Ozzie Freedman/Hero

Ozzie Freedman Portrayed as a Hero A hero can be defined as one who inspires through manners and actions; who leads through personal example. Under this definition, the character Ozzie Freedman from Philip Roth's "The Conversion of the Jews" (1959) can be classified as a hero. The sections of Discoveries: Fifty Stories of the Quest (Schechter & Semekis 1992): The Call, The Other, The Journey, Helpers and Guides, The Treasure, and Transformation, can be applied to the story about Ozzie to support it's inclusion in this class, entitled "Myth of the Hero". The chapter on The Call describes that a hero may be "on the brink of a decisive change" (21) and they "perceive the danger of remaining where they are" (22). The hero must be "ready … to leave [his] old, familiar [life] behind and move on to something new" (23). In "The Conversion of the Jews", we see Ozzie questioning his faith and going against the Jewish teaching by believing that God could "let a woman have a baby without having intercourse" (384). He stood up to the rabbi in class and was prepared to defend his questioning and beliefs. The Other is a character who embodies the exact opposite personality of the protagonist. According to Schechter & Semekis, the Other causes self-revelation in the protagonist, which his journey would not begin without. In Roth's story, Itzie is Ozzie's best friend, who does not question authority or his faith, quite the opposite of Ozzie. He gives Ozzie a hard time for always asking questions and speaking out in class. (‘"What do you open your mouth all the time for?"' (383)). Ozzie realizes he doesn't want to be like Itzie and blindly accept the Jewish belief about Jesus. He defends his right to question something in order to seek validity, and says, ‘"Itz, I thought it over for a solid hour, and now I'm convinced God could do it."' Discoveries describes The Journey as a portrayal of "how difficult the hero's quest is" (8). In Roth's story, Ozzie faces "external enemies, agents of conservatism or conformity that must be overcome" (Schechter & Semekis, 8). He is speaking out against the Jewish religion, saying that he believes God could impregnate a woman without her having intercourse. When he delivers this defiance to Rabbi Binder, he is yelled at and punished by having to sit in the office for an hour and his mother has to come in for a meeting regarding his behavior. When Ozzie tells his mother, Mrs. Freedman, why she must meet with the rabbi, "she hit Ozzie across the face with her hand" (Roth, 385). The next week, he stood up to the rabbi once more saying he believed God could do anything, and the rabbi hit him "squarely on the nose" (387). Rabbi Binder and Mrs. Freedman have blind faith in their religion, and are not open to change or accepting of other beliefs. They are so appalled by Ozzie's questioning that they turn to violence to try to snap him out of it. Ozzie, however, realizes they are wrong and that one should always be able to follow their personal beliefs on God. He tells his mother, ‘"You shouldn't hit me about God Mamma. You should never hit anybody about God-"' (394). A Helper and Guide is supposed to be a figure "who assist[s] the protagonist along the difficult road" (Schechter & Semekis, 9). In "The Conversion of the Jews", Rabbi Binder is supposed to Ozzie's spiritual leader in the Jewish faith. However, he lashes out at Ozzie for asking intelligent and perceptive questions about God and the Jewish religion. By being defensive and non-understanding, the rabbi winds up turning Ozzie away from the Jewish religion and in turn is given a message about religion and faith from Ozzie while he is up on the roof of the synagogue. Heroes pursue The Treasure because "they believe that the things they are looking for will change their lives" (Schechter & Semekis, 406). "That the heroes … are willing to risk humiliation, defeat, and possibly death in order to achieve whatever end they are striving for is a sign of is ultimate value" (405). Ozzie does not let Rabbi Binder's or his mother's blatant disapproval of his insight and questioning stop him from declaring his beliefs. He went on the roof of the synagogue and raced back and forth, threatening to jump, until everyone in the crowd knelt down, listened to his message, and proclaimed that God can do anything, God can make a child without intercourse, and promised never to hit anyone about God. His belief about God's power was so strong that he thought about jumping ("What would jumping stop?" (Roth, 392)) in order to get his point across. The Transformation is the final step in a hero's journey. The heroes "are never the same people they were when they first started out; the treasure they have sought and found is precisely the transformation of lives that have been too constricted or of selves they have outgrown" (Schechter & Semekis, 499). In Roth's story, Ozzie experiences a religious transformation and conversion. This is symbolized by his comparison of "the light of day to the life of man: sunrise to birth; sunset … to death" (387). Ozzie is out on the roof until late, when the sun has set and it is ultimately the death of the Jewish Ozzie. When his whole ordeal on the roof was over, Ozzie jumped "into the center of the yellow net that glowed in the evening's edge" (394), which is representative of the sun and indicates a new day and era is born in the life of Ozzie Freedman. By applying the theory of the hero's journey as found in Discoveries: Fifty Stories of the Quest and applying it to Roth's "The Conversion of the Jews", we see that the character Ozzie Freedman truly fits the title of a hero. Ozzie questions his religious beliefs and is not ashamed to bring forth his insight and seek answers and new ways of thinking. He winds up teaching his mentor a lesson in religion and sets out to have his message heard, despite the possibility of ridicule and even death. Once he realizes he has a different belief than the people of the Jewish religion, he understands his life will never be the same and that he cannot go back to the Jewish belief that God is not able to produce a child without intercourse. Ozzie gets his message across, that one should never be punished for his beliefs, and he is then born into a new day and a new life journey.
Works Cited
Roth, Philip. "The Conversion of the Jews." Discoveries: Fifty Stories of the Quest.
2nd ed. Harold Schechter and Jonna Gormely Semekis. New York: Oxford, 1992.
Schechter, Harold, and Jonna Gormely Semekis. Discoveries: Fifty Stories of the Quest.
2nd ed. New York: Oxford, 1992.