1: Map of the narrative in Sholem Aleichem’s “On Account of a Hat,” 2021.

1: Map of the narrative in Sholem Aleichem’s “On Account of a Hat,” 2021.

How many stories are there in “On Account of a Hat”? Like a set of Russian nesting dolls or an onion with its many layers that can be peeled back one by one, Sholem Aleichem’s story contains multiple stories within it. The more cognizant you are as a reader of how the story is structured, the more aware you can be of both what happens in its plot and subplots and of how to begin to interpret this complex text. The more you can peel back the layers—or unnest the dolls—the more the story will surprise you.

Suggested Activity: As you read—or, ideally, as you re-read—Sholem Aleichem’s “On Account of a Hat,” take a look at the “map” of the story, and mark up your copy of the story so that chunks of the text are color-coded to correspond to the map as follows:

  • The story that you—the reader—are reading, the published story “On Account of a Hat” written by the famous Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem (in this case, in Isaac Rosenfeld’s English translation). Color-code: blue.
  • The story in which Sholem Aleichem becomes a protagonist of the story that you—the reader of “On Account of a Hat”—are reading, in which he tells you that he has once heard, from a paper merchant from the town of Kasrilevka, a tale about a man named Sholem Shachnah and that man’s journey home for Passover by train. Color-code: orange.
  • The tale, as it is being told to Sholem Aleichem by the merchant from Kasrilevka, when Sholem Aleichem is in a hurry to get home for Passover. As the merchant tells this tale, he keeps asking Sholem Aleichem “do you hear what I say?”—indicating that he’s worried that Sholem Aleichem can’t hear him because he might not be listening attentively and/or perhaps because it’s too noisy where the two are speaking. Color-code: green.
  • The story about Sholem Shachnah: the merchant from Kasrilevka claims that this is a story widely known in the hometown he shares with Sholem Shachnah. This story is an account of how Sholem Shachnah tried to get home in time for Passover by train after somehow succeeding in making some money during his mostly failed foray into the world of real estate. Color-code: purple.
  • Sholem Shachnah’s dream, in which the story about Sholem Shachnah’s attempt to get home for Passover is compressed into a nightmare, in which the general contours of the story are the same but key details—the means by which the protagonist travels home, in a horse-drawn carriage rather than on a train—are different. Color-code: red.

Now that you’ve looked at the story’s narrative map and now that you’ve marked up and color-coded your text, refer to these materials in subsequent activities. When referring to what any one protagonist says or does, for example, be sure to contextualize a quote or an action within the appropriate layer of “On Account of a Hat”—within the correct story-within-the-story. Separating the different layers of the story from one another—who tells what to whom, when, and where—should help you better understand a good deal of the complexity of the text.

Source: Narrative map of Sholem Aleichem’s “On Account of a Hat,” created by Sasha Senderovich, 2021. This map was inspired by David G. Roskies’s chart of the story’s different linguistic layers in his article “Inside Sholem Shachnah’s Hat” published in Prooftexts, vol. 21, no. 1, Winter 2001.