"The Gentlemen from Cracow" - Analysis
The allegorical short story "The Gentlemen from Cracow" is a very well-known and important piece of Yiddish folklore; a short story in which the poor villagers of the Polish town of Frampol attempt to deal with their own poverty in very interesting ways. When a drought is followed by a hailstorm, then locusts and other supernatural happenstances, the titular gentlemen arrives to offer these villagers a solution. The story itself is a treatise on conspicuous consumption, especially as it befalls a society that is unused to it. Attempting to transform this simple village into a haven for consumerism has disastrous consequences ...
