A Contract with God is a graphic novel by Will Eisner.  In the story the main character Frimme Hersh becomes a respected leader in the Jewish community in New York and adopts a girl who was abandoned on his door step who he later names Rachel.  Frimme attributes his success and power to a contract between him and God that he wrote on a small stone when fleeing from war in Russia to America.  Rachel gets sick and dies at a young age and Frimme goes insane because he feels that god violated his contract and betrayed him after he devoted his whole life to God by doing good deeds.  Frimme takes his anger out on Judaism as a whole and uses his power to take advantage of others and for his own personal gain.  The purpose or meaning of A Contract with God is to show how power can completely corrupt or change a person for the worse and ultimately lead to their demise.

Eisner demonstrates this point to us by Frimme's humble beginning.  Before Frimme was a leader of the Jewish community in New York Frimme lived in a small village in Russia called Piske during a war.  Despite the war and his village being destroyed Frimme managed to go around helping others and doing good deeds like building shelters to protect some of the villagers, providing lumber and fire to keep the villagers warm during the winter and even fighting off some enemy soldiers.  On page 109 there are pictures of Frimme walking miles through a disastrous blizzard holding lumber to give to an elderly villager to help him stay warm through the harsh conditions of winter.  These pictures truly capture Frimme's generosity and determination to help others.  All together Eisner shows us that Frimme is a kind and compassionate person at the beginning of the book which is not at all the case at the end of the book.   

Eisner then verifies his point by showing us how Frimme personality has changed after his daughter passed away.  The first example of Frimme's corruption is him using the synagogue's bonds that were entrusted to him, to purchase a tenement building for personal profit.  Before when he didn't have power Frimme helped the weak and under privileged villagers but by Frimme using his power to steal money from the synagogue too use for himself proves that he is changed and become evil and selfish.  

Another example of Frimme's corruption is him changing the conditions of the tenement building to hurt the Jewish people who lived there.  Frimme placed a financial strain on the tenants living in the building by raising rent, cutting back on the heat and forcing the tenants to make their own repairs.  By doing this it also shows how Frimme has turned corrupt.  At the beginning of the book Frimme did charitable work like provide shelter and lumber for warmth to people in need but now he's doing the exact opposite by taking away the heat which proves his transformation from good to evil .

Eisner gives us one last and crucial point that proves Frimme's corruption when he uses the money he earned from the tenement building to bribe the elders of the Jewish community to write him a new contract with god.  When Frimme's daughter died he blamed it on god for violating the contract that he wrote.  By bribing the Jewish elders to write him a new contract between him and God with money he stole from the synagogue clearly proves how Frimme changed from a kind and humble person into an evil tyrant.

Frimme's receiving of a new contract does not only prove that he has turned evil but it also represents that he is so power crazy that he believes he is greater than God.  In Frimme's eyes it is God that violates his contract and because of this Frimme believes he has some authority over God for violating the contract.  On page 117 there is a picture of Frimme shouting at God after his daughter dies "NO! NOT TO ME YOU CAN'T DO THIS  WE HAVE A CONTRACT" (Eisner, 117).  He shouts no at God which shows that he truly believes that he has authority over God when realistically no one does.

Eisner wants us to learn from this story that using power can corrupt us and lead to our demise and at the end of the story Frimme is shouting at God while holding his new contact that the Jewish elders wrote.  Out of nowhere he falls down and dies from a heart attack.  This proves that him using his power in false pretenses lead to his demise.  On page 127 there is a picture of Frimme yelling out to god "THIS TIME, YOU WILL NOT VIOLATE OUR CONTRACT! THIS TIME, I HAVE THREE WITNESSES" (Eisner, 127).  Frimme screaming at God and then dying symbolizes that anybody who thinks they are more powerful than God or challenging God for his throne well lose which means they will die.

In conclusion, Frimme was so crazy with power he lead himself to his own downfall which is what Eisner wanted us learn from reading A Contract with God. Wally Lamb once said "Power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed." (Wally Lamb, I Know This Much Is True).  In Frimme's case this is very true.

