ABSTRACT
The metaphor of memory and history enabled the Hebrew to imagine the life of the stranger, of "the Other". Thus does metaphor, in its highest capacity, act as a universalizing force that enables one to see into the heart of the stranger. But there is for Cynthia Ozick a darker side to the history of metaphor, and one in which the Jews also figure prominently, albeit disastrously. Ozick is hardly the first compulsively metaphorical writer to warn of the dangers of metaphor. Although an Ozick novel exists more than most fictions in the realm of imagination, its characters are not free from the shaping pressures of history; they have their historical actuality and rootedness. Ozick's attention had been caught by an obituary of Christopher Robin Milne, the grown-up son of A. A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh stories, and the "model" for Christopher Robin.
