Isaac Rosenfeld's short novel The Colony1 is an orwellian allegory which on a significant level explores the range of attitudes expressed by contemporary Jews toward themselves and other Jews. Set in an exotic fictional country on the Indian subcontinent, the narrative pits the intellectual Satya, successor to a prophet-like leader, against the machinations of a controlling technology given to efficiency and the waging of modern war. During a rally at which he urges his audience to passively "despise and disobey," Satya is seized and imprisoned, whereupon his true ordeal begins. He is accosted by foes even more formidable than his jailors: his people and himself. Initially lauded by his companions for his vision and patriotis, Satya is by devolving stages doubted, then suspected, then vilified, and finally beaten to the brink of senselessness by his fellow prisoners. The divisiveness which the regime wished to incite among the colonials is complete, for the victims come to admire their tormentors in proportion to their own self-disparagement, signalled by their pummeling of the man they originally exalted.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pacific.edu/oai:scholarlycommons.pacific.edu:uop_etds-4025 |
| Date | 01 January 1974 |
| Creators | Gallo, Joseph D. |
| Publisher | Scholarly Commons |
| Source Sets | University of the Pacific |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations |
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