Gimpel the Foll

Even though romanticism would ask us to find anyway we can to put Gimpel on a pedestal as an example of faith and a good heart, we can’t deny that he was a coward to himself and those around him. The little pranks that the village’s people would use started in good fun, but quickly turned into a mob mentality to ruin Gimpel’s prospects of enjoying a happy life.
Gimpel tries to justify himself that he knew in most every event that others were deceiving him, but allowed it for fear that once they might be right, and then he would be the fool. When he met his future wife, he admitted that marry her would probably not be a wise situation. Yet as the community gathered money for the dowry that Elka requested, a traditional gift usually given to the groom from the bride’s parents, Gimpel justifies himself that a whole village would be crazy enough to put him in a bad marriage. The truth is that he had played the role of the village jester for such a long time that people ...