because, although the setting is Miami Beach, instead of a Polish village, the pattern of the story is very much like that of the folkloric tales. There is a protagonist with a lesson to learn, an unwise wish that comes true, and an attack from a demon, which tests the hero’s virtue.
“Alone” is told in the first person. The narrator is a Jewish man who is spending the summer in Miami Beach, instead of in New York with his wife, because he suffers from hay fever. Tired of the noisy fellow guests in his hotel, he utters his wish: that he could be all alone in a hotel. The narrator’s wish comes true. Bankrupt, the hotel where he is staying is closed. The guests he dislikes depart, and he moves to a room in a cheap hotel not far away, where, as he wished, he is the only guest. No one is in this hotel but the hunchbacked Cuban girl at the desk and himself.
Already tired of being alone, the narrator takes a bus to the end of the line and back, musing on the landscape that he is passing, a physical and moral desert, which humankind has disguised in order to indulge its vices, including greed, promiscuity, and cruelty. Later that evening, a hurricane hits, and as it is reaching its height, the Cuban girl asks to be admitted to his room, explaining that she is afraid. Although to him she looks like an animal or a witch, the narrator permits her to stay. Later, begging him to see that she is not a beast but a woman, the girl tells him about her life of abuse, neglect, and poverty. When she concludes by offering herself to him, however, the narrator rejects her, explaining that he must be faithful to his wife, as God mandates. Infuriated, she spits on him and leaves. The next day, the Cuban girl triumphantly tells the narrator that he must leave because the hotel is being closed.
Although to the protagonist the importance of the episode is his successful resistance to the sin of lust, Singer suggests that in fact he is guilty of another sin, that of pride. His initial wish to be alone is evidence of that sin; the narrator does not seem to think of any of his fellow guests as human beings, but only as impediments to his own desires. Even though he repents of his wish, once again he separates himself from humanity by feeling only revulsion toward the girl at the desk. Because she is from Cuba, a place that he associates with witchcraft—in other words, because she is different from him—he assumes that the Cuban girl is a demon. Even when she tells him her sad story, he shows no pity for her, and at the end of the story, he is still focusing only on what he considers to be her witch’s attempt to seduce him. Ironically, as Singer suggests, while one is resisting one kind of sin, the forces of evil may be playing their ultimate trick by sending another to take possession of the soul.
Bibliography
Alexander, Edward. Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1990.
Biletzky, I. Ch. God, Jew, Satan in the Works of Isaac Bashevis-Singer. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995.
Cohen, Susan Blacher. “The Jewish Folk Drama of Isaac Bashevis Singer.” In From Hester Street to Hollywood: The Jewish-American Stage and Screen, edited by Cohen. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983.
Farrell, Grace, ed. Critical Essays on Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: G. K. Hall, 1996.
Friedman, Lawrence S. Understanding Isaac Bashevis Singer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.
Hadda, Janet. Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Noiville, Florence. Isaac B. Singer: A Life. Translated by Catherine Temerson. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.
Telushkin, Dvorah. Master of Dreams: A Memoir of Isaac Bashevis Singer. New York: Morrow, 1997.