Shulamith In Goethe's Faust

The image of "Margarete," which is an idealized innocent blond-haired female figure of Goethe’s Faust is ironically juxtaposed with Shulamith. The two names of the women are separated into different lines and never joined together in one line. The poet sets them apart to draw a comparison. Celan’s use of juxtaposition shows the Nazis idealized race of blond hair and blue eyes in contrast to the dark “ashen” hair of Shulamith as an identifying race of Jews. When looking at the etymology of the name Shulamith we learn that its masculine form is Solomon, hence tracing it back to the Biblical times. Interestingly, according to Almaani Dictionary, Shulmaith is translated to the feminine name “Salma” from the masculine Arabic name “Salman.” However,

It immediately directs our attention to the pronoun we that refers to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust against he that refers to what appears to be an SS guard. The repetition of such similar phrases symbolizes the endless suffering of the prisoners. This is the central struggle to maintain distinction that divide humans at war. The "whistling" continues telling the Jews “to strike up the dance,” where a concept of movement becomes the leading image in the last line of the first stanza. Thus, the nature of the dance is based on an old mythology as it is dated back to the Middle Ages in Europe where the idea of the death “invites the living to attend this dance, then forces them to attend, should they refuse the invitation” (Dillon 38).

Celan reiterates this notion several times in the poem and he first views death as an abstract concept and immediately death shifts to concrete when death becomes a master from Deutschland. Still, the word “master” has a special connotation in this line as it identified by the guard who acts like a slave master based on the Nazis’ ideology of maser race. Such delineation of perception and expression within these lines makes the reader enters more deeply into the complex structure of the poem itself. It is, therefore,

The successful use of the word “snakes” trigger us to those negative connotations about snakes such as betrayal and sins as in the biblical stories. This shows the inherited evil that the Nazis ideology transplant into the souls of the guards. Another striking irony is shown in the line “grants us a grave in the winds” in which the word “grants” (Celan 17). This word is only associated with positive connotations such as granting one a wish, but in this context, it is used ironically to further increase the horror of the prisoners when the guard sets his hounds to kill the prisoners and later burn them to send their remains into the