Final Paper

            When considering why Isaac Singer titled his novel The Slave, there is the apparent reason that Jacob was a slave to peasants. This bondage caused him to meet Wanda and led to the repercussions from their union. However, the true meaning is much more in-depth than just a mere physical enslavement. A slave is “someone who is entirely under the domination of some influence or person” (Webster). Jacob is not under the physical dominance of another person throughout the entirety of the novel, which would make the theory that the title of the novel is inspired by his servitude to peasants almost ludicrous. Upon closer inspection, the theme of a slave becomes apparent even though it is not the typical form of slavery. Within the context of this novel, love, obsession, and forms of escape become Jacob’s bonds of slavery. These forces imprison Jacob emotionally, physically, and spiritually just as they imprison people in real life.

The Slave is enlightening because it brings to light that all people are enslaved to something, even if they are physically free. The parallels that Singer draws between Jacob and the audience are undeniable and almost like a slap in the face in pointing out the shortcomings of humans. However, one main parallel stood out, which was the issue of being a slave. Jacob considers himself to be a slave to God; at one point Jacob states that “We are all slaves” (Singer 90). This is deeply significant because not everyone will be a slave to God but will be a slave to their own personal god. That god may be religion; that god may be work, alcohol, drugs, school, or anything else that exists in our world. Often people are slaves to more than one thing or one person at any given time. This type of slavery is a fluid and dynamic entity. A person can be a slave to something or someone for a certain amount of time and later change their loyalties or priorities and become enslaved to another thing. This idea of fluidity is one of the points that Isaac Singer was trying to make with his novel. Jacob is not just a slave to God but also a slave to tradition, to his work, his body, and a slave to Wanda. These are just the main masters of his life.  

Jacob goes through phases of being a slave, just as everyone does. He is a captive of God throughout the entirety of the novel but his other masters change as he himself does. The concept of changeability of personal values is an important aspect to consider when reading The Slave because it is an essential correlation between real life and Jacob’s life. As children, humans as a whole are prisoners to the changes that are happening in their bodies. The other master of childhood is the societal pressures of learning how to behave in society. Singer points out Jacob’s obstacles in conforming to society’s expectations when Jacob reminisces about his first marriage and the difficulties that arose from being married without being fully developed mentally, physically, or emotionally. To be able to deal with the stress of being married as a child, Jacob immerses “himself so deeply in study that he forgot the outside world” (Singer 52). At this point in his life, Jacob has two masters, God and his studies. Most children, when they are the same age as Jacob was when he was married are obsessed with playing games, making new friends, and living in the moment. The point that Singer is trying to make here is that even at a young age, everyone is a slave, even if the master does vary from person to person. 

As anyone who has gone through the torment of the teen years knows, teenagers are questionably subject to their hormones. The masters of the teenage years are hormones and the quest to find the reason for existence, whether this is on the individual level or the universal level. During this stage of life, Jacob’s primary master was still God but it was also the quest to find the meaning of existence and to comprehend the ways of God (Singer 54). In the respect to the questions that he asked, Jacob wondered the same things that are often thought about by today’s teens. Jacob asked the same questions that have been asked within the confines of the Bible as Literature classroom at Montana State University. One of the main questions that have plagued these students this semester is “Why had He [God] found it necessary to have pain, sin, evil?” (Singer 54). This question would continue to burrow in the back of Jacob’s mind for the rest of his life, as it has burrowed in the back of people’s mind for centuries, creating one more link between the reader and Jacob because both are a slave to wishing to know the answer to this question. However, this is one master with bonds so strong that the chains will never be broken and no answer will ever be forthcoming.  

Young adults are slaves to aging bodies and the social pressures to figure out their lives, get married, and have children. This part of Jacob’s life is much more complicated, which again parallels real life. In this portion of Jacob’s life, he becomes imprisoned to his most powerful master besides God. This new and mighty master is not physically his wife Wanda, but his own emotions that tie him to her. His subjection to her increases with time until “a voice within him called out constantly for Wanda” (Singer 86). She would be the focal point of his life for over twenty long years. He becomes not only a slave to his desire for her physically but his desire for her emotionally and spiritually. This is the first time in the novel that Jacob’s body, heart, and soul served the same master against his will.

The most intriguing part of Jacob and Wanda’s mutual slavery is that neither wanted to be imprisoned by the other or more specifically by their feelings and need for the other. Both of these people literally had no choice but to serve the other. No matter what Jacob did to try and drive her out, he could not; “she had taken up residence within him and he could not drive her forth” (Singer 112). Once again, Singer creates a situation for Jacob that will allow his readers to realize that they too are slaves to their own emotions. Many of Singer’s readers will have probably at one time or another felt the bond of emotions that they could not control, which tied them to another person. Put into this context, love becomes not a positive emotion but a bond with chains strong enough to rival those that are put upon people by their religion and God.

The final pages of the book show the circular pattern of life and how everyone reverts to having similar masters as they did as children. In fact they are once again learning how to live within the moment and how to control their changing bodies. The reasons for these changes are vastly different than childhood but produce the same results of uncertainty. This is the time “when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened” (King James Version Ecclesiastes 12.3). Jacob experienced all of these difficulties at the end of his life; he could no longer see, eat, or lift his bag that had once been light. He was a slave to the limitations of his body as is everyone when death approaches. It seems a hard concept to grasp that the body could be a master of the soul until the time arrives when it actually happens. For most, this time only arrives shortly before death, as it did for Jacob. However, by expressing the concept of the body as a master, Singer brings to focus the issue and the reader must consider when they will reach that point in their life, even if they only do so subconsciously.

Jacob shows us how he completed each of the main phases of life and what his gods were at each phase. Jacob was a character that allowed the reader to place themselves within his mind and experience the trials that he went through. When reading this novel, the reader is able to imagine himself experiencing the changes of childhood and adolescence, of questioning God, of going through the pain of having some other person become the focal point life, and then facing the failing of the human body as it ages. Jacob proves that even if humans are not physically slaves to another person, everyone is a slave to something in this life. By naming the novel The Slave, Singer allows the reader to decide to what Jacob was truly a slave and then question their own freedoms physically, emotionally, and spiritually.