Interpretation

For our most recent class, we read "A Contract With God." For each of the stories there are many points of interest. However, I am going to focus here on the story from which the book takes it's name. At the end of the story a little boy named Shloime Khreks finds the stone on which Frimme Hersh had documented his contract with God so many years earlier; Shloime signed his name under Frimme's, "thereby entering a contract with God" (Eisner 61). Some of my classmates were debating how the final page is meant to be interpreted in light of the drawing Eisner has done. Some people felt that because of the lamppost with the very bright light illuminating the picture the point is that the boy will not make the same mistakes as Frimme and his contract with God will end positively. Others believed that the dark shadow covering Shloime's face (continuing from the previous page after he discovers the contract with God stone) is meant to state that he will succumb to similiar problems. My intepretation of the picture is that the bright light represents Shloime's excitement at entering the contract with God. He idealizes what this will mean in his life as Frimme Hersh did in his youth. While Eisner never actually states what Shloime thinks the contract will mean, I believe the reader is meant to assume that he has a similiar understanding to that of young Frimme. What Shloime believes to be a positive way of living will eventually fall apart when at some point he perceives God as not holding up His end of the contract. I like how different people can interpret elements of Eisner's story in different ways.