55 pages • 1 hour read
Jonathan Safran FoerEverything Is Illuminated
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “An Overture to the Commencement of a Very Rigid Journey”
Alex, or Alexander Perchov, introduces himself and his family: his father, mother, brother Little Igor, and his grandfather, all of whom live in Odessa. Since the death of Alex’s grandmother, Grandfather tells everyone he is blind. Although it is obviously untrue, Alex’s father buys him a seeing-eye dog. Grandfather names the dog Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., after his favorite member of the Rat Pack. Alex’s father owns a tour guide company that caters to Jewish people who come to Ukraine to connect with their heritage and history. His latest client, Jonathan Safran Foer, is coming from America and will arrive in Lutsk during the first week of July. Alex and Grandfather are coerced into acting as tour guides for Jonathan; Grandfather will drive, and Alex will act as translator. Jonathan is hoping to find the town his grandfather is from, Trachimbrod, as well as a woman named Augustine, who helped his grandfather escape the Nazis during World War II. Alex is excited, not only to travel but because Jonathan is an American. However, Grandfather is extremely reluctant and seems to hold some prejudice against Jonathan because he is a Jew.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Beginning of the World Often Comes”
Chana and Hanna, the rabbi’s daughters, see strange things—clothing, and household items—floating in the Brod, the river that runs through the shtetl of Trachimbrod. Sofiowka, the shtetl’s chief landowner, describes an accident he has seen, in which Trachim’s cart flipped over into the river. The people of the shtetl come out to see what has happened. Word of the accident passes from mouth to mouth, and a man dives in to look for Trachim’s body. While the citizens are debating what to do, Hanna sees a baby girl, looking newly born, floating in the water.
Trachimbrod, a village of about 300 people, is split into two sections: the Jewish Quarter, where sacred activities are performed, and the Human Three-Quarters, where everyday life happens. These proportions sometimes shift, and when they do, the synagogue is moved so as to be split directly between the two sections.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Lottery, 1791”
At this point in the narrative, it becomes clear that Jonathan Safran Foer (the character) is the narrator of the Trachimbrod sections, and the baby girl born in the river is his great-great-great-great-great grandmother. Back in Trachimbrod, the villagers never find Trachim’s body and host contests to find him. These contests evolve into an annual festival called Trachimday. Some people believe that Trachim’s wife was in labor in the wagon when it flipped, while some believe that the baby is Trachim reborn.
While they decide what to do with the girl, the rabbi takes her to the Upright Synagogue. The synagogue, like the town, is split in two. This division is based on a town event where the prayer book was dropped: The Uprighters are descended from those who did not drop the book, and the Slouchers are descendants of those who did. In the synagogue, the men are allowed to view the baby and can petition the rabbi for her adoption. However, the women are not allowed to see her and begin to hate her as a result. The rabbi puts slips of paper with the petitioners’ names in the baby’s crib, and in the end, Yankel D is chosen to adopt the baby.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
In the opening chapter, the reader is immediately drawn into Alex’s world in Ukraine. The plot is quickly underway, and all of the main characters are introduced—Alex, Grandfather, and Jonathan—as well as Alex’s family. In the chapters he narrates, Alex’s indiscriminate use of synonyms is funny and charming, immediately connecting the reader to his youth and earnestness. When he speaks parenthetically to Jonathan in the text, we realize that he is writing this narrative to Jonathan at some future time, after the events of the novel have transpired.
Chapter 1 also introduces the metafictional style of the narrative, as one of the characters, Jonathan Safran Foer, has the same name as the author. This strategy blurs the lines between our reality and the book’s reality, as well as between fact and fiction. This is a theme that will be woven throughout the text.
Chapter 2 introduces a new narrative thread, setting the stage for the different, interwoven stories that comprise the novel. We are now in the world of Trachimbrod, and Safran Foer uses magical realism to create an awareness of the narrative as fiction, almost fable-like, even as it is being presented as history. Safran Foer addresses highlights this tension between fact and fiction with the story of Trachim’s accident, as Sofiowka, the only witness to Trachim’s accident, is notoriously unreliable, and yet his tale is accepted as truth and evolves into an important piece of Trachimbrod culture.
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