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Chapter 4
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Everything Is Illuminated, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Storytelling and the Holocaust
Generational Trauma
Meaning and Self-Discovery
Love and Grief
Chance, Misfortune, and Luck
Summary
Analysis
In 1791, Yankel is at the weekly service of the Slouchers (the less strict Jewish congregation in town). At that service—which takes place at a different congregant’s house each week—people decide to revisit last week’s entries into The Book of Recurrent Dreams, a book in which they keep track of the congregants’ dreams. They open the book and go through dreams with titles like “The dream of angels dreaming of men” and “The dream of disembodied birds.” Two officials from the congregation of the Uprighters (the stricter Jewish congregation in town) then arrive at the service. They announce that Yankel has been chosen to be the baby girl’s father. Everyone congratulates Yankel, but, due to the responsibility of raising a child, a great fear grips Yankel, and he cries.
This passage points once more to the role that luck and chance play in the novel. Again, Yankel was not chosen to be the baby girl’s father due to any of his character strengths. Instead, his name was chosen at random, pointing to the idea that he is not the architect of one of his life’s most important events. The novel then suggests, though, that personal agency will determine how he reacts to being chosen as the baby girl’s father. It remains to be seen exactly how Yankel will respond, but his fear points to his awareness of the weightiness of the task that has been entrusted to him.
Active
Themes
