Intertextuality as means of assimilation and critique of orthodoxy in Joseph Roth's 'Hiob, Roman Eines einfachen Mannes'

Based on a semiotic and reader-oriented conception of intertextuality, this paper combines the ethnographic question of how Eastern European Jewish life is represented in Joseph Roth's novel Hiob with the poetic question of how the text instrumentalizes its intertextual relations to three Old Testament narratives, namely the Book of Job, the legend of Joseph, and the story of Debora--the judge, prophet, and female war leader. It is shown that the conception fo Mendel Singer as a Job-like figure, which is suggested by the book's title, is relativized by the increasingly prominent intertextual references to the legend of Joseph. on the other hand, the intertextual relation between Deborah and the Book of Judges suggests an understanding of Mendel's wife that corrects the novels' intratextual misogyny. The novel responds to the experience of crisis caused by the delusion of Jewish hopes for assimilation in European society and activates the biblical legends in a demythologizing manner, thus rejecting both national assimilation and the retreat to orthodoxy as political solutions.