The Street Singer
“The Street Singer”
A 1940 survey revealed that 1.5 million married women had been abandoned by their husbands during The Great Depression in the 1930s.(“America in the Great War”) Most of the Americans affected during these tragic times did not deserve the negative consequences that they were up against. Alcoholism was very common during these times, but was no excuse. In “The Street Singer”, a story in Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, Eddie becomes a victim of The Great Depression trying to make a living by earning money as a street performer in the alleyways of a big city. While Eddie is out singing and drinking all day, his wife Sophie and child are at home awaiting his arrival. Eddie is drawn as an obscured individual and violent abusive husband, who later blows his chance at a prosperous future in show business with the opera singer Sylvia Speegel. The preceding characters in “The Street Singer” are dealt a sense of real Justice, and some become victims due to their own actions.
Justice can be defined as a sense of moral rightness, which is the ethical code of understanding the difference between right and wrong. Will the delivery of a deserved punishment or reward be fair? Positive actions should result in positive consequences, and negative actions should result with negative consequences. However, Justice may not follow these rules, and is not always served in the typical “comic book” fashion where the good prevail and evil fails. Sophie ends up still in the same position from the beginning of the story, even though she is the only innocent character. Justice within, “The Street Singer”, is served in a, “real way”, because Eddie and Sylvia both receive what they deserve and poor Sophie does not.
Once an accountant that lost his job during the depression, now an unsympathetic street performer making pennies, Eddie must learn Justice through his deceit and personal destruction. Eddie’s life is on a downward spiral, he isn’t looking for work and
A 1940 survey revealed that 1.5 million married women had been abandoned by their husbands during The Great Depression in the 1930s.(“America in the Great War”) Most of the Americans affected during these tragic times did not deserve the negative consequences that they were up against. Alcoholism was very common during these times, but was no excuse. In “The Street Singer”, a story in Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, Eddie becomes a victim of The Great Depression trying to make a living by earning money as a street performer in the alleyways of a big city. While Eddie is out singing and drinking all day, his wife Sophie and child are at home awaiting his arrival. Eddie is drawn as an obscured individual and violent abusive husband, who later blows his chance at a prosperous future in show business with the opera singer Sylvia Speegel. The preceding characters in “The Street Singer” are dealt a sense of real Justice, and some become victims due to their own actions.
Justice can be defined as a sense of moral rightness, which is the ethical code of understanding the difference between right and wrong. Will the delivery of a deserved punishment or reward be fair? Positive actions should result in positive consequences, and negative actions should result with negative consequences. However, Justice may not follow these rules, and is not always served in the typical “comic book” fashion where the good prevail and evil fails. Sophie ends up still in the same position from the beginning of the story, even though she is the only innocent character. Justice within, “The Street Singer”, is served in a, “real way”, because Eddie and Sylvia both receive what they deserve and poor Sophie does not.
Once an accountant that lost his job during the depression, now an unsympathetic street performer making pennies, Eddie must learn Justice through his deceit and personal destruction. Eddie’s life is on a downward spiral, he isn’t looking for work and