SOURCE: Fuchs, Esther. “Wherefrom Did Gediton Enter Gumlidata? Realism and Comic Subversiveness in ‘Forevermore’.” Modern Language Studies 15, no. 4 (fall 1985): 64-79.

In the following essay, Fuchs deconstructs an Agnon story emphasizing the central irony, which she claims other critics have neglected.

1. Introduction

S. Y. Agnon's story “Ad Olam” (“Forevermore”) has stirred much critical controversy over its ideological meaning. Meshulam Tochner sees the story as a polemic against modern Biblical criticism and modern Hebrew literature.¹ Eddy Zemach claims that the story argues against secular Judaism.² Hillel Barzel maintains that the story demonstrates the transience of secular political statehood by displaying the way in which “one secular civilization is destroyed by another.”³ Despite the considerable differences between these interpretations they all agree that the story is a vehicle for an ideological message, and that the “overt text” is of secondary importance. The allegorical method of interpretation underlying these analyses focuses on...