not be easily pushed around, but wants to avoid confrontation at all means possible. Gimpel himself creates the conflict between him and society.The townspeople are to blame as well for this conflict. They have been able to intimidate Gimple into believing anything they say. Whenever Gimpel tries to confront them about their pranks they become outraged. As if there was no reason not to believe them. The town does a good job working as a collective group against Gimpel. They are careless, viscous, and do not know when to leave Gimple alone. They are the ones that shaped Gimpel into being a foolish man with all the ridicule they gave him.Gimpel's wife is a symbol of how society has treated him. His wife did not respect him or care about him, but Gimpel stayed by her side because he had high moral values. All his wife did during her lifetime was make Gimpel look like a fool. She cheated on him various times and had children out of wedlock. Gimpel was never able to confront his wife without ever feeling foolish afterwards. Whenever he would try to confront his wife about the men he has seen sleeping in her bed, she would say he was hallucinating. Gimpel being a fool would believe her and eventually forgive her at the end. Instead of pulling pranks on him, she would cheat on him, yell names and obscenities and, continually lie to him. Even though his wife treated him badly, he still cared for her and her children as if they were his own.Gimpel's problem is that he thinks to much about what other people think. His entire life he has been labeled as the foolish one. All of a sudden, if he began to confront the community about how he felt, he would no longer have a role in society. He is afraid of what other people are going to tell him and how they will react towards him. He has already grown and adapted this role that society has placed on him. He knows what everyone thinks of him. In the opening paragraph Gimpel says he w...
