Jacob the Liar Essay Questions

How can the character of Jacob be understood as an allusion to the Biblical Jacob?

The Biblical Jacob lies to gain a birthright that has been promised to his older brother, Esau. Yet, the morality of this lie is ambiguous: some have argued that by lying, Jacob was following a message from God that said his brother would serve him. Similarly, Jacob Heym's lie is morally ambiguous. While it brings hope to the residents of the ghetto and lowers the number of suicides, it is baseless and does nothing to prevent all the Jews from being killed at the end of the text.

What is the significance of the narrator's fascination with trees?

The narrator has multiple personal connections to trees, as he describes in the novel's opening chapter. He broke his hand by falling out of a tree and lost his virginity under a tree, and his wife was executed under a tree. Additionally, trees were prohibited in his ghetto. For these reasons, trees became a symbol of freedom for the narrator while in the ghetto. At the end of the novel, he watches trees going by through an opening in the boxcar. This shows how hungry for freedom the narrator had become while in the ghetto. Yet, this is a tragic scene, as the reader knows he and the other Jews are going to an extermination camp.

Why might Becker have written two endings to the novel? What is the effect of this choice?

The novel's dual endings help to develop the theme of dishonesty in the text. Specifically, in providing an ending that is false but satisfying, the narrator essentially asks the same question that Jacob asks throughout the novel: is it better to lie and be happy or to know the gloomy truth? Like Jacob's lie, the narrator's lie does not change anything in reality—most of the Jews still die after being transported to extermination camps at the end of the novel. But the reader is permitted to enjoy a blissful ignorance if they so choose, just as Jacob allows the residents to believe that the Russians are coming. Is it wrong to make things seem better by lying, or is it morally right to lie if things are going to end badly anyway? This question is emphasized in by the novel's multiple endings.

Explain the style of narration and how it affects the text.

Though the text follows the life of Jacob Heym in a third-person fashion, the narration is really in a first-person point of view, with the narrator occasionally talking about his own life and his interactions with the characters in the novel. That being said, much of the story is told second-hand through information the narrator learns after the fact. This narrative style underscores the atrocity of the Holocaust, as it suggests that such a story could only be told many years later, after one is removed from the events they are describing. Additionally, it allows the narrator to be an explicitly Jewish character, which may carry political significance due to the attempted annihilation of Jews during World War II.

What is the significance of the fairy tale?

The fairy tale that Jacob tells Lina can be viewed as a commentary on the power of belief. The princess thinks she is receiving a cloud, and, as a result, is cured of her illness. Jacob may be trying to suggest through this fairy tale that belief can have powerful effects in the real world. This would be convenient for Jacob in particular because he is causing the residents of the ghetto to believe in things that are not true. Yet, the narrator may not be convinced of this idea, as Jacob's lies eventually do nothing to prevent the deaths of most of the Jews in the ghetto.