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* EveryoneHasStandards: The super in the titular story is loyal to the owner and always takes their side, but even he is troubled when Frimme Hersh makes a sudden and radical increase to the rent that he knows "Missis Kelly", who is on a widow's pension from Ireland, won't be able to pay.
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* KickTheDog: Frimme Hersh seems to go out of his way to be the worst landlord he can be, but particularly egregious is when, after being reminded that "Missis Kelly", who was kind to him earlier in the story, won't be able to pay the newly-increased rent since she's on a widow's pension from Ireland, he callously says "No exceptions!"
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* DefiledForever: [[spoiler: Goldie]] believes she's this after she's raped by [[spoiler: Benny]]. [[spoiler: Herbie]] assures her that he doesn't consider her to be so, and makes an HonorableMarriageProposal on the spot to prove it.
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[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cwg.jpg]]
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** A detail that might make it less blasphemous, or even more: as a Jew, the idea of individuals making covenants with God, or even [[JewsLoveToArgue winning court cases against Him]] is not unknown to Frimme Hersh. But ''God didn't agree to anything''. God never offered any deals, let alone signed either "contract". Which means Frimme Hersh is trying to ''force God into a contract''.
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* HonorableMarriageProposal: Herbie's proposal to [[spoiler: Goldie]] after she's been raped by [[spoiler: Benny]]. Strongly implied that this will actually work out well for them, since he loved her already and, as a doctor, [[GoldDigger he's exactly the kind of advantageous marriage she was looking for in the first place]].
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* PayEvilUntoEvil: Rosie's plan is cruel, but it would have come to nothing if Scuggs hadn't been perving on a ten-year-old.
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** [[spoiler: Benny]], who only gets a bit of a tongue-lashing for [[spoiler: raping Goldie]], though the content of that tongue-lashing suggests that he may have a KarmaHoudiniWarranty that may expire someday.
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* BlasphemousBoast: However good Frimme Hersh's intentions as a child were, trying to enter the Almighty into a contract to be rewarded in exchange for his dutiful and pious service, acting as though the two were equals, was this. After years of dissatisfaction in a hollow, greedy secular life, he tries to have a new ''iron-clad'' contract drafted by the elders, who are extremely uncomfortable but reason that it simply would be a "guiding document" for him to live his life by, derived from the word of the Torah; as Frimme again boasts to God that it's impossible for Him to break the second contract like the piece of paper means something, [[spoiler:he has a heart attack and dies]].
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* CreepyChild: [[spoiler: Rosie, a child seductress who caused the demise of Scugg]]
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* CreepyChild: [[spoiler: Rosie, a child seductress who caused the demise of Scugg]]arranges to benefit from Scugg's proclivities and death. She also poisons his dog for no reason.]]
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* [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Even Jerkass Has Loved Ones]]: Scugg and his dog, [[spoiler: the latter's death from Rosie's poison did not farewell for the former.]]
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* [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Even Jerkass Has Loved Ones]]: Scugg and his dog, [[spoiler: the latter's death from Rosie's poison did not farewell bode well for the former.]]
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* FilleFatale: [[spoiler: Rosie, who is prepubescent, uses her sexuality to manipulate Scugg. She gets away with it.]]
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* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Rosie.]] Our last glimpse of her shows her calmly counting out money [[spoiler: after manipulating and arranging the death of Scugg]].
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''A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories'' (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by Creator/WillEisner, who also wrote ''ComicBook/TheSpirit'' in 1940's. The main story deals with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
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''A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories'' (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by Creator/WillEisner, who also wrote ''ComicBook/TheSpirit'' in 1940's. The main story deals 1940s. Although it popularized the concept and term "graphic novel", it is not so much a novel as a collection of short stories, each with a different cast of characters but each dealing with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
Avenue.
The stories are "A Contract with God", "The Street Singer", "The Super" and "Cookalein".
The stories are "A Contract with God", "The Street Singer", "The Super" and "Cookalein".
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* BargainwithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in UsefulNotes/{{Tsarist Russia}}, the main character of the titular story, Frimme Hersh, writes down a contract with God on a stone tablet. In his later life in America he respects the terms of the contract scrupulously and he lives an happy life. However, when he rescinds it, he is even more successful by mundane standards, but he is unhappy. He finally tries to recant.
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* BargainwithHeaven: BargainWithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in UsefulNotes/{{Tsarist Russia}}, the main character of the titular story, Frimme Hersh, writes down a contract with God on a stone tablet. In his later life in America he respects the terms of the contract scrupulously and he lives an happy life. However, when he rescinds it, he is even more successful by mundane standards, but he is unhappy. He finally tries to recant.
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* ShaggyDogStory: Each of the four stories could count as this to some extent (as Denny O'Neil notes in his introduction in the DC Comics edition, the book doesn't really ''have'' "good" or "bad" guys), but ''The Street Singer'' probably takes the cake, as it's the shortest and has the least room to sketch out any kind of arc or resolution. Long story short: [[spoiler: the titular street-singer, for all his alcoholic wife-beating tendencies, ''does'' genuinely want to improve his family's lot and takes the diva's offer to mentor him into stardom seriously. Unfortunately, he forgot to write her address down, and in a neighborhood like the Bronx every alley looks the same...]]
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A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by Creator/{{Will Eisner}}, who also wrote [[ComicBook/TheSpirit The Spirit]] in 1940's. The main story deals with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
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!!Tropes:
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* CynicismCatalyst: The death of his beloved daughter Rachele serves as one for Frimme Hersh.
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A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by {{Will Eisner}}, who also wrote [[ComicBook/TheSpirit The Spirit]] in 1940's. The main story deals with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
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A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by {{Will Creator/{{Will Eisner}}, who also wrote [[ComicBook/TheSpirit The Spirit]] in 1940's. The main story deals with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
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* BargainwithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in {{Tsarist Russia}}, the main character of the titular story, Frimme Hersh, writes down a contract with God on a stone tablet. In his later life in America he respects the terms of the contract scrupulously and he lives an happy life. However, when he rescinds it, he is even more successful by mundane standards, but he is unhappy. He finally tries to recant.
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* BargainwithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in {{Tsarist UsefulNotes/{{Tsarist Russia}}, the main character of the titular story, Frimme Hersh, writes down a contract with God on a stone tablet. In his later life in America he respects the terms of the contract scrupulously and he lives an happy life. However, when he rescinds it, he is even more successful by mundane standards, but he is unhappy. He finally tries to recant.
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* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: At the end of ''A Contract With God'' Dropsie Avenue is destroyed by a furious fire, that starts on the roof of one of the buildings and spairs only Frimme Hersh's old tenement, where a just man (or, more precisely, a just kid) is apparently living. According to the Literature/BookOfGenesis, something like that happened to [[SoiledCityOnAHill two infamous cities]] which called the wrath of God upon themselves.
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* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: At the end of ''A Contract With God'' Dropsie Avenue is destroyed by a furious fire, that starts on the roof of one of the buildings and spairs spares only Frimme Hersh's old tenement, where a just man (or, more precisely, a just kid) is apparently living. According to the Literature/BookOfGenesis, something like that happened to [[SoiledCityOnAHill two infamous cities]] which called the wrath of God upon themselves.
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* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Played brilliantly in the titular story. On the surface, it may seem a religious cautionary tale about the foolishness of trying to force God's hand, complete of the protagonist [[LaserGuidedKarma being struck dead after having tempted God a final time]] and of a rain of fire falling on a guilty community. However, God is never seen nor heard and the entire story may just be the delusion of a man devastated by grief and obsessed with religion.
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* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Played brilliantly in the titular story. On the surface, it may seem a religious cautionary tale about the foolishness of trying to force God's hand, complete of the protagonist [[BoltofDivineRetribution being struck dead]] [[LaserGuidedKarma being struck dead after having tempted God a final time]] and of a rain of fire falling on a guilty community. However, God is never seen nor heard and the entire story may just be the delusion of a man devastated by grief and obsessed with religion.
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* EgocentricallyReligious: Frimme Hersh.
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* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Played brilliantly in the titular story. On the surface, it may seem a religious cautionary tale about the foolishness of trying to force God's hand, complete of the protagonist [[LaserGuidedKarma being struck dead after having tempted God a final time]] and of a rain of fire falling on a guilty community. However, God is never seen nor heard and the entire story may just be the delusion of a man devastated by grief and obsessed with religion.
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** HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler: Though he died of a heart attack just after he created a new contract with god.]]
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* {{Hypocrite}}: When Frimme Hersh tells the story of his contract with God to the elders of the synagogue and asks them to draw a new one, their perplexed and horrified looks show that they immediately realize how blasphemous is his request. Later they discuss the request and one of them {{lampshades}} that they would violate the law of God by abiding to Hersh's request. But they decide that they are just abbreviating the law. It is implied that the reason is that Hersh has promised to donate to the synagogue the tenement at 55 Dropsie Avenue if they procure him a new contract with God.
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* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: At the end of ''A Contract With God'' Dropsie Avenue is destroyed by a furious fire, that starts on the roof of one of the buildings and spairs only Frimme Hersh's old tenement, where a just man (or, more precisely, a just kid) is apparently living. According to the {{Book of Genesis}}, something like that happened to [[SoiledCityOnAHill two infamous cities]] which called the wrath of God upon themselves.
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* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: At the end of ''A Contract With God'' Dropsie Avenue is destroyed by a furious fire, that starts on the roof of one of the buildings and spairs only Frimme Hersh's old tenement, where a just man (or, more precisely, a just kid) is apparently living. According to the {{Book of Genesis}}, Literature/BookOfGenesis, something like that happened to [[SoiledCityOnAHill two infamous cities]] which called the wrath of God upon themselves.
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* CrisisofFaith: In the titular story Frimme Hersh, a pious man who lived all his life in accordance with the laws of God, loses his faith when Rachele, his adopted daughter, dies.
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* CrisisofFaith: CrisisOfFaith: In the titular story Frimme Hersh, a pious man who lived all his life in accordance with the laws of God, loses his faith when Rachele, his adopted daughter, dies.
** HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler: Though he died of a heart attack just after he created a new contract with god.]]
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* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler: Frimme Hersh died of heart attack just after he created a contract with god.]]
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* SelectiveObliviousness: Frimme Hersh never seems to realize that pretending to bind God's will on equal terms with a human being is a blasphemy according to his own religion.
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* TheAlcoholic: The titular character from The Street Singer is one.
* BargainwithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in {{Tsarist Russia}}, Frimme Hersh writes down a contract with God on a stone tablet. In his later life in America he respects the terms of the contract scrupulously and he lives an happy life. However, when he rescinds it, he is even more successful by mundane standards, but he is unhappy and he finally tries to recant.
* BargainwithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in {{Tsarist Russia}}, Frimme Hersh writes down a contract with God on a stone tablet. In his later life in America he respects the terms of the contract scrupulously and he lives an happy life. However, when he rescinds it, he is even more successful by mundane standards, but he is unhappy and he finally tries to recant.
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* TheAlcoholic: The titular character from The ''The Street Singer Singer'' is one.
* BargainwithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in {{Tsarist Russia}}, the main character of the titular story, FrimmeHersh Hersh, writes down a contract with God on a stone tablet. In his later life in America he respects the terms of the contract scrupulously and he lives an happy life. However, when he rescinds it, he is even more successful by mundane standards, but he is unhappy and he unhappy. He finally tries to recant.
* BargainwithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in {{Tsarist Russia}}, the main character of the titular story, Frimme
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* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: At the end of ''A Contract With God'' Dropsie Avenue is destroyed by a furious fire, that starts on the roof of one of the buildings and spairs only Frimme Hersh's old tenement, where a just man (or, more precisely, a just kid) is apparently living. According to the {{Book of Genesis}}, something like that happened to [[SoiledCityOnAHill two infamous cities]] which called the wrath of God upon themselves.
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* BargainwithHeaven: ZigZagged. In his youth, during the persecution of jews in {{Tsarist Russia}}, Frimme Hersh writes down a contract with God on a stone tablet. In his later life in America he respects the terms of the contract scrupulously and he lives an happy life. However, when he rescinds it, he is even more successful by mundane standards, but he is unhappy and he finally tries to recant.
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A Contract With God (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by {{Will Eisner}}, who also wrote [[ComicBook/TheSpirit The Spirit]] in 1940's. The main story deals with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
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A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by {{Will Eisner}}, who also wrote [[ComicBook/TheSpirit The Spirit]] in 1940's. The main story deals with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
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* CrisisofFaith: In the titular story Frimme Hersh, a pious man who lived all his life in accordance with the laws of God, loses his faith when Rachele, his adopted daughter, dies.
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* FaithHeelTurn: PlayedStraight with Frimme Hersh, a pious man who lived all his life in accordance with the laws of God and who turns into a dishonest real estate speculator when his adopted daughter suddenly dies. Ultimately {{Subverted}}, as he seems to feel genuine remorse for having abandoned his faith and finally tries to conclude a new pact with God.
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* FaithHeelTurn: PlayedStraight with Frimme Hersh, a pious man who lived all his life in accordance with the laws of God and who turns into a dishonest real estate speculator when his adopted daughter suddenly dies. Ultimately {{Subverted}}, as he seems to feel genuine remorse for having abandoned his faith and finally tries to conclude a new pact with God.
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* FaithHeelTurn: PlayedStraight with Frimme Hersh, a pious man who lived all his life in accordance with the laws of God and who turns into a dishonest real estate speculator when his adopted daughter suddenly dies. Ultimately {{Subverted}}, as he seems to feel genuine remorse for having abandoned his faith and finally tries to conclude a new pact with God.
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* RealitySubtext: Frimme Hersh's RageAgainstTheHeavens is based on the death of Will Eisner's daughter from Leukemia while Cookalien was based on his teenage years.
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* CreepyChild: [[spoiler: Rosie, a child seductress and Scugg]]
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* CreepyChild: [[spoiler: Rosie, a child seductress and who caused the demise of Scugg]]
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* [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Even JerkassHasLovedOnes]]: Scugg and his dog, [[spoiler: the latter's death from Rosie's poison did not farewell for the former.]]
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* [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Even JerkassHasLovedOnes]]: Jerkass Has Loved Ones]]: Scugg and his dog, [[spoiler: the latter's death from Rosie's poison did not farewell for the former.]]
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* GoldDigger: Goldie and Benny is this trope, though the latter is a male example. [[spoiler: When Benny discovered that Goldie was this rather than a wealthy person, he raped her out of frustration.]]
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A Contract With God (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by {{Will Eisner}}, who also wrote [[ComicBook/TheSpirit The Spirit]] in 1930's. The main story deals with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
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A Contract With God (1978) is the first Graphic Novel written by {{Will Eisner}}, who also wrote [[ComicBook/TheSpirit The Spirit]] in 1930's.1940's. The main story deals with the inhabitants of a tenement in Dropsie Avenue.
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* CreepyChild: [[spoiler: Rosie, a child seductress and Skug]]
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* CreepyChild: [[spoiler: Rosie, a child seductress and Skug]]Scugg]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Scugg.]]
* [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Even JerkassHasLovedOnes]]: Scugg and his dog, [[spoiler: the latter's death from Rosie's poison did not farewell for the former.]]
* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler: Frimme Hersh died of heart attack just after he created a contract with god.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Scugg.]]
* [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes Even JerkassHasLovedOnes]]: Scugg and his dog, [[spoiler: the latter's death from Rosie's poison did not farewell for the former.]]
* HeelFaceDoorSlam: [[spoiler: Frimme Hersh died of heart attack just after he created a contract with god.]]
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* ShiksaGoddess: Frimme Hersh, though a {{subversion}} since he abandoned his religion, took a gentile mistress. Willie's father has an adulterous relationship with one too.
* TookALevelInJerkAss: Frimme Hersh abandoned his faith and became a real estate tycoon after losing his adopted daughter.
* TookALevelInJerkAss: Frimme Hersh abandoned his faith and became a real estate tycoon after losing his adopted daughter.
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* YouHaveToHaveJews: Like Will Eisner, the setting of the stories is in Bronx Jewish neighborhoods.
