LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

shai ginsburgness and dependability, reliability, and self-sacrifice whenever circumstancesrequired it. Yet, in the context of the novel, I would argue that such momentshave a double signification and also serve to undermine the very same myth inwhich they participate. Such moments both belong to the genre of the Palma’hmyth that they helped to establish and also question it. The Palma’h providesUri, then, with the opportunity not to struggle for national goals but rather todelight himself with the pleasures of sex and authority. Moreover, his pleasurescome at the expense of his community, represented here by his subordinates,and undermine a sense of mutual responsibility. He thus fully enjoys his parasiticstate of being – an aspect of his life that most critics of the novel suppressed,underscoring instead his final self-sacrifice as confirmed by his death. Ultimately,the Palma’h allows Uri to celebrate his egotism and escape responsibility.The clash between Uri’s joyful life of the Palma’h and his responsibilitytowards others comes into relief in the novel’s last chapter, which juxtaposesUri’s death and the pregnancy of his lover Mika. As mentioned before, towardsthe end of the novel, Uri realises that Mika is pregnant with his baby. He nowfaces a difficult decision. He may leave the Palma’h and return to the kibbutz;however, an abortion would solve his problems, enabling him to continue hislife in the Palma’h. Here is how he first thinks of the matter:This affair, misfortune – no, this is vulgar. This thing of Mika, the thing – well, hedoesn’t want this thing. Every time it crosses his mind […] he panics. He would notask himself what is the nature of this panic. No, he doesn’t want it and that’s it. Thething is clear, clear in the light of this distress, in the light of some insipid and sadguilt-feeling. He does not want. It’s bad, bad and bitter, it’s a disaster. It’s disgrace!Maybe that is where his hatred for this thing lies. The disgrace, the shame in it.This doesn’t suit him. What does it mean ‘doesn’t suit him’? This meagre word is amockery. What is the reason? Mika – a mother? And he himself? Isn’t it enough thatit’s bad and bitter and even worse. (Shamir 1947: 326–7)The possibility of having a child disrupts Uri’s life and tarnishes his selfimage.The ‘vulgar’ affair breaks into his ‘genteel’ life of leisure. From hisdignified position, he is unable to name Mika’s pregnancy, and he repeatedlyrefers to it as the thing or as it. Throughout, he remains alienated from Mika’spregnancy and treats it as an external force, hostile to his own essence and will.Yet what kind of external force is it? The pregnant female body threatens Uri’sfreedom. It threatens to expel him from the Garden of Eden of his life in thePalma’h, and like the biblical story, guilt and shame accompany the expulsion.The pregnant female body thus signifies a fall from grace, which Uri identifieswith being chained to the kibbutz and to a family.Throughout the story, Uri expresses anxiety precisely about such a life. Withinthe kibbutz Uri feels compelled to prove that he can successfully rival his father,one of the founding fathers of the kibbutz. It is not the singular, revolutionary,— 114 —www.taq.ir