The figure of Job as a literary motif. The desire for meaning in the face of suffering

Abstract

It is well known that the biblical character of Job has inspired thinkers and artists throughout the ages, so that in the history of Western culture his figure has appeared in numerous pain- tings, sculptures and musical compositions, as well as novels and poems. By examining the formal and thematic similarities and divergences in some literary recreations of the story of Job, I intend to argue that this character has given rise to a literary motif, that is, to the ver- bal representation of a typical situation that is repeated, a stereotypical situation like that of other literary motifs identified in comparative literature such as ‘impossible love’ (represen- ted for example in Romeo and Juliet) or ‘unjust banishment’ (embodied, among others, by El Cid). In order to characterise the literary motif of Job, it will be necessary to analyse which elements of the biblical story survive in the works inspired by it and which transformations it has undergone as it has been adapted to different times and worldviews. Is the desire for a rational explanation of suffering a characteristic element of this literary motif? Does the out- come of the biblical story itself provide an explanation for pain? What about Voltaire’s philo- sophical novel Zadig (1747), Joseph Roth’s short novel Job. The Story of a Simple Man (1930) or Carlos Pujol’s collection of poems Fragmentos del Libro de Job (1998)?