THE SUFFERING HERO IN THE EARLY FICTICN

OF BERNARD MALAMUD

by

TRESEA GERENE LAVENDER, B,S, in Ed.

A THESIS

IN

ENaiSH

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Technological College

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Approved

Accepted

August, 1968

to-' -"3

/Vo. /^^

Cop. z.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply indebted to Dr* Mary Sue Carlock for her guidance and

her valuable suggestions as director of this thesis.

11

TABI£ OF CCNTENTS

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I . INTRODUCTION

I I . Tl E RATIONALE OF SUFFERING

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

One of the most promising writers of the mid-twentieth century is

Bernard Malamud, author of four novels and two volumes of short

stories and the recipient in 1952 of the National Book Award for The

Magic Barrel and in 1967 of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National

Book Award for his fourth novel, The Fixero Malamud has been praised

for his ironic yet compassionate portrayal of the modem man--of the

human being who experiences the dilemmas and the adversities of Jobo

Man desperately floundering about in a sea of troubles is Malamud's

chief subject, and the compassion with which he portrays his hapless

hero gives the distinctive quality to this author's work, Malamud has

his own particular view of life, and his success thus far can, no

doubt, be attributed to his impressive expression of this unique

vision and to his amazing technical facilities.

The novels"-The Natural, The Assistant9 A New Lifep and The Fixer--

and the short stories--The Magic Barrel and Idiots First--are basically

concerned with the life of one man, the heroo And although the names

are different, Malamud"s hero is a Jew who seems to change very little

as he moves from one setting to another, Yakov Bok, the central

character of The Fixer (1966) p finds, after much difficulty, that he

is indeed a Jew in the fullest meaning of the wordc Sy Levin, the

thwarted, would-be professor of A New Life (1961), is also a Jew,

although his Jewishness is not emphasized until the closing pages of

the novelo Many of the stories in Idiots First and The Magic Barrel

1

revolve around figures who are Jewish; some of the more memorable of

these characters are Arthur Fidelman, Shimon Susskind, Schwartz, Leo

Finkle, and Henry Ro Levin,

Malamud does not, however, adhere strictly to the Jew as his main

character or hero; there are several outstanding gentiles in his

fictiona Malamud's first novel. The Natural (1952), is cai5)letely

lacking in the Jewish overtones of the later novels. The main char­

acter in this novel is an aging baseball star o could be the best

player in baseball's history, if only he were not himana In The

Assistant (1957), Morris Bober is, of course, Jewish; but Frank Alpine,

the main character, as suggested by the title of the novel, is an

Italian and a gentile. Some of the memorable gentiles in Idiots First

and The Magic Barrel are Nat Lime, Etta Oliva, Tcomy Castelli, and Mr.

and Mrs. Panessa,

Although it would appear that there is a difference between the

major diaracters who are Jews and those who are gentiles, this is not

actually the case. All the characters are united by the one thing

\ihidh they have in common, their suffering, Charles Alva Hoyt has

written that the "suffering of the Jew is to Bernard Malamud the stuff

and substance of his art," Certainly, as Hoyt points out, all the

main characters, Jew and gentile, bear an amazing amount of pain and

encounter many difficulties, for Malamud has made his Jewish hero a

Charles Alva Hoyt, "Bernard Malamud and the New Romanticism," Contemporary American Novelists, ed. Harry T. Moore (Carbondale: mthern Jdliinois Ohiversity Press, 1964), p. 65.

symbol0 He does not write about one man; he is not writing about one

Morris Bober or one Yakov Bok--he is writing about mankind. The Jew

is one with mankind because mankind, in general, suff'.rs; then, in the

same sense, anyone who suffers is a Jew, Malamud me.'ely employs the

image of the Jew, who has been persecuted throughout history, to show

all the inhumanities which man has had directed toward him, either by

nature or other forces outside of man or by man himself. The Jew

seems to be a perfect choice as a symbol for the inhimanities v^ich

mankind must bearj, for no other minority group has had to experience

more pain and hardships than the Jews, The Jew, as a symbol, represents

the panorama of suffering as it extends from great public atrocities,

such as those committed as recently as World War II, to the less obvious

prejudices directed toward one individual of a minority group^ The Jew

has e3q)erienced these injuries as well as the more conmon ones v^ich

all men encounter, ^

When Malamud writes about the sorrows and pains of the Jew, there­

fore, he is writing about the sorrows and pains of mankind,/ In one of

his several articles about Bernard Malamud's fiction, Granville Hicks

has focused attention on Malamud's latest novel, The Fixer, In this

discussion (, Hicks quotes Malamud as saying that he has combined several

men who have been persecuted into the one figure of Yakov Boko Among

the men to whom Malamud has referred are names familiar to the entire

2 world--Sacco, Vanzetti, Dreyfus, Chessman, and Beilis, Malamud's

2 Granville Hicks, "His Hopes on the Hunan Heart," Saturday Review,

XLVI (Octe 12, 1963), 32. —

Jewish hero, thus, has been singled out for the purpose of symbolizing

man in his atten^t to cope with the suffering which is an inherent

part of his life on earth.

Almost all the critics who have commented on Bernard Malamud's

fiction have mentioned the suffering of the hero, H. E, Francis and

Granville Hicks have referred to the universal nature of the suffering

which Malamud's hero encounterso Theodore Solotaroff has pointed out

that Malamud^s trouble-ridden hero is a man of principle, and Jonathan

Baunibach has made the same observations« Several critics, including

Granville Hicks and Charles Alva Hoyt, have recognized the compassion­

ate disposition which intensifies the hero's suffering. And in the

only separate work so far published on Malamud, the TWayne publication

by Sidney Richman, entitled Bernard Malamude acknowledgment is made

that the Malamud hero is a man who suffers, though the emphasis in this

work is not focused on any one particular phase of Malamud's work,

Richman's book having been designed for the purpose of acquainting the

general reader with Malamud's fiction.

Although almost all the critics have underscored the element of

suffering in Bernard Malamud*'s fiction, none have tried to analyze in

detail the nature of the suffering. It is the purpose of this study,

therefore, to examine the Jewish hero in his suffering and to indicate

Malamud's concept of the Jew as a sufferero This discussion will

emphasize the causes for the hero's suffering, the kinds of suffering

which the hero endures, and the results of the sufferingo

CHAPTER II

THE RATIONALE OF SUFFERING

The hero of Bernard Malamud's works is a man who suffers. No one

can doubt the truth of this statement once he reads about the lives of

Yakov Bok, Morris Bober, and Arthur Fidelman, or any of the other

principal characters. It is easy to agree with the doctor in "Angel

Levine" when he thinks of Manischevitz, a typical Jewish hero, as a

"man who never stopped hurting," The Malamud hero is, truly, never

a stranger to suffering. The more difficult problem, however, in

investigating the world of the hero is ascertaining the underlying

reasons for the pain and suffering which make the existence of the

hero a harsh one.

Upon a close inquiry into the situation, there come to the front

three concepts or principles which account for the misery which so

dominates the worlds, both outer and inner, of the central figures in

the novels and short stories. First, Bernard Malamud has painted for

his reader a picture of man, using the word "man" in its broadest

meaning; he has given his hero all the characteristics, good and bad,

of mankind. Too, Malamud's hero is often an unlearned man, not simply

in the ways of the world, but in the understanding of man, including

his own unique personality, and in the understanding of the forces of

Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel (New Yoirk? Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1958), p. 51, Hereatter referred to by the letters MB and the page nunber.

nature,) Then, last, and perhaps most distinctive, is the hero's pain

which comes directly from his status as a member of the minority groupc

The main element in this situation is either the hero's acceptance of

his Jewish heritage or his unsuccessful attempt to reject the legacy

of the Jewish nation.

Perhaps the most obvious reason for the suffering \4iich the Jewish

hero endures is the fact that Malamud has given the hero, despite his

Jewishness, a universal character. In other words, the hero is,

within one body, a composite of all men who have lived and who are now

living0 Malamud portrays his hero, not as a superman or god, but as a

hunan being with all the pains, weaknesses, frailties, incompetencies,

and failures \4iich have plagued men of all races and creeds throughout

the ages. It is not sinrprising, then, to find that the Jewish hero

suffers from backaches^ respiratory diseases, a damaged and weak heart,

swollen feet, or any other pain which has found its way into the annals

of medical history, both physical and mentale

The most distressing thing about the aches and pains of the hero

is the intensity and quantity. Morris Bober suffers from catarrh,

shortness of breath, severe headaches, backaches^ exhaustion, and

pneunonia. Frank Alpine suffers from cold, hunger, burning eyes,

sleeplessness, and nervousness. Sy Levin suffers from sharp, hot

pains, and nervousness, and has, at one time, suffered from alcoholism.

Mendel in "Idiots First," suffers from cold, hunger, aching bones, and

terror. Schwartz, in "The Jewbird," suffers hunger, thirst, cold, and

sleeplessness. They all suffer endlessly.

Feld, the shoemaker in "The First Seven Years ' a story from The

Magic BarrelB suffers the pains of a broken heart and the pains of

knowing the illness and poverty which will afflict his daughter's life;

thus, it is that Feld represents the conmon man whose mind and heart

suffer pains which are not as easily cured or relieved as the pains

of the body. Feld realizes "°that what he had called ugly was not

Sobel but Miriam" s life if she married him. He felt for his daughter

a strange and gripping sorrow . . . . And all his dreams for her<"\titf

he had slaved and destroyed his heart with anxiety and labor--all

these dreams for a better life were dead" (MB-15). Morris Bober

suffers the despair of a dreary life. Frank Alpine suffers the pains

of guilt from wrong-doing and the hopelessness of unrequited love.

Carl Schneider e hero of "Behold the Key" from The Magic Barrel p suffers

the hurt of disillusionment with an idealo In the story, "The Girl of

Ify Dreams,/° also from The Magic Barrel, Mitka suffers "impotence and

murderous self charted'" (MB-31) because of his inability to complete

his novel 0 From this short list of the many miseries of Malamud^s

Jewish hero, it is not difficult to think of other men who have

suffered the same^, men who are not Jews^ but Christians Buddhists

Hindus, and athiestSo

The Fixer explains g, perhaps more vividly than all the other novels

and the short stories that the hero is a representative of mankind.

It seems unbelievable that Yakov Bok can withstand the many abuses and

hurts which he experiences during his stay in prisono In the novel,

one first sees Yakov experiencing great physical pain when he is put

into a cell in a prisan. Here, two other prisoners beat him mercilessly,

8

"Potseikin hit him with a knee in the back as Akimytch struck him on

the neck with both fists. The fixer went down, his mind darkened in

pain. He lay motionless as they kicked him savagely . . o ." Yakov

suffers hunger^ thirst„ infected feet, nausea, diarrhea, head lice,

cold, raw skin, exhaustion, and dysentery--things coinnanly afflicting

many people. Yakov is also tortured in the heart and mind. He knows,

as well as any man, fear for the well-being of both mind and body.

He knows the depths of despair which come from loneliness and from not

having a purpose for either living or dying. Once, Yakov even

considers some method of suicide which would be his one last attempt

to give purpose and meaning to his life. Through suicide he feels he

may at least direct his own being and may force the Russian officials

to expose their true nature; he plans his death, "lUl make it by

their hand" (F-268), he decides. Yakov^ at this point, has nothing,

no ideal and no person^ which makes him desire life, particularly a

life of pain. He is plagued by hopelessness and despair which^ more

often than not, is the root of much of the poverty, ignorance, and

pain in the world. Yakov has the same longings as any other man. He

wants a faithful wifej, a home filled with children^ and a comfortable

living. He wants to be at peace with himself and his fellowman. He

wants a purpose for his life. But he does not have these basic needs

fulfilled.

In the early sections of the novels, all the hopes, failures.

Bernard Malamud^ The Fixer (New York? Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1966) p p. 107. Hereafter referred to by the letter F and the page number.

wealoiesses, and pains of Yakov Bok are very personal, very private

things. Yakov does not see beyond himself. Each word of his accusers

and each torment of the body and mind are seen only as they reflect

his personal life and only as they influence his personal life. It

is not long, however^ until his view changes. As the novel develops,

Yakov comes to see beyond his own private world and understands that

man is not an is land <) man does not and cannot exist as an isolate.

He must be concerned with and involved with mankind, and through his

concern for mankind he cares for his own well-being. Yakov comes to see

the relationship of all men and sees that they all suffer as he has

suffered, "... one must . . . think how oppressed, ignorant and

miserable most of us are in this country, gentiles as well as

Jews ..." (F=333)o Thus, man suffers, whether he be Jew or gentile;

and Malamud"s hero holds within himself the history of man, a history

of pain.

To st^jport the proposition that the Jewish hero represents man

in general 0 one may look to those works of Malamud which do not have a

Jew as their central tiguteo The most outstanding work in this study

iSp of coursep Malamud^s first novel 32£^SiiE2i« ^^ principal char=

acter of which is Roy Hobbs. An exceptional career in baseball is

stopped before it actually starts when Roy Hobbs, through lack of

caution;, puts himself at the mercy of a beautiful woman and the gun in

her hand. The rise from this fall is a slow and difficult one, but

Roy Hobbs is inspired and determined. When he reaches the height of

successp however, he allows himself to be hurt again by his involve^

ment with Memo Paris and by her victimization of him. He^ throughout

10

the novel p suffers from his partial realization that Memo does not

love him^ butp in truths hates him. He, like so many of Malamud*s

Jewish heroes g suffers the hurt of enlightenment and the pain of being

isolated from the person for whom he cares deeply. Roy also suffers

economically0 He is denied, by the owner of his club, a salary in

accord with his talents. The hopelessness of his life is another

problem. Roy himself explains this when he says, "... his fate,

defeat in sight of his goal." Roy withholds his love from the fans

that follow him. Too^ he suffers because he remeoabers a past which

holds a mother v^o didn^t love him and one night when he allowed

himself to forget his one goal in life. Roy suffers from his craze

for food and more food. Roy suffers from the idea that he may never

be the most important person in baseball^ his lifelong dream, and^ in

the words of Malamudj, "About this he suffered most" (N°197)o In his

last game, Roy^s entire being is thrown into turmoil. For a consider­

able amount of money^ he has agreed to lose the game. His conscience

begins to torment him; and in his coniteionc, with his conscience, past,

and weaknesses all mingling together, he does lose the game. The

result IS immediate self-hatred,^ and "in each stinking wave of it he

remembered some disgusting happening of his life' (N-190)o The last

picture of Roy is a depressing one^ one where 'he lifted his hands to

his face and wept many bitter tears" (N 237)o From this short sunnary

^ m a r d Malamud, The Natural (New Yorks Farrars Straus j and Cudahyp 1952), p. 157. T^riUteF^referred to by the letter N and the page number.

11

of the pains, weaknesses, and sufferings of Roy Hobbs, a "goy," it is

simple to see that his suffering is not drastically different from

that of Sy Levin, Frank Alpine, Arthur Fidelman, or Yakov Bok.

Therefore, Malamud's hero is actually man inhabiting the body of

a Jew. The enumeration of man's pains and hurts, as seen in the life

of the Malamud hero, could go on^ but the pages of history books are

filled with the same. Perhaps the best sunmary of the hero's predic­

ament is found in the words of Julius Ostrovsky, who tells Yakov Bok^

"". 0 . don't feel too bad, if it weren't you there'd be another in

your place°" (F-310). These words, in fact^ are the truth of the

situation^-all men suffer as Yakov Bok suffers and Yakov Bok suffers

as all men.

Because of the universality of Malamud"s hero, one can expect to

find that the hero possesses the failings of all other people. The

obviousness of this fact has already been emphasized. There is,

however, one hunan weakness which deserves special attention. This

weakness is the hero's lack of knowledge. As far back as the times

of Hoseap the Jews have borne the pains of their ignorance. In

Hosea 4^6^ the words of God reveal what happens when the Jews fail to

gain for themselves wisdom and kna^-dedge, '*My people are destroyed for

lack of knowledge."

Ignorance has always been a source of much distress for mankind

and it certainly plays no favorites with the hero in Bernard Malamud's

fiction. Yakov Bok realizes the problem v^en he considers the cause

of his accusations and imprisonment. He thinks^ "It happened^^^he was

back to this again-^because he was Yakov Bok and had an extraordinary

12

amount to learn" (F-316). Very often Malamud's hero is not knowledge^

able in affairs of the world. Axel Kalish, in 'Take Pity" from The

!SSi£ Barrel, buys a store which has no future, and hd ignores the

advice of Rosen, a more experienced man in such matterso Rosen tells

Axel, "'Kiddo, this is a mistake. This place is a grave. Here they

will bury you if you don't get out quick!'" (MB-87) But Axel refuses

to leave, and the store does kill him, Sam and Sura, in "The Cost of

Living" from Idiots Firsts suffer because they do not have enough fore­

sight to see that it would have been more profitable to sell the store

when it first began to experience a decline in profito Instead, they

cling to the store so long that the only thing they can do is declare

banknptcyo Morris Bober also lacks understanding of business affairs o

The only difference in his case is that he does not live long enough to

declare bankn4)tcy; instead, the store passes to Frank Alpine who seems

to have lost all capacity to judge what is or is not a worthvrtiile

business venture. At first, he thinks business is mprovingf^ and he is

full of new ideas to bring in more money. This supposed change in affairs

does not last, and Frank, like Morris, is caugjit in his own trap. Early

^^ I^g Assistant, one views Morris through the eyes of Julius Karp, one

of the few successful people in Malamud's fiction. Karp thinks.

So he [Morris] had been hit on the head in a holdup, was the fault Karp's? He [Karp] had taken care--why hadn't Morris, the shlimozel? "Miy, v^en he had warned him there were two holdtpiiks across the street, hadn't he gone first to lock his door, then telephone the police? Why--because he was inept, unfortunate.^

Bernard Malamud, The Assistant (New Yorks Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1957), p. 149. "TSreafter referred to by the letter A and the page number^

13

Malamud continues with this idea and reveals the conclusion of Morris'

inability, "And because he was [inept] his troubles grew like bananas

in bunches" (A-149). Morris creates many of his own problems, problems

such as another head injury: keeping an assistant whom he cannot afford,

keeping a "goy" around a Jewish daughter, and pneunonia.

Other Malamud characters undergo pain because they do not under­

stand the true nature and drives of the people with whom they associate.

In "Angel Levinep" Manischevit^ brings upon himself prolonged grief

because he refuses to accept Levine as what he is, an angel. He does

not understand the true motives of Levine and considers him some kind

of practical joker who delights in causing pain. In Idiots^ First^

Arthur Fidelman5 the hero of "'Still Life," does not truly understand

Annamaria and her needs. He attempts to give her material objects,

lovop and physical satisfaction^ but these do not fulfill her need for

forgiveness and cleansing of the soul. And because Fidelman does not

grasp this insight until the last scene of the story, he is tortured

by Annamaria's rejection throughout the story. In "The Bill," a

story from The Magic Barrel^ Mr. and Mrs. Panessa do not possess a

true understanding of the people with whom they attempt to carry on

business. Mr. Panessa once tells Willy that everything in life is run

on credit and "if you were really a hunan being you gave credit to

somebody else and he gave credit to you" (MB= 146=47). The only trouble

with Mr. Panessa's philosophy is that all people do not accept it as

,t^~^tm w^ L w»-Mf-«gTwr^

The hero's suffering in his outer world, particularly the economic area^ is discussed in detail in Chapter III.

14

their own; they do not treat their fellowman as if they were he. It

is for this misunderstanding of mankind that Mr. Panessa soon finds

himself in the grave. In "Take Pity," also from The Magic Barrel,

pain comes to Rosen because he misjudges Eva. He fails to understand

that if she refused a small gift of money once, she would also refuse

Rosen's ultimate attempt to help her, the giving of his life. Several

of the characters fail to understand the actions of their mates. Ida,

Morris Bober's wife, cannot comprehend Morris' reasons for helping

Frank Alpine, for getting up at six o'clock to sell an anti-Semitic

a three-cent roll, for clinging to a store i^ich makes no profit. Even

vdien Frank steps into the role as storekeeper, she looks upon, him with

suspicion and never comes to appreciate his true motive. Florence

F^uer, in "Si4)pose A Wedding" from Idiots First, never understands why

Maurice Feuer does not want Adele to marry Leon Singer,'a successful

young man. She neither shares nor understands Maurice's values in

life and cannot see why Ben Glickman is Maurice's choice for Adele.

One of the more heartbreaking examples of this type of misunderstand­

ing is found in "The Gexman Refiagee," a story from Idiots First. Here,

Oskar Gassner has left his wife in Gemany because he believes she is

anti-Semitic like her mother. Actually, this is not the case; his

wife, althoivh a gentilei is converted to Judaism and because of this

"she if shot in the head and topples into an open tank ditch" which

serves as a grave. Dakar's loneliness is torture to him^ but his

Bexnard Malamud, Idiots First (New Yorks Farrar, Straus, and Co., 1963), p. 212o Hereafter reterrqd to by the letters IF and the page nunber e

15

lack of understanding for his wife brings a greater pain, a pain v^ch

he atten^ts to alleviate by taking his own life.

A very common source of pain for the Jewish hero is his inability

to learn from past experience and from mistakes. In Th^ Magic Barrelp

Tommy Castelli indicates the extent of the meaning of the title "The

Prison^" "No matter how hard you tried you make mistakes and couldn't

get past them" (MB=i03). One character who finds he has learned

nothing from experience is Sy Levin. He remembers former unhappy

results of his physical desires^ his lack of discipline, and his

inability to turn his ideals into reality. But all he gains from his

memory is pain, not revised actions to avoid the same mistakes. Levin

appropriately calls himself a "Manhattan matador" who is "rarely in

control of any contest." "Life Is Better Than Death" is another

story from Idiots First which shows a person who does not learn from

the past. Etta's husband has conmitted fornication and through

associated circunstances has lost his life. Etta finds herself in the

same position; her sorrow is different m that she must daily live

with the results of her failure to avoid the mistake of her husband.

When Etta tells Cesare of their baby, he immediately abandons her and

leaves her to struggle with her conscience. Cronin, in "A Choice of

Profession," is compared with Mary Lou, the girl in this story from

Idiots First. Mary Lou has been a call girl. She realizes the

degradation of such a profession; yet» she has learned from her

7 Bernard Malamud, A New Life (New York? Farrar^ Straus, and

Cudahy, 1961), p. 216. I ^ H a H e r referred to by the letters NL and the page nunber.

16

experience and has been able to make peace with herself. The opposite

is true of Cronin. He points out the difference vrtien he thinks,

". 0 0 she has learned something from her experience that I haven't

learned from mine" (IF-87). Yakov Bok also suffers much because he

has failed to learn from the experience of the entire Jewish nation.

He does not realize that he must exist and act within the bounds placed

t^on him by his Jewishness. He has failed to see the parallel between

his life and that of Dreyfus, the French Yakov Bok. When Julius

Ostrovsky tells Yakov to think of Dreyfus to receive some consolation,

Yakov overlooks the comfort which he could receive in knowing he does

not suffer alone. Yakov only says, "'I've thought of him. It doesn't

help'" (F=306)o Yakov only neglects for some time the lesson which

many of his fellow Jews can teach him; he does not look to them and

learn from them the law or the philosophy which sustains them in their

wretched existence.

A great deal of the hero's pain comes from his lack of knowledge

of himself as a member of the Jewish nation. In The Magic Barrel,

Manischevitz, hero of "Angel Levine," does not understand why he must

suffer so much. He asks, '*Who, after all, was Manischevitz that he

had been given so much to suffer?" (MB-48) He thinks that any one

of his problems would have been enough if God wanted to teach him some

lesson. Yakov Bok also questions the amount of suffering which he

endures; he cannot see a purpose. And^ as with other heroes, Yakov

attempts to justify his suffering by saying, ". . . if I must suffer

let it be for something. Let it be for Shmuel" (F-273). This is,

however, not much help, as it is only some attempt to give his trouble

17

a purpose. His statement does not indicate a true understanding of

the reasiai for his suffering, and it does not satisfy his mind. Sy

Levin is found in a similar position when he asks, "If suffering was

for something what had he suffered for?" (NL-324) He has no answer,

and because of his lack of knowledge he suffers all the more. These

men have not yet come to grips with their Jewish heritage and have not

developed the understanding of life which comes with acceptance of

the heritage.

Very similar to the hero's lack of knowledge of himself as a

member of the Jewish nation is his lack of knowledge of himself as an

individual. Typically, the hero does not realize that the solution to

many of his problems lies within himself. Mitka, in "The Girl of My

Dreams," does not see that he possesses the ability and experience to

write the great novel; he simply has not explored the depths of his

being and searched there for the answer. Instead, he continues to

look to others, such as Olga, for the inspiration to write, Arthur

Fidelman undergoes similar suffering in Idiots First. He is, in

"Naked Nude," miserable because he cannot paint a copy of "Venus of

Urbino." He is plagued by his mind, and "he had nagging doubts he

could do the job right ..." (IF°126). He, at first, does not know

of the great ability which is an inherent part of his being. In

another story, this time in TTie Magic Barrel, Fidelman is again

unknowing. In "The Last Mohican," he does not understand that his

scholarly work on Giotto is not the means through which he might

achieve greatness and happiness. Because he does not understand this,

he wastes months searching for his first chapter; this search only

18

brings him much discomfort and pain. In A I ^ Life one finds Levin

desperately trying to build for himself a happier life; yet, he is

obviously going about constructing a "new life" in the wrong way. He

chooses a new environment, Cascadia^ one which is completely different

from New York. He secures a formal education. He tries associating

vdth the "right" people. But these things are not the source of his

"new life." The source is himself; yet, he does not understand that

he must develop a new philosophy of life, new ideals, and a new self-

discipline if he is to achieve his goal.

Several of the characters in Malamud's fiction search for freedom.

In "The Lady of the Lake" in The Magic Barrel, Henry Levin tries to

gain freedom of action and thoc^t bf denyii^ that he is a Jeifr

Tommy Castelli thinks of himself as a man in a prison with no door.

Even Yakov Bok bewails the Jew's lack of freedoma He thinks, "« • .

a Jew wasn't free. Because the government destroyed his freedom by

reducing his worth" (F-315). Here, Yakov accuses the government of

lowering the worth of the Jew and, thus, destroying his freedom, Tlie

real problem, however, is that Yakov has not yet realized that the

worst confinement v^ich man experiences is the imprisonment within his

own mind. Many of the world's greatest men have endured enclosure

within four stone walls; nevertheless, they remain free because their

mind and soul are free from doiibt, ignorance, and guilt. They have

made themselves the masters of their fate; they have tapped the

strength and courage which lies waiting in each individual.

In many instances, the hero is an unlearned man. He experiences

much pain because he is not well-versed in the ways of the world and

19

in the complexities of personality, both his own and that of those

with whom he associates. Many of the heroes could easily put them­

selves in the place of Yakov Bok when he contemplates the reasons for

his misery, '"Why me?' he asked himself for the ten thousandth time.

Why did it have to happen to a poor, half-ignorant fixer? Who needed

this kind of education? Education he would have been satisfied to get

from books" (F-313). Yakov identifies the problem--ignorance.

Closely related to the hero's representation of mankind is his

acceptance or attempted rejection of Jewish heritage, as conceived by

Malamud. Actually, almost none of Malamud's heroes are religious men

in the sense that "religious" means scrupulously and conscientiously

observing all church customs and faithfully attending each service at

the synagogue. This type of ritual is not the religion of Malamud's

hero. Leo Finkle, of course, is a rabbinical student in "The Magic

Barrel," from the collection by the same name; yet, it is not long

until he realizes that he has not grasped the depth and meaning of true

religion. He has kept the letter of the law but has not taken as a

part of his being the spirit of the law. In 2 ^ £HS££» Yakov Bok

forgets one of the most important Jewish ceremonies, Passover. Malamud

writes 0 "It came as a surprise to the fixer that it was Passover" (F-65)

Frank Alpine's questioning of Morris Bober helps to bring before the

hero the question of being a true Jew. Frank suggests that Morris is

not a true Jew. Then he proceeds to give proof for his conclusion,

"First thing, you don't go to the synagogue--not that I have ever seen. You don^t keep your kitchen kosher and you don't eat kosher. You don't even wear one of those little black hats like this tailor I knew in South Chicago. He prayed three times a day. I even hear the Mrs say you kept the store open on Jewish holidayso it makes no difference if she yells her head off." (A-124)

20

At the funeral for Morris, the rabbi speaks of him as a man who has

sold "'pig meat . « ., and not once in twenty years comes inside a

synagogue . . .'" CA-229). The rabbi, however, does not condemn Morris

and deny him the right to be called a Jew; instead, he says, "'Morris

Bober was to me a true Jew . . .'" CA-229). And Morris is a true Jew

because,he has accepted the Jewish heritage, a peculiar system of

philosophy which has directed the lives of Jews throughout history.

First of all, part of the Jewish heritage is suffering itself.

Many of the heroes suffer simply because they feel that this is an

integral part of their life. Their ancestors have suffered for

thousands of years, so who are they to believe that their life is to

be any better than that of their mothers and fathers? In fact, one

finally comes to believe that the Jew feels he must suffer if he is

not to make the suffering of his ancestors worthless; the hero thinks

of his suffering as a duty which is instilled in the son by the father.

When Frank Alpine thinks of suffering as "a piece of goods" (A-231), he

is not far from wrong. For the Malamud hero, suffering is like a fine,

greatly cherished heirloom which is passed from one generation to

another. Eva, the widow in "Take Pity," from The Magic Barrel, has

accepted her inheritance, a life of suffering. She tells Rosen, "'In

my whole life I never had anything. In my whole life I always suffered.

I don't expect better. This is my life'" (MB-89). In her refusal to

reject a life of pain and hardship, she is preparing a legacy of

suffering for her own two children. The Magic Barrel contains another

story in which at least one of the characters readily accepts the

Jewish history as her own. In "The Lady of the Lake" Isabella cannot

21

forget that she is Jewish and that she has suffered in the Nazi

concentration camps for being Jewish, If she were to forget the

beliefs of her people and marry a "goy," she would be negating all the

suffering which she has endured in the hope of once again being free

to live life fully and without fear Of being persecuted for what she

is. In the story "The Bill," one is again keenly aware of Frank

Alpine's calling suffering a piece of goods. Here, Mr. and Mrs.

Panessa buy a store from a Jew and with the store comes a gift from

the Jew. This gift is part of his life which he has cherished because

of the major role it has played in Jewish history; this gift is

suffering. Kobotsky, Lieb's friend in "The Loan," does not even

attempt to disguise the fact that he has accepted a life of suffering

and will never know anything else. Morris Bober has almost totally

surrendered his life to suffering. He does not understand vrtiy he must

suffer, but he accepts this as the way of life for a good man, a true

Jew. Frank asks, "'But tell me why is it that the Jews suffer so damn

much, Morris? It seems to me that they like to suffer, don't

they?'" (A-124) Immediately, Morris' answer is "'Do you like to suffer?

They suffer because they are Jews . . . . I think if a Jew don't suffer

for the Law, he will suffer for nothing'" (A-125). Morris cannot

explain why he suffers; he only attempts to grasp something which will

give purpose to the suffering which he has made a way of life. He has

made it a way of life because he believes that there is no other

choice--for a Jew.

There are several of the heroes who do not so blindly accept a

pain-filled lifon They question the necessity of unbearable hurt and

22

they attempt to find a happier, more enjoyable world. In each case,

the only way they can do this is to deny Jewish tradition and extricate

themselves from all things Jewish. In T2ie Magic Barrel, Henry Levin

decides to reject his past with all its limitations and become

Henry R. Freeman. With a new identity as Freeman, Levin believes he

will be able to live a life free from pain, prejudice, and sorrow.

Levin, nevertheless, finds that the task is much more difficult and

painful than he has foreseen. In fact, all Levin's dreams of a future

with Isabella are shattered when he finds that only through acceptance

of his Jewish birthright will he be able to secure her love, but the

realization is too late. Levin is left a man without love and a man

suffering more intensely for trying to refuse what has been bought

for him with the lives and blood of his forefathers, Yakov Bok also

suffers for his attempt to reject the fact that Jews have suffered for

centuries and that they live patiently and willingly with this burden.

Yakov sets out to make his life different by not living within the

limitations of his minority group. While in prison, Yakov thinks,

"His fate nauseated him. Escaping from the Pale he had at once been

entrapped in prison. From birth a black horse had followed him, a

Jewish nightmare. What was being a Jew but an everlasting curse? He

was sick of their history, destiny, blood guilt" (F-227). The results

of Yakov's attempts to find freedom outside of the Jewish world are

surprising, especially to Bok. He finds he cannot free himself because

others will not let him forget and he finds his conscience will not

allow him to peacefully forget that millions of others have suffered.

Finally, he comes to think that somewhere there must be a reason for

23

so much suffering; if that is true, then he will, without useless

protestations and vehemence, accept his lot. He decides not. to die

but to live. Why does he make this decision? He thinks, "What have

I earned if a single Jew dies because I did?" (F-273) He will not

increase the suffering of his fellowman simply to end his. Through

his continued suffering, he may be able to protect others like himself.

Yakov's acceptance of his suffering gives evidence that he

believes in some law greater than the law of man. Time and time again,

he has denied the existence of God, as portrayed in the Torah. What

eventually motivates and sustains him is that part of the Jewish legacy

which demands that life be lived according to the "law"; of course,

this belief also brings distress to the hero.

The "law," as Malamud defines it in his works, is not simply

abstaining from pork, praying three times a day, and observing the

Jewish holidays. Morris Bober says, "'Nfy father used to say to be a

Jew all you need is a good heart'" (A-124). Essentially, a good heart

is the hero's law and having a good heart is being a moral man. It

seems that the morality of Malamud's hero is a result of a sense of

duty. It is very simple; there are some things v^ich must take

precedence over all else. Malamud's presentation of duty and morality

is reminiscent of Immanuel Kant^s conception of the same. Again, one

is roninded that Malamud has not made the Jewish*Christian God the

center of his philosophical system. Thus, the hero might say with

Kant, "'We ought to do a thing, not because God wills it, but because

it is righteous and good in itself.'" But how does Kant or the hero

loiow whether an act is "righteous and good," whether it is moral or

24

not? Kant's answer is "'To have moral worth an act must be done

from a sense of duty alone.'" Certainly, the Malamud hero possesses

a strong sense of duty. Morris Bober cannot ignore the feeling that

it is for him to help the pitiful Frank Alpine, and he even feels it

is his duty to get up at six o'clock to sell a Polish woman a three-

cent roll. Tonmy Castelli, in "The Prison," feels he must help the

little girl v^o steals from him. Idiots First contains the story

"German Refugee" in which Martin Goldberg is drawn by a sense of duty

to help the desperately sad Oskar Gassner; this feeling is not prompted

by any monetary reward, for Martin continues, without pay, to visit the

German and continues to encourage him in his time of "involved melan­

choly" ClF-202). Feuer, in "Suppose A Wedding" from Idiots First,

feels it his duty to direct his daughter toward the right kind of man,

one who himself knows what it means to suffer because he clings to a

sense of duty to himself.

According to Kant, an act is moral when it is committed out of a

sense of duty; thus, an act or deed is only good if the doer does not g

expect any specific result or reward, that is, if the doer has no

selfish incentive. At Morris Bober's funeral, the rabbi points out

that Morris has lived with duty as his guide, "'. . . he was true to

the spirit of our life-=to want for others that which he wants for

D

Alburey Castell, An Introduction to Modem Philosophy (New York; The Maanillan Co, 196377 pTTZS.

g Castell, Mode|m Philosophy, p. 278.

25

himself" (A-229). At no time does Morris hope to gain for himself

anything for helping others and for having as much, or more, concern

for others as he has for himself and his family.

It is this way of life, this acceptance of duty to mankind, which

is a major cause of the hero's misery. When the hero puts duty above

his own comfort and well-being, he is certain to encounter pain, hurt,

and hardship. At times the pain seems so little that it appears

insignificant to all but the hero, who is as fully aware of one small

hurt as he is of the largest. Morris Bober takes food out of his own

family's mouths each time he gives a little bread, butter, and vinegar

to the *"'drunk woman" whose money "he never hoped to see" (A-4). In

spite of the hardship which this one small act will bring, Morris

cannot ignore that part of him which says that such a deed is good and

necessary. Sy Levin accepts the responsibility for Pauline and her

two children, not because he truly wants to, but because it is only

right that he try to do what little he can for them, even if he must

place his own personal needs and desires in jeopardy. Once, in his

confusion. Levin thinks, "Let somebody else marry her . . ." (NL-362).

However, he really never seriously considers putting self above duty.

"Idiots First," title story of the short story collection, shows the

prolonged suffering of Mendel as he tries to secure passage to

California for his idiot son. Mendel, unlike Mr. Fishbein, is not

concerned with his own happiness; Mendel's only desire is to see that

his son is not sent to an institution where he will not have as much

love and care as that v^ich an eighty-one-year-old uncle can give.

Certainly, Mendel's last hours would be more comfortably spent in the

26

warmth of his own bed instead of on the icy streets of New York.

Mendel tells Ginzburg, "'All my life . . . what did I have? . . . but

I didn't ask from anybody nothing. Now I ask a small favor'" (IF-16).

And even here, Mendel does not ask anything for himself, not even

longer life—he only asks a chance for Isaac. In the story "Black Is

hV Favorite Color" from The Magic Barrel, Nat Lime, the main character,

sincerely yearns to do good to the Negroes, people who have borne the

brunt of ill will for so long. But his attempts to help them are only

acknowledged by a blow in the teeth^ a scornful look, an armed robbery,

an aching head. Nat suns up his hurt, "I give my heart and they kick

me in my teeth" (IF-15). It is obvious that the more good Nat tries

to do, the more pain he must encounter and endure. Yet, he persists

in what he feels obliged to do.

Of course, many of the heroes do not, when one first meets them

in the novels and short stories, welcome the Jewish heritage of duty

with open arms and an open heart. Many of them try to ignore such an

awesome duty. They attempt living a life like many people who create

a world in themselves and refuse to be involved in anything v^idi

might conceivably bring a few ripples to the glassy but comfortable

world of the self. Sy Levin is, at first, only concerned with himself

and the new world of peace and comfort which he will build for himself.

At first, Yakov Bok is not conoemed that others in Russia and the

world suffer as he suffers, perhaps even more intensely than he

suffers. Frank Alpine is only concerned with clearing his conscience,

blotting out the wrong he has done, so that he may not feel pain. The

27

world is "self' and the byword is "uninvolvement" with the world out­

side of the "self."

Eventually, however, the hero finds this route probably the most

troublesome of all that he might choose. The problem is memorably

stated in "The Last Mohican" in Tl^ Magic Barrel and in one of the

most searching and revealing passages in all of Malamud's works,

Shimon Susskind forces Arthur Fidelman to open his eyes to the Jewish

law of duty. Fidelman begins the questioning,

"Am I responsible for you then, Susskind?" "Who else?" Susskind loudly replied. ". . . Why should I be?" "You know what responsibility means?" "I think so." "Then you are responsible. Because you are a man. Because

you are a Jew, aren't you?" "Yes, goddamn it^ but I'm not the only one in the whole wide

world. Without prejudice, I refuse the obligation. I am a single individual and can't take on everybody's personal burden. I have the weight of my own to contend with." (MB-165-66)

Arthur Fidelman desperately tries to live in a world of the self. He

does not want to add the suffering of the world to his own suffering.

But in his rejection of his duty as a citizen of the world, his duty

as a human being, he throws away months of precious time and money.

He makes himself into a confused man who can do nothing but chase the

fleeting shadow of mankind, Shimon Susskind. At least, if he accepts

Malamud's peculiar philosophy of a life of morality, he will not have

to suffer the pains of a fierce internal struggle between hunan desires

and conscience. He will exchange this personal suffering for the pains

of the world of v^ich he is, at last, an inextricable member. Simi­

larly, once Yakov Bok destroys the dam which has kept him from mingling

with the essence of all people of the world, his mental and spiritual

28

anguish undergoes trans formation. His suffering is certainly not less

in quantity, it is singly in another form. Yakov now understands and

feels the anguishes of all those people with whom he identifies. His

suffering no longer seems senseless when he thinks of himself as a

"public person" (F-313). He is satisfied to endure all that may ccme

his way because he is convinced of the goodness, morality, and

necessity of his actions. His only conceivable gain is increased

pain, but this he accepts. He accepts a life of serving mankind

because he finds it impossible to free himself from the fact that he

is Jewish and he must accept this fully--he cannot choose just that

part of Jewishness which is appealing to him as an individual. He

finds that he must heed the words of Solomon in Proverbs 1:8, "Nfy son,

hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy

mother." He does accept and abide by the teachings and the law of his

ancestors, the teachings and the law which form the Jewish legacy.

And although there are many immediate causes for the suffering of the

hero, eventually, one mu^t recognize the veracity of Yakov Bok's

statement, "'I don't want people pitying me or wondering what I did to

be so cursedo I did nothing. It was a gift. I'm innocent'" (F-7).

Yakov shows clearly that Malamud's hero does not understand the

reasons for his life of suffering. When the panorama of the hero's

suffering has passed before the reader's eyes, however, he may point

out three principles, concepts, or forces v^ich seem to be the major

reasons for the hero's pain. The first reason stems from Malamud's

own concept of the Jew; actually, to Malamud, the hero and his trials

are symbols of the comnon man and his life. Since the hero is a man

29

v ^ encompasses life itself, one is not surprised that the hero

possesses many hunan characteristics; the one hunan trait which is

very obvious in the Malamud hero is lack of knowledge, knowledge about

himself and about the system of which he is a part. Another pain of

the Malamud hero is evident v^en one concentrates less on the universal

aspects of the hero and sees the hero as a member of a minority groi^.

Because he is a Jew, there are certain aspects of the Jewish culture

from which the hero does not and cannot free himself. The hero, as a

Jew, is an inherent part of a Jewish heritage which demands that he

be a man of principle and a man of responsibility. The hero, no matter

what viewpoint is taken, is definitely a man who suffers. It is only

through a close examination of the suffering which the hero endures

that one is able to determine the rationale of the suffering.

CHAPTER III

THE OUTER WORLD

The man who represents life°-the person i^o best embodies the

virtues and weaknesses of mankind--is a sufferer. Although his reasons

for suffering may differ from novel to novel and page to page, Malamud's

hero suffers in his physical world, the world of the body and of other

people. This is the Jewish hero's environment--his outer world. The

outer world is never forgotten, never lets itself be forgotten. When

one first encounters the Jew in Malamud's novels and short stories, he

is suffering from a heart condition that threatens permanently to

inmobilize him or, even worse, take from him the painful but ever so

precious breath of life. Or the hero may be suffering from an unbear­

able backache, a body broken by the insults of men, or a harsh cough

\4iich lights tq) his face "like a tomato" (A-7). The hero's own body,

his own physical being, is one source of his suffering.

To parallel the bodily suffering of the hero is the sufferer's

position in the material and economic world. This position is a

defeating situation which is, perhaps, more vividly evident than that

of the pain-wracked, frail body. The Jew is caught in a stale world

of gray. He clings to the run-down, forgotten neighborhood store. Or

he exists motionless in a suspended state of poverty where he forever

waits for that one opportunity v4iich will enable him to touch the hem

of success. But in the end, when opportunity passes, he has waited

only to be trampled in the rush by those less burdened and less weighted

down by the guilt, the pain, and the poverty of the world.

30

31

These people who are not concerned with the problems of man do

not suffer; they achieve success in the material world; they are not

crippled and deformed by a body which tiiinks itself an instrument of

torture. And vdien supposed catastrophe strikes one of these, it

ironically turns out to be a blessing in disguise. In The Assistant,

Julius Karp's liquor store is demolished by fire, a seeming stroke of

bad luck, but Morris Bober thinks, "For Karp's tenants the fire was a

tragedy, and Ward Minogue, dead young; maybe also for the detective,

but not for Julius Karp" (A-219). It is simple; Julius Karp has

succeeded in detaching himself from the legacy of the Jewish nation--

he does not suffer, and Morris Bober temporarily puts a period to his

thoughts about the fire, about Julius Karp, about his life, with a

sigh and the words, "Everything to him who has" (A-219),

Because not everyone has accepted the philosophy of life idiich

Malamud's Jew has adopted, the Jew suffers in his relationship with

the "goy," a phrase which includes anyone not typically Jewish, that

is, anyone v^o does not suffero The Jew suffers in his relationship

vdth these people for no other reason than that they do not suffer.

They do not suffer; yet, someone must. How can the injustices, the

errors, and the failings of the world go on without being paid for,

without being recognized? The "goy" won't take the responsibility for

these, so it is left to the responsibility-minded men of the world,

to the Morris Bobers, Yakov Boks, and Arthur Fidelmans. The hero has

unwillingly, yet willingly, made himself his brother's keeper. And he

must, in this role, accept the pains of responsibility before personal

32

gain and the pains of not being understood by those who do not then-

selves appreciate the full meaning of responsibility.

Next, there are those who hate the Jew simply because he is a

Jew, because he is different. They persecute the hero; sometimes they

attenq)t justification of their feelings and actions by whispering or

screaming to themselves and others--"Christ killer! Christ

killer I" (F-233) The Jew suffers, then, because he is chosen a

scapegoat by the people of the world. Upon the Jewish hero the people

of the world heap the blame for their guilt, misery, and hopelessness;

for them he is a scapegoat whom they flail with a rod of words or a rod

of iron.

Last, one finds that Malamud's hero suffers because, in his role

as a sufferer, he is rejected by many of those around him. Typically,

he feels he must give of himself. The Jew has nothing; yet, the hero

must give, as Malamud writes that Shmuel, the peddler in The Fixer,

must give, "The peddler . . . had nothing to give so he gave favors,

service if possible , . ." (F-5), The more he tries to give, the less

he is accepted and the greater his own isolation becomes.

The suffering of the Jew in the outer world begins first with his

own body. The collection of short stories, Idiots First, opens with

a story by the same name. The story presents the reader with the

picture of a pain-wracked body inhabited only temporarily by an old

man who is relentlessly pursued by death; Mendel is trying frantically

to acrape together enoi^ money to send his deranged son to an eighty-

one-year-old uncle. And finally it seems only fitting that the one

person vdio understands both Mendel's physical and mental torture is an

33

equally old and bent rabbi who willingly gives his new fur-Hned

caftan to be pawned and then he "pressed both hands to his temples

and fell to the floor" (IF-12),

The Assistant, the first Malamud novel with a Jewish hero, opens

with Morris Bober's dragging two milk cases into his store, not

actually a totally exhausting job; yet, it leaves Morris breathless

and panting. And one "quick drag" (A-7) on a cigarette is enough to

make him cough violently, "cough till he feared his head would pop

off simply because his "'lungs ain't so healthy'" (A-35). Morris'

own mother had a similar catarrah and lived to be eighty-four, but it

is for Morris Bober, Malamud's Jewish hero, to know the full force and

fury of two dried spots on the lungs. Later, after a near encounter

with death in the form of an unlit stove that spewed gas, Morris Bober

finds himself disabled by pneunonia and consigned to a hospital bed

for ten days. His lungs are further damaged by this illness, and for

him any kind of physical activity becomes hazardous. Although he is

aware of his frailty, Morris is one day seized by an unquenchable

desire to shovel snow and to touch, smell, or feel some freshness6

Accordingly, he steps into the icy, snow-filled night without coat,

without galoshes and clears the walk of snow. Afterwards, the

frightened Ida angrily asks, "'What's the matter with such a man?'"

But Morris' only retort is "'I had my hat on. What am I, tissue

paper?'" (A-223) And with his own words Morris Bober suns up his

person, perhaps his life, for three days later he dies.

There are other men in the world of the Malamud hero who suffer

the physical aches and pains of Morris Bober, or similar ailinents.

34

In "The Death of Me" there is the tailor Marcus \dio "had prospered,

so to say, into ill health" (IF-57), and he is thrown into fits of

dizziness and nausea by the bickering of his assistants. As the

bickering reaches its climax one day, the poor Jew reaches the climax

of his life and "his heart, like a fragile pitcher, toppled from the

shelf and bunp bunped down the stairs, cracking at the bottom, the

shards flying everyv^iere" (IF-66-67). Or again, in "Angel Levine,"

there is Manischevitz, another tailor, who suffers from such extreme

pain that he cannot work more than two hours a day as a presser, his

only source of income.

^^ I^g Magic Barrel 0 the shoemaker in "The First Seven Years"

also suffers from a heart condition; his is a heart like a paper bag

filled with air, ready to burst at the slightest pressure from the

outside. A previous heart attack has already taken from him his right

to make his own shoes, so he has hired Sobel to do the work for him.

And Sobel does it well until one day when he walks out and leaves

Feld to find a new assistant--this time one not so honest as Sobel.

It is not long until Feld finds that the new assistant has been

stealing from him, and he suffers a heart attack. It is a mild one,

but "he lay in bed for three weeks" (MB-12).

Less obvious than these, but perhaps more distressing, are the

physical anguishes of the hero of A N ^ Life, Sy Levin. The first

words used to characterize Levin are "formerly a drunkard" (NL-3);

he is a man whose tissues have at one time cried out for the soothing

baptism of alcohol and a man whose body has known the tormenting pains

35

of withdrawals These insights into Levin's past are flung in the face

of the reader almost before he meets S. Levin.

Then Levin's body finds itself the unlucky recipient of a "hot

gob of tuna fish and potato" (NL-10) and a hot "jet of water" from

little Erik Gilley's "streaming fountain" (NL-13); both events succeed

in making S. Levin conscious of his inner failings. Although he has

not been guilty of bodily clunsiness or awkwardness, the two instances

of physical embarrassment prompt a desperate feeling, and Levin cries

within himself, "I've got to get out before they hate me" (NL-13),

Yet, this physical embarrassment is not the worst. For S. Levin,

the most irritating pain comes from the frustration of his sexual life<

In his first experience in Cascadia, Levin finds himself on a horse

blanket with a local barmaid, when a noise and a flashing light cause

him to rise in panic. For revenge. Levin's Syrian acquaintance has

stolen most of their clothes and when Laveme pleads with him to

forget and continue, Levin only wants to leave because he is fearful

of being exposed and of losing his job.

Some time later Levin is involved in a similar situation. He

and Avis Fliss find that they have no refuge but Levin's office at

the college. They, however, are intem5)ted by Gerald Gilley, and

both Levin and Avis fail to satisfy their physical desires.

A similar instance of suffering coming from the physical desires

and necessities being thwarted occurs in "Still Life" a story from

Idiots First. Arthur Fidelman shares an icy flat with an equally icy

artist-pittrice. He loves her; he desires to love her body. One day

Annamaria responds to Arthur's inspired representation of her as

36

"Virgin with Child" and she sobs, "'You have seen my soul'" (IF-45).

Immediately she offers herself to him. Not once but three times they

are interrupted and because of his overwrought body, Fidelman spends

his passion uselessly and huniliatingly and is shoved out of bed by an

enraged and sarcastic woman, who, in the doing, sentences Fidelman to

live a life as a whipping post for his body's desire and need to

possess her.

Levin's body pains him with longing for satisfaction. After

Avis, he singles out a student, Nadalee Hammerstad, who obviously

desires to be singled out, and although he tries desperately to over­

come his bodily cravings, "desire butchered him" (NL-138). It is not

too long until he finds himself the victim of his body's desire, his

own private tool of torture, because it has placed him in a position

where his physical life is in opposition to his ideals, his "new life."

Nadalee demands a change in her grade, a change from a "C* to a "B";

but the situation loses its overtones of spiritual-physical conflict

when Levin discovers that he has actually made a mistake in averaging

the grades. Yet, in the final struggle between Levin and the small

town, technical-col lege English department, the attitude of which is

the best seen in a popular car bunper-sticker, "'Keep Basketball King

at Cascadia College'" (NL-184), Levin finds that truly the "past

hides but is present" (NL-56). His physical weaknesses, past and

37

present, are exposed and prove to be the nails in the lid of his

professional coffin.

Once, at a party, Levin finds himself telling Pauline Gilley v ^ t

he wants in life, "»Orderj, value, accomplishment, love . . . . Love

any time°" (NL-189). And that is exactly what he gets, love, begin­

ning with physical love, first in the forest with none other than the

searching and sorrowftil Pauline. But with Levin's consciousness of

the "marvel of it" (NL»199) begins the slow death of his "new life";

his body receives fulfillment but parallel to this is the lack of

^Ifillment of spiritual and professional dreams and goals. Levin and

Pauline begin a "new life" together in a double bed; Levin convinces

himself that, if necessary, he can "break it off by spending the

sunmer in San Francisco. In the fall he could find some excuse not

to see her" (NL°210)o But Levin finds that "satisfaction bred quick

hunger" (NL°247). His bodily need for her only intensifies and soon

makes his spirit an old friend who is^ out of necessity, forgotten.

Levin's uncontrollable pleasure with Pauline Seems to be short>-

lived \^en one night he experiences a hot, flashing pain which runs

from the hip to the scrotun and back for ten minutes; because of this

pain Levin begins to dread going to bed with Pauline. He thinks,

"o 0 0 for every pleasure, pain" (NL-213).

Eventually, Levin succeeds in overcoming the physical pain he has

experienced by giving birth to true love, agapao, but he finds it

impossible to overcome the torrent of pain which his physical desires

have brought down upon his head. He runs from Pauline as she

relentlessly pursues him. He is in the campaign for the position of

38

head of the department and feels that he cannot now afford to be

publicly associated with her. At last, however, the affair between

Levin and Pauline is revealed v^en Gerald Gilley announces that he

and his wife are separating--"with an assist of Mr. S. Levin" (NL-345)a

Levin's dreams of leading the election in a conservative vs. liberal

campaign are crushed when the votes are revealed, "The first and final

vote for head of department was Gilley 17^ Fabrikant 2, Levin 0" (NL-346).

His own body has defeated him. Levin realizes that he has defeated

himself when Gerald Gilley confronts him with the truth about his affair

with Pauline and with the runors about a girl named Nadalee Hamnerstad.

As Levin is last seen, he is driving down the highway with a

sickening remembrance of one weekend with a Nadalee Hammerstad, with

the realization that he does not love the pregnant woman and two

children beside him, and with a promise that he will never again teach

in a college. These things--the memory, the woman and children, the

promise--are a burden to Levinp a burden partially created by his own

being which has found itself a slave to physical desires.

^^ I 3.ots ^irst^^ the story "Life is Better than Death" reveals

the sorrowful state of Etta who suffers, first, because her husband

bowed to the desire for his cousin, Laura, and who suffers, the second

time^ because she too succumbs to the body and its needs. As the

story closes, Etta is left standing alone, without a father for her

unborn child and without respect for herself on which to anchor her

life, the price of the partnership she has entered into with the body

and a man named Cesare Montaldo.

The last major character in the novels of Malamud who suffers

39

because of his body is Yakov Bok. The^ Fixer is a story of physical

pain which is equaled only by the spiritual torment which a man's own

mind can inflict upon himself. Unlike most of the other Jews who

suffer physically, Yakov Bok, v ien first revealed to the reader, is

a young man who is reasonably sound in body; at least, the ailments

of his mind and heart are more important and obvious than those of

the body. Once Yakov leaves the shtetl, however, his physical being

begins to make itself ever so obvious by allowing Yakov to deny his

heritage.

Yakov realizes that most Jews are easily identified by certain

"racial'* characteristics, if not by the split hoof which the hatred-

crazed boatman swears is seen if a Jew takes off his boot (F-27). But

Yakov Bok has been repeatedly told he does not look like a Jew, so "he

now believed it" (F-32). And with his new feeling of confidence!

Yakov Bok, now in Kiev, goes looking for opportianities, or for luck,

and ends up, as Yakov Ivanovitch Dologushev, in the employ of an

anti-Semite in the Lukianovsky, a district forbidden to Jews. Yakov's

body has opened avenues of opportunity which otherwise would be closed«

One finds similar feelings and actions on the part of Henry Levin,

the hero of "Lady of the Lake," a story from Tlie Magic Barrel, by

calling himself Henry R. Freeman. He tries to free himself of the

limitations of his background that his name daily imposes upon him.

The story reaches a high point when Henry's newly found love asks,

•"Are you, perhaps, Jewish?'" Henry silently feels the past about to

bubble up within him and drown his hopes, but he remembers "he did

not look Jewish, could pass as not—had" (MB-113)o And resting

40

securely in this thought Henry R. Freeman denies what his appearance,

what his body, allows him to deny.

Both Yakov and Henry are led to more intense suffering than they

dreamed possible by their alleged blessing. The reader feels that he

is given an omen of Henry R. Freeman's future as he travels with

Isabella and Henry through the dark rooms of the castle. In one room

the two stop before a tapestry of a "writhing leper, spotted from head

to foot with pustulating sores which he tore at with his nails but the

itch went on forever"' (MB-123). Still enveloped in his shroud of

deception, Henry does not grasp the portent of the scene and asks,

"'What did he do to deserve his fate?'" Isabella answers, "'He falsely

said he could fly.'" And then with the weight of his deed upon him,

Henry R. Freeman cries out to her and to himself, "'For that you go

to hell?'" (MB-123) Henry finally feels the truth of the tapestry

as he desperately and frantically desires to be Henry Levin, not

Henry R. Freeman. The beautiful Isabella reveals that she is a Jew,

"'I can't marry you. We are Jews. My past is meaningful to me. I

treasure vdiat I suffered for'" (MB-132). And before Henry can grasp

again his legacy, his dream of life slips away as Isabella disappears

into the mists of the night.

So it is with Yakov Bok. He tries to free himself of the burden

of being a Jew, only to find that he has made himself more vulnerable

to the injustices of the world. His deception weighs heavily on his

mind; he dreads more than anything "to be unmasked as a hidden

Jew" (F-63). Exposure is exactly what befalls the poor fixer, but he

is only learning, "He had stupidly pretended to be somebody he wasn't.

41

hoping it would create 'opportunities,' had learned otherwise—the

wrong opportunities—and was paying for learning. If they let him go

now he has suffered enough" (F-72). He has suffered because he

believed the lie of his body.

Throughout the remainder of the novel, the reader is almost over­

powered by the extent of Yakov Bok's physical pain and discomfort,

the whole of which is brought upon him, not by the frailty of his own

bodyg but by the frailty of the hearts and consciences of those who

have pitted themselves against his body, a thing so hated by them

that it must be destroyed. As this battle intensifies in a politically

unstable time in the history of Tsarist Russia, Bok is thrown into

prison to waste away for two years until he is almost no more than a

mere shadow, almost until Grubeshov's threat is realized, ". . . I'll

keep you in prison till the flesh rots off your bones piece by

piece" CF-143).

During his time in prison Yakov is beaten by fellow inmates until

he passes out. He is spit upon by men so filled with hate for him

that they are incapable of words. And then he is put into solitary

confinement--a punishment almost unbearable for any man. But here,

away from the eyes of others, the prison guards and officials are left

free to add to other abuses the injustices of forbidding him proper

food and sufficient clothing. Yakov exists in a cold, dan^ cell with

a cracked window. Even the water v^ich he is given to drink freezes

during the night. Once he is given fuel for his stove, but later

this "luxury" is revoked.

Neither does Yakov Bok^ a Jew, deserve minimal hunane treatment.

42

Once he cries out in pain from suppurating feet, a woe inflicted by

the nails in his prison shoes. At last, from fear of gangrene, the

prison officials permit Yakov to go to the infirmary for treatment of

his feet. But how will he get there? The guard has a fitting answer,

"'If you can't walk^ crawl'" (F-185). And so crawl he does, along the

stone corridor, down the rough stairs, and across the prison yard

during the afternoon walk of the prisoners o And although "both his

hands were scraped raw, and both knees bled" and although medical aid

is administered without anesthetic, Yakov Bok, only a fixer, is given

no pity, no consolation in his suffering, and in his ears ring the

words of the prison surgeon, "'It was good for you, Bok,'" words which

cut more deeply than the surgeon's knife. "'Now you know how poor

Zhenia felt when you were stabbing him and draining his blood, all for

the sake of your Jewish religion'" (F-186)o

Suddenly, it seems, the accusers and judges of Yakov Bok have

been touched with, perhaps not pity, but the love of the Christ they

seek to avenge. The guard brings Yakov bread, gruel, soup with small

bits of cabbage and meat in more satisfying portions. But again a

seeming act of goodness is only another physical punishment of the

man who suffers enough in his heart and mind. One night after a week

of cranes, vomiting,, and fever spiced with terrifying dreams, Yakov

bolts out of his fitful sleep with frightened words on his brassy

tongue, "'PoisonI My God, they're poisoning me!'" (F-199)

Fearful of being blamed for his death, the prison officials

become more subtle in their tortitre, hoping to poison and distort the

mind through the body. Once when the guard allows Shmuel to visit

43

Yakov, Yakov's only immediate reward is arm and leg chains and a

wooden bed upon which he is bolted each night, a prison cell in which

he cannot even move without scraping the skin from his legs. But

what is this punishment in comparison to the one which has offended

and disgusted Yakov from early in his imprisonment, the daily searches

of his body? The searches are more humiliating and terrifying for

Yakov than even the thought of his accusation and imprisonment, for

not one inch of his body, not one intimate area, is free from the

bright, sadistic eyes of the Deputy Warden. Not even on the day of

his trial, when he has already left his cell, is Yakov free of the

one physical punishment or provocation which is the source of deep

anguish. And as the guard jabs and scrutinizes as if he had never

before done the job and enjoyed it so well, Yakov, suffering from being

treated less than a man, boils with anger. Yakov is not angered by

the search itself; he has endured the same kind of search many times.

He is angered, instead, by the officials' incapacity to realize that

he, Yakov Bok, has already suffered more than any one man should

suffer.

The economic plight of Malamud's Jewish hero seems to be a

composite of all the material failures and hardships which have faced

the Jewish people, and mankind in general, throughout history. The

hero wears modem clothing and lives in a world undeniably twentieth-

century, but with a few changes in time and setting, he would not look

or feel out of place in a Jerusalem, Bethlehem, or even Rome of many

centuries past.

At times the Malamud Jew appears as a twentieth-century Job, or

44

he may be seen as a modem-day representative of the Jewish nation as

it felt the privations of Babylonian captivity. TVo of the short

stories portray the hero as a one-time successful man who has

witnessed the collapse of his material world, as if the Lord has once

again said to Satan the words found in Job 1^12, "Behold, all that he

hath is in thy power." "Angel Levine," one of the more bizarre tales

^ Ih^ ^ g ^ ^ Barrel, is the story of Manischevitz, once a very

successful tailor. One ill-starred night, however, a can of cleaning

fluid explodes and Manischevitz's world bums down around him. Of

course, all far-sighted business men have insurance--and so does

Manischevitz. What he could not have foreseen and prevented are the

two injured customers who take from him every cent of the insurance

payment. Then, as in the case of Job, added to this financial loss

is the loss of his daughter who marries an oaf.

Oskar Gassner^ one of the two major characters in "The German

Refugee," is another whose position in the world has declined. At

one time he has been financially secure and has been respected as a

critic and joumalist in Berlin. Now, however, the reader finds Oskar

living in an unbearably hot and dismal apartment on West Tenth Street

in New York City, his hope for improving his economic status almost

nil. He has accepted a position as a guest lecturer in the Institute

for Public Studies--a task not too difficult for a man of Oskar's

experience and intelligence, but one too difficult for a man of Oskar's

heritage and troublese Thus, Malamud^s hero has lost all as the

children of Israel lost all vrtien they were taken into captivity by

the Babylonians. The Jewish hero might as well use the words in

45

Jeremiah Is 13 to sunnarize his plight, "... he [The Lord] hath made

me desolate and faint all the day."

However, it is more conmon for the reader to find the Jewish hero

as a present-day Amos, a man vrtio has never known success in the

financial and material world. And, although the hero has nothing to

lose, according to middle class standards, he seems to experience

levels of poverty, usually in the order of bad, worse, worst.

One of the most pitiful of the heroes who suffer economically is

Yakov Boko He does not wish to be burdened with a life of "have-not";

he does everything which his mind can conceive to change his life of

poverty. Tlie situation is succinctly stated when Malamud writes, "The

fixer wanted better, at least better than he had had, too much of

nothing" (F°31). Yakov intensely hopes to create opportunities for

himself by leaving the "still-life" community which he has called

home for so many years. He is not satisfied to become a man like

Shmuel who has so little to eat that 'his breath smelled of nothing-<mot

bread, not anything" (F°9). When Yakov reaches Kiev, he lives for

weeks in the Jewish quarter which is filled with much action, a place

"where everyone was busy but no one eamed much of anything" (F-31).

He tries to eam his living by "fixing" things which are broken in the

Jewish quarter. Still, all he gets in retum is a warm "thank-you"

and a plate of noodle soi;^. Then can this lead to success? It cannot,

so Yakov ventures out into forbidden districts, only in the hope of

creating opportunities for himself, and that he certainly does--even

if they are the wrong opportunities. After he enters the employ of

Nikolai Maximovitch, the fixer anticipates a change in his situation.

46

In several weeks, Yakov has a few kopeks, porivaps rubles, in his

pocket--nothing to be considered success, only a lighter shade of

poverty. But better is better—a change has come. Yet, Yakov soon

finds out that the change in his economic situation is really one

which leads to the very lowest level in his own personal, economic

"Inferno." It is not long until the simple fixer finds himself in

prison without anything of value, not even proper clothing. Thus, one

can see that despite an intense desire to improve his pecuniary status,

Yakov Bok experiences only a dramatic and, most likely, permanent

collapse of his material world.

^^ A New Lifoo Sy Levin also searches for a new economic and

material life^ as well as a new spiritual life. He has succeeded in

pulling himself out of the gutter, his former home, and has built a

firm foundation for a new material life with a college education, an

M.A. He moves to Cascadia and settles. He has hopes of a brighter

future; after all, a college professor, no matter how lowly, seems to

prosper more readily than a mere high school teacher, his former

position. On a college staff there is room for advancement in both

position and salary. Levin even finds he is able tp purchase an

automobile, although it is a second-hand Hudson.

The future looks bright for awhile, but Levin soon experiences

the fate of other Malamud heroes. He realizes that his fleeting

glisapae of success has made his final poverty more difficult to accept.

Levin finds he must bargain with Gerald Gilley for the lives of Erik

and Mary, the two children involved in the eternal triangle. And the

choice for Sy Levin is really no choice at all. One route open to him

47

is giving up the principles and the new understanding of man and life

vrtiich he has agonizingly achieved. The other so-called choice is put

to him by Gilley, "'Are you willing to give me your premise you will

give up college teaching?'" (NL-357) Actually, the decision is already

made for Levin before the problem i$ ever presented to him. Too much

has been given and too much has been achieved in his search for a "new

life," a "new life" within himself, to be thrown away in the hope of

having a few more cents or dollars in his pocket. Yet, Levin asks,

in one last attempt to touch what mercy Gilley might have, "'How am I

supposed to siq>po^t them [Paulihe, Erik, Mary] if I can't teach?'"

(NL°357} Gilley's answer is that Levin can teach in a public school,

but not a college. And when Levin seals the contract with his words

"I agree to your terms" (NL-360), he seals his own financial future.

The last picture of Levin is not a very bright oiie; he is the

proud owner of one second-hand Hudson, the lover of a frail, unhealthy

woman, the father of an unborn child, the guardian of two young

children; and more dishearteningly, he is a man with no dreams of a

future with a nice home, a new car, and an abundant retirement fund.

Levin's story is not a new one. In fact, one might compare it to the

story of the poor widow who put her two mites in the treasury. In

Mark 12?43°44^ the comments of Jesus are related, "Verily, I say unto

you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have

cast into the treasury? For all they did cast in of their abundance;

but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."

And the same may be said of Sy Levin; he gave all, even all his living.

The picture of the economic status of the hero which is presented

48

in Tlie Assistant and in several of the short stories is a slightly

different one. In this picture, the hero has already reached the

lowest conceivable level of poverty, and interestingly, he really has no

true hope for in5)roving his situation. Morris Bober is the best single

embodiment of the Jew yiho suffers monetarily and who suffers with the

knowledge that things will never be better. He owns a store that does

not pay for even barest necessities. Morris Bober does not count his

intake in dollars; he counts it in pennies, in "sixty-three cents

worth" of this and in "forty-one cents" worth of that (A-6). His is

a store that brings only thoughts of despair and, eventually, death.

In Morris' mind the store looks "like a long dark tunnel" (A-4).

Although he often thinks of selling the store, he knows that no one

would buy a dead store that entombs the man who owns it. Morris has

no anger and no energy to attempt a change in vocation. He merely

becomes frightened by the thought that without the store he would, most

likely, have no roof over his head; yet, this attempt to justify his

tenacious grip upon the store is not really even believed by Morris,

who, at one point, simply sighs and says, "'Here is the worst'" (A-6),

For one reason or another, "worst" gets no better. Morris is

robbed by two masked bandits; then, he is robbed by his assistant,

Frank Alpine. No amount of washing, polishing, and waxing makes any

difference in the profits. Even the presence of a "goy" has no

lasting effect on the amount of business which the store receives.

And \ihen the story closes, the picture of a rUn-down store has not

changed and the bedraggledp sad man sitting at the worn counter has not

changed--only the name is different.

49

Several of the short stories are parallels to scenes in The

Assistant. For example, in Idiots First, the story "The Cost of

Living" is about Sam and Sura, the owners of a near-forgotten neighbor­

hood store. Sam has worked for years, but for what?--nothing but

pains from dragging the heavy milk cases, swollen veins from standing,

and an empty cash register and an empty heart. Matters are made worse

when a chain store moves in next door and signs the death certificate

for a store and a man who have been dead for years.

"Take Pity," from TTw Magic Barrel, begins with the death of

Axel Kalish, a man who bi; s "a pisher grocery in a dead neighborhood

where he didn't have a chance" (MB-87). Then his wife takes up the

vigil; she mops, she cleans, but she only sells bits after the super­

markets close. Her effort is all for nought; the store is "still

rotten" (MB-93). Also from The Magic Barrel is the story "The Prison."

Tommy and Rosa Castelli live a life of selling candy, cigarettes, and

soft drinks. They, too, count their profits in pennies. The last

story from The Magic Barrel which illustrates the predicament of the

Malamud hero is "The Bill." Here, the owners of the store dole out

goods and credit until they have nothing, not customers and not enough

money to visit the doctor to save Mr. Panessa's life. The customers

have found it easier and cheaper to visit the self-service. Of course,

the owners are not Jewish. But one can draw a parallel between the

Panessas and Frank Alpine. Both have merely continued the tragic walk

down life's path which the former owners, Morris Bober in one case and

simply a "Jew" in the other, had begun long before.

Probably the most intense suffering which the Jewish hero

50

undergoes in his "outer world" is the suffering in his relationship

with other people, both Jewish and non-Jewish. This suffering is the

most intense because the Malamud hero places people, their feelings,

and their reactions to him above his own bodily condition and his own

material welfare.

The most obvious type of suffering which the hero undergoes is

the suffering that comes when others fail to treat him as any man

should be treated, when they refuse him the dignity which is accorded

most men. In some cases, the Jew is singled out as a creature to be

specially mistreated simply because he is a Jew. The Fixer includes

several exmples of the peculiar treatment which is given a Jew in

early twentieth-century Russia, or, with a few changes in scenery,

any time in history since man has intermingled with men of different

race, creed^ or religion.

In The Fixer the common picture of the Jew is a simple one; the

portrait is vividly painted by a Russian boatman, "'A Jew's a devil--

it"s a known fact--and if you ever watch one peel off his stinking boot

you'll see a split hoof, it's true'" (F-27)o And in a God-fearing

country such as the Russia of the early 1900's, what could be more

hated than a devil?

When times are bad and the people grasp for those men in high

positions \4io have victimized their lives, who is blamed? The Jew! A

pogrom is ordered at the right moment and the people's anger momentarily

dissipates in the thunder of the hooves of the Cossacks' horses and

then dissolves completely in the pool of blood under a crunpled Jewish

body. Then there is the special order of Black Hundreds, men who have

51

made it their life's purpose to search out and destroy the Jewish

blood and waste which is corrupting the virgin land of Russia. There

are governments which restrict people to blocks of filthy rat-infested

shacks to avoid associating with the hooked-nose, Christ-killing Jews.

There are governments and people who insist on keeping their lives

and their children's lives safe from the blood-letting, disease-ridden

Zhids by refusing the Jews the right to work where opportunity and

necessity might lead them.

Of course, there is always a simple solution to this problem, the

Jew. As Yakov nears Kiev, he speaks with a Russian boatman \^o

fervently proclaims the solution commonly held by many Russians,

"Day after day they crap up the Motherland," the boatman went on monotonously, "and the only way to save ourselves is to wipe them out. I don't mean kill a Zhid now and then with the blow of the fist or kick in the head, but wipe them all out, which we've sometimes tried but never done as it should be done. I say we ought to call our menfolk together, armed with guns, knives, pitchforks, cliibs--anything that will kill a Jew--and when the church bells begin to ring we move on the Zhidy quarter, which you can tell by the stink, routing them out of wherever they're hiding-°in attics, cellars, or ratholes--bashing in their brains, stabbing their herring-filled guts, shooting off their snotty noses, no exception made for young or old, because if you spare any they breed like rats and dien the job's to do all over again." (F-28)

The impact of deforming hatred and the inhunane abuse of the Jew

is almost unbelievable. Yet, the details of the life of just one Jew,

Yakov Bok, is enough to convince the reader of the reality of people

who hate and think and act as the Russian boatman does. Mien the

young boy Zhenia Golov is murdered, the murderer can only be a Jew,

so the city of Kiev is flooded with hundreds of leaflets screaming,

"WE ACCUSE THE JEWS" (F-68). The next day Yakov is singled out as the

52

most likely man to coninit such a malicious deed. After Yakov's arrest,

inhunanity is piled tpon inhunanity by the Russian officials-

imprisonment, beatings, insufficient clothing and food, debasing

searches and treatment, refusal of legal counsel. Even the one ray of

hope, Investigating Magistrate Bibikov, is spitefully removed by the

men who are determined to convict Yakov of a ritual murder. So it is

that the life of Yakov Bok goes; in a time of political turmoil when

the Russian Tsar is desperately clinging to his dwindling power and

authority, he and his officials grasp frantically at anything vrtiidi

might distract the attention of the Russian people from their own

problems. Julius Ostrovsky recognizes the situation and tells Yakov^

"'To distract popular attention from the breaches of the Russian

Constitution they incite nationalism against non-Orthodox Russians.

They persecute every minority--Poles, Finns, Germans, us--but especially

us'" (F-308). Thus, the Jew is chosen; the Jew is already despised by

the Russian people because he eats different food, follows different

customs g and worships in a different church. He is a ready-made scape­

goat which has been used before; all the Tsar, or any man, must do is

bring the Jew out of storage, brush away the thin layer of dust, and

remind the world of all the evils v^ich the Jew has caused.

Mong the short stories there is one v^ich exhibits the same type

of anti-Semitism fomd in 22£ Fixer. The story is '"The Jewbird" and

is found in the collection Idiots First. Here the suffering hero is

a "Jewbird" named Schwartz, a smelly, tattered bird closely resembling

a crow. Schwartz seeks only sympathy and a little shelter and food

53

from the Cohens. Edie and Maurie Cohen are ready to give the little

that Schwartz asks of them; Harry Cohen is not so generous. Through­

out the bird's stay in the apartment, Harry Cohen does all he can

possibly do to make Schwartz's life miserable. Harry makes him sleep

in a cold, cramped birdhouse, eat crunbs, and run exhaustedly from a

cat. Harry complains about Schwartz's snoring and the smell \ihich he

gives off. Eventually, the senseless quarrel ends with Schwartz's being

flung, like a stone, to the street below. Weeks later Cohen's boy

finds Schwartz, "his two wings broken, neck twisted, and both bird-

eyes plucked clean" (IF-113), Within his own mind the boy can find

no rational answer for such treatment, so, between sobs, he asks his

mother v^y. And even in her wisdom Edie can find no rational answer;

all she can find is a senseless but truthful answer. She says sadly,

"'Anti-Semeets'" (IF-113).

In the other novels and short stories, there is no Yakov Bok or

Schwartz; there is no Grubeshov, Berezhinsky, or Harry Cohen to torment

so maliciously the Morris Bobers and Arthur Fidelmans simply because

they are Jews and simply because they are different. Yet, there is

some anti-Semitism of a milder and, perhaps, more subtle nature. In

The Assistant, Morris Bober is sometimes needled by his Polish customer

who asks for a "'Jewish roll" or a "'Jewish pickle'" (A-32). But

Morris is not deeply offended, although Ida calls the Polish woman a

""die antisemitke'" (A-32). Morris attributes the Pole's attitude to

the "old country" (A-32) and distinguishes between it and the anti-

Semitism found in the Uiited States.

54

At one point, Morris is a victim of this American brand of anti»

Scmitism. He is robbed by Ward Minogue and Frank Alpine, not because

Morris' store is the most profitable one in the neighborhood but

because Morris is a Jew. In making his decision Ward says, "'I don't

care if it's a Karp or a Bober, a Jew is a Jew'" (A-70). Then later

when Frank takes over management of the store M o m s tries to account

for a sudden slight improvement in business. He ponders; yet, he knows

in his heart the reason and thinks, "... the vdiy of it was simple

enough--the store had improved not because the cellar dweller was a

magician, but because he was not Jewish. The goyim were happier with

one of their own. A Jew stuck in their throats" (A-77). Then in

"Angel Levine" in The Magic Barrels Manischevitz is momentarily

deterred and is insulted by Negroes whom he must pass to reach Angel

Levine. He succeeds in ignoring the cutting remark, "'Exit, Yankel,

Semitic trash'" (MB°54)0 and reaches his destinationo From the same

collection of stories comes "The Mourners," a heart-rending story in

v^ich Kessler is evicted from his apartment. There is no reason for

his eviction except that the janitor has begun telling tales about

how filthy the Jew s flat is. Although these are untrue tales of

revenge rooted in the janitor's lack of skill in pinochlej, the tenants

of the apartment house readily accept these tales about their strange,

Jewish neighbor.

In the hovels and short stories of Malamud, not all the characters

hold the same philosophy of life, the same ethics vdiich the hero holds.

Essentially, the main principles of this philosophy are love and

understanding for all mankind and responsibility for mankind. These

55

concepts, out of necessity, denand fxoi the hero an alaost absymal

intertwining of his life with the lives of all people with i iom he

comes in contact. In other words, the last thing which the Malamud

hero wants to be is an isolate. Yet, many times the very people to

whom he wishes to give so much of himself are the ones who cause the

pain and isolation which are the bitterest punishnent for the hero.

Particularly in the area of romantic love, or phileo, is the hero

unsuccessful. Yakov Bok is, because of a guilt-stricken conscience,

pushed into marrying a girl for whom he does not have a true, intense

love. Then, what feeling there is between the two is shattered by

infertility and unfaithfulness. Henry Levin of "The Lady of the Lake"

finds the girl who, through love, will bring peace and purpose to his

life. But just as he is about to embrace his Isabella, she is jerked

forever from his grasp simply because he has attempted to reject his

Jewish heritage. Mitka, the uninspired writer of "The Girl of My

Dreams" from The ^ g i £ Barrel, feels that he has shut the door on his

past when he begins his literary romance with Madeleine. But he, too,

is disappointed. When he finds she is a dowdy, middle-aged woman, he

cries out within himself, "Ah, colossal trickery°-was ever man so

cruelly defrauded?" (MB-36) Then, in "A Choice of Profession" from

Idiots First, the hero, Cronin, has lost his wife to a friend and is,

after several months, finally drawn to one of his more mature and

attractive students. He invites her out and anticipates a pleasant

association. However, the girl, Mary Lou, insists on being overly

truthful and admits committing incest and admits being a former call

girl. All of these disclosures suddenly bring Cronin back to a world

56

of reality and a world without love. Another story from The Magic

B m ^ , "The First Seven Years," is certainly a poignant one. It is

the story of Sobel who works day after day for Ffeld; Sobel does not

ask much in the way of salary, but what he asks is much more important

than salary. He asks for Miriam, Fold's daughter. The Vords from

Genesis 30;20 show that Sobel is much like Jacob; the years seem "unto

him birt a few days, for the love he had to her." The title of the

story, however, suggests for Sobel some impending doom; perhaps, he,

like Jacob, may be the victim of deception which will bring confusion,

bickering, and hatred to his life and will isolate him from that which

he loves very much.

Another Malamud hero who is isolated by the object of his

affection is Arthur Fidelman, hero of three short stories. The story

of importance here is "Still Life," found in Idiots First. Fidelman

is in love with Annamaria, the woman with whom he shares a flat. He

increases his services to her, hoping to win her regard, but she repays

his efforts with increased scorn. It is ironic that Fidelman finally

gains her attention when he loses his personality as he is immersed

in painting himself as a priest. As always, the real Fidelman is

rejected by Annamaria, for she sees no one but a holy man, a priest.

"The Magic Barrel," from the collection by the same name, is an

unusual story of the suffering which the hero undergoes in his search

for romantic love. Leo Finkle approaches a matchmaker because he has

no prospects of his own. The suffering v^ich this type of search for

a bride brings is no other than Leo's realization of his personal

inabilities, specifically "that he had called in the broker to find

57

him a bride because he was incapable of doing it himself" (MB-204).

Malamud aptly calls this realization a "terrifying insight" (MB-204),

one that brings much pain to Leo. The other suffering is only implied,

but the implication in the final words of the story is quite vivid.

Leo meets the questionable bride he has indirectly chosen; he hears

violins, sees candles, and smells the flowers grasped tightly in his

hand. But the reader's last glimpse of the scene is a frightening

one, for "around the comer, Salzman, leaning against a wall, chanted

prayers for the dead" OiB-214). It seems more than mere possibility

that Leo's dreams of happy romantic love will never be realized.

The theme of suffering in love in "The Magic Barrel" involves

much more than mere romantic love. The same statement can be made

about the love themes in The Assistant and A New Life. Frank Alpine

loves Helen Bober and thinks of her as the one thing, the one person

}fiho^ through love, can "change his life in the way he wanted it to

happen" (A-llB). The rabbinical student, Leo Finkle, also thinks of

his Stella as a transforming force instead of a mere hunan, with all

the inherent weakness of mankind. Malamud writes of Leo, "He pictured,

in her, his redemption" (MB-214)o Sy Levin also searches out the love

of a woman in his attempt to find for himself a "new life." There is

no doubt that the loves of these men are painful siji ly because they

are, in terms of hunan love, fruitless loves. Frank forever loses

Helen because of his impatient love; Leo chooses the wrong woman; and

Levin loses his love each time he fears for his job, each time he

sinks deeper into the conq>lexities of life, and each time he is forced

to face stark reality. Each time Levin sees Pauline, he feels

58

iii?)risoned by his own inability to feel for her what he has once felt.

He suffers by feeling disgust at not being able to be one with her in

love.

Yet, the romantic love and its pain is only the tenq)ering fire

for the men who will possess a much deeper and truer love, a love

distinguished from phileo by its breadth, depth, divinity, and

nobility. This love is appao. In an attempt to deter Leo, the hero

of "The Magic Barrel," in his decision to marry Stella, Salzman

pleads, "'If you can love her, then you can love anybody'" (MB-213).

And a love for anybody is exactly what comes from the hero's trials in

phileo; from loving one individual the hero moves to the love of

mankind as a divine creature. But the hero finds ^ a g ^ even more

painful than phileo, for in his love for mankind he feels every ache,

every throe that might possibly afflict his neighbor next door, his

neighbor across the street, or his neighbor across the continent.

Morris Bober understands the sorrow of Frank Alpine; thus, his

own pain from the injustices of the world is increased. When Frank

first appears at the store, almost starving, Morris gives of what

little he possesses. As Frank eats, Morris experiences a tremendous

feeling of empathy; finally, "the grocer had to look away" (A=51)o

Even when Morris is momentarily disillusioned by Frank's thievery, he

understands and, only through love^ forgives. A most powerful story

from The Magic Barrel, "The Last Mohican," shows how Arthur Fidelman

is finally willing to undergo physical and material inconveniences

simply because he has been moved by the suffering of his fellowman,

Shimon Susskind. Fidelman shouts "'The suit is yours, all is

59

forgiven*" (MB-182). Susskind does not stop; in fact, Malamud writes,

"When last seen he was still running" (MB-182). The implication for

the reader is that Fidelman will forever go chasing the Susskinds of

the world, enduring the pain of knowing their pain.

Almost inseparably linked with the hero's love for mankind is his

feeling of responsibility for mankind. The majority of men around the

hero do not and will not accept responsibility for their fellowman;

their love has not reached the depth of agapao. For this reason, they

do not suffer and they do not understand the hero's motives for

certain of his actions. One finds, therefore, that the hero again is

set apart from his fellowman; the hero is again an isolate and suffers

the pangs of isolation and the pangs of not being understood. In

"Take Pity," another story from The Magic Barrel, Rosen does all he

possibly can in an attempt to make better the life of Eva and her

children. Rosen gives his advice, "'Go better some place . . .'" (MB-89)

Rosen offers financial aid, "'Let me help you . . . . Money don't

interest me*" (MB-90). He offers marriage, but Eva refuses this, as

everything else. Finally, Rosen strikes tqjon an answer, "'Here,' I said

to myself, 'is a very strange thing--a person that you can never give

her anything. But I will give'" (MB-94). He puts his head in his oven,

and he gives all, leaving his small estate to Eva. Yet, his torture

from being rejected is not ended; his gift is again not accepted. As

Rosen looks out his heavenly window, Eva confronts him with arms

outstretched. In anger and in pain, Rosen screams to her, "'Go 'way

from here. Go home to your children'" (MB-95). Eva has persistently

60

failed to mderstand that all Rosen's actions are motivated by a true

concern for her and a feeling of responsibility for her well-being.

Sy Levin gives up financial success and his superficial concepts

of a "new life" and accepts the burdens of responsibility for his

fellowman, a burden wh^ch Gerald Gilley does not accept throughout the

novel. Unable to comprehend why Levin should accept the problems of

responsibility, Gilley questions Levin, Levin imnediately answers,

"Because I can you son of a bitch" (NL-360)o He can, at this point,

accept the pain of not having all the comforts in life, the pain of

living loveless, and the pain of being alone--with himself.

There is, in The Magic Barrel, an incident which also helps

e3q>lain the pain of isolation i iich is inflicted by people who reject

the law of responsibility as it is conceived by the hero. In this

story, "The Prison," Tomny, the grocer, finds a young girl stealing

candy from him. He thinks about all the trouble in his life and fears

the little girl, too, is going in the wrong direction. Malamud writes,

"He felt he ought to do something for her, warn her to cut it out

before she got trapped and fouled up her life before it started" (MB-90)

Finally, Tommy's wife discovers the girl and creates quite a scene..

Again, Taimy tries to help the girl by saying, "'I let her take

it'" (MB-93). Tcniny's true concern for the girl is repaid with her

unconcern, "The girl, like a grotesque dancer, half ran, half fell

forward, but at the door she managed to turn her white face and thrust

out at him her red tongue" (MB-93).

Yakov Bok bows to his personal standard of responsibility and

care for his fellowman when he, most likely, saves the life of the

61

drunken Nikolai Maximovitch. After this one act has led Yakov to

unmeasurable trouble, he chides himself, "Go be kind to an anti-Semite

and suffer for it" (F-314)a He has given only good; in retum he

receives nothing but the pain of persecution, personal degradation,

and isolation.

It is simple to see that the Jewish hero suffers in his outer

world, or his environment. The hero is the recipient of much physical

pain, enough to dishearten and break any man. This pain is compounded

by a life of poverty. But, finally, in the "outer world" the worst

pain which the hero must bear is the pain inflicted by his fellowman,

the element of his ^vironment most highly prized by ^ e hero.

CHAPTER IV

THE INNER WORLD

The suffering of the Jewish hero in his "outer world" is both

impressive and offensive to the reader. The suffering is almost too

much to be true; yet, it is true. Still, no matter how great this

pain in the "outer world," there is for the Malamud hero a more severe

and more trying pain. This pain is that which the hero experiences

within the realm of himself, within his "inner world." It is here, m

the psychological or spiritual self of the hero, that he is tortured

by a struggle between his two natures--the human being and the moral

being or the conscience. He is also tortured by the knowledge which

he possesses or by the awesome nature of the reality of the self and

of life. Then the pain which is brought by conscience and enlighten­

ment is increased by dreams.

Malamud* s hero is a special man with a definite concept of right

and wrong. Frank Alpine, in The Assistant, comes to see this truth in

the midst of his suffering and he thinks "that all the while he was

acting like he wasn't, he was really a man of stem morality" (A-176).

The hero possesses a very active conscience, one which brings him much

torment. Perhaps the conflict which the hero, such as Frank Alpine,

must endure is best explained by Dr. Wemer Wolff,

Since man's conscience is the center of his self, abandonment of his conscience means loss of this center. Man becomes homeless, unsure, unsafe; he fears being persecuted by his own self, he is a fugitive from himself. •''

TVemer Wolff, The Dream-^Mirror of Conscience (New York? Grune and Stratton, 1952), p. 278.

62

63

Using this analysis of the role of conscience, one may apply the

same principle of self-persecution to the active life of the hero,

instead of only the dreams. Often the hero tries to ?l.andon his

conscience in an attempt to satisfy some selfish or pnysical desire,

for he cannot achieve his goal with one part of him continually

saying "no." In reality, the hero is attempting to do the in^wssible

in rejecting the mainstay of his personality. It would be simple

enough if he could physically separate himself from his conscience,

but this he cannot do. He, therefore, ignores his conscience for a

timep but he soon finds that he must suffer both from guilt of

abandoning his conscience and from increased punishment when the

conscience regains it former position of supremacy. In other words,

the hero suffers from pain which he inflicts upon himself. This pain

is a rabid self-hatred and the alienation of the hero's conscience

and the nero's conscious being.

Helen Bober, actually a minor character in The Assistant, has

tried to deny her conscience by giving, almost without thought and

without lo/e, her virginity to Nat Pearl. Yet, she is "surprised by

torments of conscience" (A-14). She promises herself that she will

never give herself wholly until she gives it in true love, but she

soon forgets her promise and once again commits fornication with Nat

Pearl. Her conscience becomes very active and "afterward she fought

self-hatred" (A-15). She cannot overcome her self-hatred and is a

slave to it throughout the novel. Later, when Helen is sure of her

new love for Frank, she goes to tell Frank, and the reader infers, to

give herself to him. Then because of circunstances Frank takes her--

64

takes what Helen would have given. Despite the fact that she would

have given her body to Franks afterwards Helfn cries out in hatred,

'"Dog—uncircumcised dogl'" (A-168) She hates Frank and she hates

herself. Because of her bitterness, she brings to her life a deep and

lasting pain which increases the hurt \^ich she must already bear.

The entire course of Frank's life is determined by what he calls

his sense of "morality," and the pain which he suffers is the pain of

not being one with the center of his personality. Frank, as if under

the control of some power other than his own, is forced back to the

store and the grocer whom he helped rob. For months he is plagued by

remembrance of his part in the robbery; he spends harrowing hours

trying to come tip with a defense for himself because he knows that he,

for his own sake, must tell Morris vihat he has done. Finally he tells

Morris, very plainly, that he was one of the men. And, for a few

moments, he "experienced a moment of extraordinary relief--a treeful

of birds broke into song;, but the song was silenced when Morris, his

eyes heavy, said, "'This I already know, you don't tell me nothing

new'" (A-198). Frank argues that he did not hurt Morris and that he

has paid back all the money, but neither Morris nor Frank can forget

this act of malice against a fellowman. Thus, Frank is condemned to

a life of penance in an effort to purge his soul of the gviilt for his

actions.

The misery connected with this one instance of Frank's betrayal

of his fellowman and his sense of moral goodness is compounded by

Frank's treatment of Helen in the park. Malamud*s words best explain

the suffering v^ich Frank has broyght to himself.

65

He lay in bed with the blankets pulled over his head, trying to smother his thoughts but they escaped and stank. The more he smothered them the more they stank. He smelled garbage in the bed and couldn't move out of it. He couldn*t because he was it—the stink in his own broken nose . . . .

(A\ my God, why did I do it? Why did I ever do it? Why did I do it?

His thoughts were killing him. He couldn't stand them. He sat on the edge of the twisted bed, his thoughtful head ready to burst in his hands. He wanted to run. Part of him was already in flight, but he didn't know where. (A-174) o o . o o . e . e . o a . a o a . e e . o e . o . o o o a e o e

Frank got tp on the run but he had run everyi^re. There was no place left to escape to. The room shrank. The bed was flying up at him. He felt trapped—sick, wanted to cry but couldn't. (A-174)

The conflict between the actions of Frank--his robbery of Morris'

store and the rape of Helen--and the standards of his austere

conscience bring about his destruction, both mental and physical.

Concerning such a condition Wemer Wolff has written, "The feeling of

guilt and of persecution may become intolerable. Suicide may be the

only way to escape from the self, from the threat of the deserted

conscience." And, suicide seems to be the only avenue of action

which is open to Frank; he plans his death. But Frank saves himself

from death and grasps at a straw--he realizes the problem and thinks

that he can, perhaps, deal with it more effectively in the future,

even if he cannot solve the problem and remove the suffering which

accompanies it.

Even Morris Bober suffers from pangs of conscience. Morris thinks

about his poverty, and then he compares his life to that of Louis Karp.

The difference is, indeed, painful. Morris has, for years, "escaped

n^folff, The Dream, p. 278<

66

resenting the man's good luck, but lately he had caught himself wishing

on him some small misfortune" (A-22). Later, then, when Karp's store

is demolished by fire and when Karp experiences a mild heart attack,

Morris begins to suffer for what he has thought. And the suffering

is great, "With a frozen hand the grocer clawed at a live pain in his

breast. He felt an overwhelming hatred of himself. He had wished it

on Karp—just this. His anguish was terrible" (A-219).

In TJw Magic Barrel, the hero of "The Prison" tries to evade his

conscience and what he knows he should do. He knows he should help

the little girl who steals from him. He thinks about the situation,

and "the role of reformer was strange and distasteful to him, yet he

could not convince himself what he felt he must do was unimpor­

tant" (MB-101). Yet, when the time comes he is unable to do or say

anything. Then the hurt begins. He blames himself for not being

strong enough to do the right thing. He worries so that he cannot

sleep and is plagued with a splitting headache. He slips into a state

of depression. In the end, when the girl is caught by Rosa, Tommy's

pain is only increased, for his sin of omission weighs very heavily

iqpon the scales of his conscience.

In "The Bill," from The Magic Barrel, Willy owes eighty-three

dollars at the Panessas* store. His first reaction to Mr. Panessa's

request for payment is a "grating hatred" (MB-149)$ however, this

defense mechanism is soon discarded and Willy kneels to the command of

his conscience that he pay the bill. He works harder but no more

money comes in; the bill gets no smaller. Mrs. Panessa sends a note

to Willy, saying they need the money for a doctor; the next day

67

Mr. Panessa dies. Willy has made an effort but not enough effort.

The collapse of Willy's character is seen in the last few lines of the

story, "He tried to say some sweet thing but his tongue hung in his

mouth like dead fruit on a tree, and his heart was a black-painted

window" (MB-153). Willy»s knowledge that he helped to kill his

neighbor remains forever with him.

Arthur Fidelman, hero of "The Last Mohican" in The Magic Barrel,

does not recognize the true source of his unending search for the

refugee, Shimon Susskind. He attributes his search to the loss of the

first chapter of his book, v^ich Susskind has stolen; yet, he almost

immediately rejects this conclusion and asks himself, "What else, if

after months he was here, still seeking?" (MB-177) In light of the

final insight \^ich Fidelman achieves, one can see that the turmoil

within Fidelman i^ich motivates the pursuit is the chaos of a man

pitted against a moral nature which demands that he willingly share

his belongings and his love with his fellowman.

In the story "The Lady of the Lake" from The Magic Barrel, Henry

Levin tries to hide the fact that he is a Jew. This deception makes

him uneasy but he squelches his discomfort momentarily by thinking of

all the problems his Jewishness has brought him. The real hurt, he

realizes, is the fact that he has rebelled against his sense of right

and has told a lie to the one he loves. He thinks, "At first sight

love and a lie; it lay on his heart like a sore" (MB-126).

Another Levin experiences the punishment of his conscience. In

A New Life, Sy Levin first becomes disgusted with himself; then this

disgust turns to self-hatred for his own slavery to physical desires.

68

Levin wants to reverse his position, which has caused his disgust and

hatred; at first, he plans to do this by ending his involvement with

Pauline. His conscience, however, will not allow him to carry out his

plan. Levin is tortured by feelings of guilt for even thinking about

leaving Pauline. Finally, Levin realizes that the pain of his mind

and body has come from his unconsciously withholding from Pauline the

love he has to give, "Love ungiven had caused Levin's pain" (NL-215)o

But he still agonizes about having taken another man's wife; "...

the matter became moral when, in getting at sex, a man interfered

with another's 'rights'" (NL-222). It does not matter that he loves

her; he simply doesn't have the "legal" right to her. Levin also

feels pain because he has failed to abide by one of the precepts

ccnmonly followed by all men--loyalty to someone who befriends you, in

this case, Gerald Gilley. Levin's pain is so great that he cannot

face Gilley. He tries to alleviate the pain by concentrating on

Gilley's weakness; he tries to ignore his own conscience--all to no

avail. In the end. Levin asks himself, "... who was he to measure

sin?" (NL-281) And Levin finds that his conscience is a constant

friend, or foe, that never deserts its own standards of right and

wrong.

The hero's vivid memory is deeply rooted in the pain of the

conscience; much of the pain is caused by memories of times in the

past when the hero has violated the laws of his moral nature. The

hero is fiilly aware of time and he often mourns time v^ich has been

misused or wasted. The past, how it has been used and how it

influences life, is, therefore, of cardinal interest to the hero.

69

Yakov Bok touches the heart of the matter when he cries out to a fellow

prisoner, "', « , what of my wasted youth?'" (F-1S3) Sy Levin

realizes he will never be free of his past; he thinks, "The past hides

but is present" (NL-56). He remembers his wasted youth; "he recalled

in dirty detail each disgusting defeat from boyhood, his weaknesses,

impoverishment, undiscipline--the limp self entangled in the fabric

of a will-less life" (NL-ISS), This memory, of course, results in a

"crawling self-hatred" (NL-155).

Kessler, in "The Moumers," remembers how he has left his wife

and family to provide for thenselves. Tommy, in "The Prison,"

remembers all the mistakes he has made. Levin, in "The Lady of the

Lake" from The Magic Barrel, is plagued by "restless memories,

enormously potent" and "some burdensome" (MB-125)a Arthur Fidelman,

this time in "The Last Mohican" from The Magic Barrel, concludes that

history itself is a "remembrance," which is "in a way burden­

some" (MB-162). Yakov Bok, too, finds that he is burdened and pained

by memory, as many other Jews have been pained. He remenibers, in

hatred, much of the wrong he has done; he thinks, "I'm a fixer but all

my life I've broken more than I fix" (F-104). And when Raisl visits

him at the prison, Yakov is pained by the memory of the cruelty and

indifference with v^ich he has treated her. He finds that because of

memory "the deepest wounds never die" (F-284)a Chce Yakov has come to

grips with his own problem, he contemplates the suffering of all Jews

and defines the ext^it of their suffering, "Those Jews who escape

with their lives live in memory's eternal pain" (F-274).

The hero in the works of Malamud is typically a dreamer; he is

70

not a practical man whose one and only rule for life is pragmatism.

The hero is the poor grocer \dio loses profit each time he allows the

young girl to take the bars of candy. The hero is the Jew who risks

his life to help a Black Hundreds member from the street. The hero

is the student of Giotto vAio, with no regard for time or money, pursues

a scarecrow day after day through the streets of Rome. Since the hero

is a dreamer, he is, all in all, one who does not grapple day by day

with the realities of life. Then, certainly, when the hero is forced

to come to terms with the reality of his own being and with the

realities of life, he is disturbed and hurt by that which he must

accept as truth or fact.

In The Assistant, Morris Bober is forced to come face to face

with the life of poverty vdiich he has given Ida; he is forced to see

that it is he \dio has taken from Helen her college education. He is

forced to accept the fact that the man he has befriended has robbed

him twice and has brought hurt to Helen. He is forced to admit that

he must sell the store before it buries him. But all of these

admissions do nothing but bring to Morris Bober's heart a feeling of

uselessness and dejection; he feels that there are "so many changes

to make and get used to" (A-224). Later Malamud writes of Morris,

He thought of his life with sadness. For his family he had not provided, the poor man's disgrace. Ida was asleep at his side. He wanted to awaken her and apologize. He thought of Helen. It would be terrible if she became an old maid. He moaned a little, thinking of Frank. His mood was of regret. I gave away my life for nothing. It was the thunderous truth. (A-226)

The truth is too much; to Morris it has brought the pain of self-

hatred, and it finally brings the pain of death.

71 N

Frank Alpine also suffers the pains of knowledge. He is hurt by

the knowledge that he has brought to Helen a disgust for herself and

for him. It is his own hunan weakness, his inability to be patient

and disciplined, that has brought him to the sorrow in vdiich he must

live, and "he cursed himself for having conceived this mess . . ."

(A-237)« Frank is overcome with a feeling of hopelessness and a hurt

much like that of Morris when he is confronted with the truth of his

life. /

From The Magic Barrel comes the title story about a young

rabbinical student. He needs a wife to secure himself a nice

congregation, so he calls in a matchmaker. The first painful Insight

which is forced Upon Leo is his reason for becoming a man of God. He

tells a young lady, "'I think . a . that I came to God not because I

loved him, but because I did not'" (MB-204)a The confession is one

which causes Leo to find himself "possessed by shame and fear" (MB-204).

Next, Leo catches a glimpse of his own hunan incapacities when he

realizes that he has engaged a matchmaker to do that which he is

incapable of doing himself. But this "terrifying insight" (MB-204-5)

is not the worst. Leo discovers that he has never known himself and

that his studies in the Old Testament have not helped him find the

truth of his being. He is brought to a true knowledge of himself by

a woman he has met once. Malamud writes, "It seemed to Leo that his

whole life stood starkly revealed and he saw himself for the first

time as he truly was--unloved and loveless. This bitter but somehow

not fully une3q)ected revelation brought him to a point of panic,

controlled only by extraordinary effort. He covered his face with his

72

hands and cried" (MB-205). Uo's sharpest pain is seeing himself,

stripped of all disguises. Another man \tho suffers is Mitka, main

character of "The Girl of My Dreams" in TTie Magic Bar)!^l. Mitka has

already come to a conclusion about himself; he speaks of his soul as

a "dead cat" (MB-39). It is this true understanding of himself which

brings to him a "murderous self-Hatred" (MB-31).

The man v^o suffers most from'enlightenment is Sy Levin. Levin

is CQnq;)letely conscious of the weaknesses yihich have made his whole

life one of pain. He admits as much early in the novel, "'My life

0 . 0 has been without much purpose to speak of. Some blame the times,

for that, I blame myself" (NL-118). But Levin has the desire to

change his life and make a "new life" without sorrow and misery. Yet,

it is not long before Levin begins asking, "Had the new self

failed?" CNL'"125) And, although the answer is slow in coming, Levin

is forced to admit that he has not created for himself the "new life"

v^ch he so desires. He finds that he, unlike the true liberal he

desires to be, is unable to translate his dreams into reality. He

finds that "he was his own bad cause, causing what caused him

pain" (NL-255). He calls himself an "ever= drowning sailor" (NL-25S>

and "his own pathetic fallacy" (NL-256). He realizes that "he hadn't

learned all the lessons he taught" (NL-274-75). He continues to

desire change but is left with nothing which can tell him where to

begin. Levin's v^ole being is obsessed with the truth of his shallow­

ness, and all that Levin feels is hatred for his weakness and

frustration when he looks ahead to the future.

The type of suffering v^ich is created by the hero's conscience

73

and his confrontation with reality is a very individual and personal

suffering. It is difficult for the hero to accept this kind of pain.

The existence of the hero is confined within the limits of his mind

and soul, and this means that all he must suffer is confined within

the same bounds. There is no one who can help the hero carry his

burden or lessen the weight of it for him. The hero is pained all the

more by the thought that he is alone, that he, in his suffering and

in the extent of his weaknesses, is cut off from the world. I|i the

story "The Prison" in Tlie Magic Barrel, Malamud explains the concept

of the hero's mind being a prison in which the hero is incarcerated.

Tommy thinks of his life as a place from v^ich "you could never see

the sky outside or the ocean because you were in a prison, except

nobody called it a prison" (MB-103). Sy Levin reaches a similar

conclusion, as shown in the following thought, "The prison was really

himself, flawed edifice of failures, each locking up tight the one

before" (NL-362). Because of his failures and the suffering from

these, Levin is unable to live a productive life among other people,

and his knowledge of this fact only serves to plunge him deeper into

isolation and depression.

Yakov Bok, however, seems to fear isolation and suffer from it

more than any of the other heroes. Malamud tells the reader that "to

be imprisoned alone was the greatest desperation the fixer had

known" (F-178). Then, when Bibikov is imprisoned next to Yakov, the

fixer is tormented by the story of his suffering, which he very

desperately needs to tell. But his need goes unfulfilled, for Yakov

knows that his words are as indistinguishable as those of the man in

74

the next cell. At one point, Yakov is told that the people outside

know somebody is in prison. But Yakov wants them to know more than

that; "he wanted everyone to know it was Yakov Bok" (F-160). If they

do not know his particular story, he has no hope for their much needed

help. Yakov's physical isolation is paralleled by his isolation from

God. Yakov, one day, imagines that he and God are seeking revenge

for the inhunanities which have been done to him; yet, when he seeks

out God, he finds only thin air and hears only the "loud Ha Ha" (F-209)

of his own hysterical laughter. Another time, \^en Shmuel slips in for

a short visit, the two men talk of God, but Yakov's feeling is bitterly

expressed, "'I want no part of God. When you need him most he's

farthest away*" (F-256)« The terror of being alone in his fate is a

pain which almost takes from Yakov what sanify he has managed to scrape

together; his isolation is a pain which is alleviated only when Julius

Ostovsky advises him, late in the novel, "'Remember--patience, calm,

and you have a few friends*" (F=313).

Perhaps the dreams which fill the hero's sleep represent one of

the most interesting areas of Malamud's search into the pain of his

hero. Dreaming is often considered a safety valve for mankind,

because in his dreams man can think, say, and do those things which

are prohibited by his outer world. Man's tensions are relieved and

his desires are fulfilled in dreams. The hero of Malamud's fiction,

however, is unlike most people who dream because he does not experi­

ence release from pain. The dreams, in many instances, bring to the

hero pain in the form of enlightenment and conflict with the

conscience, but beyond these two sources of hurt, the dreams

75

themselves are obviously a particular kind of pain. Many times the

dreams are painful because the nightmares of life have found their way

into the nightmares of sleep. In The Assistant, Helen Bober dreams of

Frank as he stands tpon the steps with the words "I love you" t5)on his

lips. He is forever there, dreaming or waking, to remind her of all

that is so disgusting and vexatious to her. In TJ^ Magic Barrel, the

story "The Last Mohican" tells how its hero, Arthur Fidelman, dreams

of running after Susskind in the Jewish catacombs under the Appian Way.

It is Fidelman who supposedly holds truth in his hand, a seven-flamed

candelabrun, and he threatens to hit Susskind with it. Typical of

Fidelman's real-life pursuit of Susskind, he forever loses Susskind in

the catacombs and is himself left alone in the darkness of the tombs o

Here, the maddening, illogical pursuit of the refugee is merely

transferred from the reality of daily living to the reality of the

subconscious a In one dream, Morris Bober is further tortured by the

Germans Taast and Pederson who have taken over much of the small

business Morris once got. Morris dreams that they have gone as far as

to enter his store and take for themselves what little goes into his

cash register.

Neither is the hero of The Fixer exempt from this type of

suffering. After his ordeal in the Golov house and the cave, Yakov

Bok again sees the murdered boy, this time in his own cell. After

receiving a note from Marfa Golov, Yakov dreams that she again entices

him to confess, only this time she offers a reward, her body. Then,

after finding the body of Bibikov, Yakov dreams that Bibikov is

hanging over his head. Yakov dreams of again being accused of

76

murdering Zhenia; the only difference this time is that his ghostly

accuser is Shmuel's old horse who shouts, "'You deserve what you

get'" (F-249).

Many times the dreams bring pain in the form of enlightenment.

Frank Alpine, after estranging Helen, once dreams of standing in the

snow under Helen*s window until she is moved by pity and throws down

a i4iite flower. When he looks again at the window, it is sealed with

ice. He realizes that the window was never open, just as Helen*s

heart was never conqpletely open to him, a "goy." Morris, too, is brought

face to face with truth when he dreams of Ephraim, his dead son. Morris

promises Ephraim a good start in life with a college education, but the

boy only snickers and disappears. Morris is suddenly struck with the

thought that this is v^at he has promised Helen but has not given her.

He sees the stark reality of his own failures and inabilities. Then,

in '*Naked Nude,*' from Idiots First, Arthur Fidelman realizes his own

lack of spiritual strength and maturity when he dreams of once watching

his sister about to bathe. The older Fidelman receives inspiration and

desires to paint such a beautiful body, but memories flood and drown

the inspiration as the boy Fidelman takes advantage of the opportunity

and steals fifty cents from his sister. Fidelman appears again in The

Magic Barrel in "The Last Mohican." He dreams of spending the day in

a cemetery and finally being confronted by the usually elusive

Susskind. Susskind asks, "*Why is art?'" (MB-181) Fidelman is pained

by the question because he has no well of understanding from which to

draw an answer. Susskind leads him to a synagogue where Fidelman is

left alone to ponder a fresco revealing a saint giving his robe of gold

77

to an old loiight dressed in a thin, red robe. Fidelman soon perceives

his own lack of understanding and love for his fellowman, certainly a

painful realization.

Sometimes the dream is a prediction of v ^ t is to come about;

therefore, the pain is doubled because the hero must experience it

twice, in two different worlds. This kind of dream is quite evident

in The Fixer. While still in the brickyard, Yakov dreams that he

follows one of the drivers who is carrying a huge black bag. When

Yakov asks what the bag contains, the driver answers, '"You*" (F-63).

And, thus, his fear of being uncovered is increased and eventually

realized. Yakov dreams, at one point, of a pine coffin which turns

into a black one, covered with rusty chains. When he releases the

chains and opens the lid, he discovers Shmuel lying there with a purple

hole in his forehead. The partial truth of this dream is soon after

substantiated by actual events.

Much of the pain and horror which possesses Yakov Bok is broyght

home to the reader through the dreams and the importance given to them.

Not once is a peaceful night of sleep allowed the simple fixer. Even

during the trip to Kiev, Yakov's sleep is stunted by a nightmare. And

throughout his stay in prison, "if he slept a minute his sleep was

steeped in the taste, smell, horror of dying" (F-182). In other words,

the anxieties which Yakov faces in his cell, he also faces in his

subconscious. His fears of physical pain are there when he dreams of

a terrible blood-sucking machine designed specifically for the penises

of Jews. The fear is only compounded by the fact that sometimes the

machine does not work correctly and sucks out every drop of blood in

78

the body. Yakov dreams of the ghost of Bibikov, who tells him that

the Russian officials have no morality and that they intend to kill

Yakov. He dreams of mass slaughters in which he himself is one of

those being fired at or beheaded. In this dream, Raisl is disembowled

and Shmuel is split into two pieces and hung from a window. Yakov

dreams that he is given a green death potion by the Tsar. Thus, many

of the tortures which are only threatened by the accusers are very real

within the mind of Yakov, so real that he suffers as if they were

physical realities.

Yakov's pain and fear are also increased by the acts which he

commits in his dreams. In the book. The Dream--Mirror of Conscience,

Wemer Wolff states that "dreams of anxiety deal with situations which

have not been experienced or are not likely to be experienced in 3

reality." Wolff's statement is enlightening as one finds Yakov

dreaming of chasing Christian children, stabbing Zhenia Golov thirteen

times and draining his blood, begging the Tsar for mercy, and trying

to raise Zhenia from the dead. Yakov fears these dreams because of

vrtiat they do to his sanity, because of what they might prompt him to

say in his sleep, because their mere presence in his subconscious

might suggest some capacity to commit certain of the deeds.

Several of Yakov's dreams intensify his suffering by making him

aware of the loneliness of all men who suffer. In one dream, Grubeshov

harangues Yakov all night while Bibikov sits at his desk, refusing to

^olff. The Dream, p, 303.

79

hear Yakov's pleas for aid. Yakov dreams of the prisoners who have

lived and died in his cell; the lines stretch to Siberia where Yakov

finds Kogin's son on the ground with a broken leg and without one

person to help him in his time of need. Yakov screams out for help

but there is no answer„ Yakov dreams of meeting Nicholas II face to

face and of pleading for justice in his case. The Tsar tells the Jew

to stop complaining and adds, "You yourselves are to blame for your

troubles . . ." (F-251). When Yakov pleads for mercy, the Tsar

refuses to listen. The fixer realizes that he, like others before

him, has no one or anything to turn to in his struggle against

injustice except the strength of his own character.

It is quite simple to see that all the suffering which the hero

must endure cannot be attributed to some force outside the hero. In

fact, it is the hero himself, with his moral nature, his hunan

weaknesses and fears, and his subconscious, who brings about the most

intense pain and the most constant suffering which he encounters. He

does, in the fullest meaning, undergo "torture by his own instru­

ment" (F-183), torture which cannot be measured by the scars on the

body but which can only be measured by the scars on the spirit of

each hero.

CHAPTER V

RESULTS OF SUFFERING

The hero of the recent American novel has typically found himself

in a hostile world and universe. He is an individual who is pitted

against strong cruelty, indifference, oppression, and absurdity.

Most often the hero falls victim to these forces and never rises again.

The hero suffers perpetually, and he suffers without hope for any

praise or reward for his endurance of tribulation. Although Bernard

Malamud is a contemporary novelist and a short-story writer, he has

not chosen to underscore the horrifying gloom and absurdity that many

of the other writers since 1945 have emphasizedo The hero in Malamud*s

fiction does, it is true, suffer endlessly; also, many times the

suffering seems to be in vain. A more careful examination of the hero

in Malamud*s world of pain will demonstrate, however, that this author

does not let his hero*s suffering go unrewarded and unacknowledged.

Suffering, to Malamud*s hero, is not a worthless encumbrance; the hero

is not left to drown in his own tears.

At first glance, Malamud*s fiction seems to suggest irrationality;

there appears to be no justification for many actions and for much

suffering. Most of the characters in Malamud»s fiction do not under­

stand why they suffer; they do not even suffer in the hope that they

will gain something from bearing their pain. The results of the

suffering, nevertheless, do not depend on the hero's understanding the

causes. The profits, in fact, come to the hero because he has endured

the discomforts and injustices of life without true understanding

80

81

and without consciously, or subconsciously, desiring some reward or

praise.

Malamud has rejected the psychopath, the sexual pervert, and the

unprincipled man as his hero, Yakov Bok is a good example of the

Malamud hero who realizes that he must cling to the principles vrtiich

he has gained from his suffering. At one point in Tlie Fixer, Yakov

is visited by a former jurist who tells Yakov that he will be pardoned

by the Tsar as part of a general amnesty. The in^lication is that

Yakov will be pardoned as a criminal, not as an innocent man. When

Yakov refuses this kind of pardon, the jurist asks, ". . . how can you

go on suffering like this, caked in filth? (F«294) Yakov answers,

*'I have no choice" (F-294)o Yakov refuses to become a man who siii5)ly

exists in a physical world; he refuses to discard what has cost him

his health, his youth, and at times, his sanity. Because Yakov is

guided by principles which bring results in action and in thougiht, he

is not an absurd hero; the same statement can be made about the hero

as seen in the other novels and the short stories. It is from this

nature of the hero that one can infer that there are results of the

suffering which the hero endures.

When the Malamud hero has suffered all that there is to suffer,

when there is no new affliction for him to bear, the results of the

suffering are obvious--he is, in many ways, a new man. At this point,

the main character becomes the perfect model of Malamud's conception

of the Jewish hero. First, one is conscious that the Jewish hero is

a more understanding man after he has endured his own personal sorrcv;

he looks at the world and life and, with a new sight, sees life for

82

v»hat it really is. Somewhere he has exchanged his ignorance for

enlightenment and truth. Next, the hero becomes, through his private

pain, a man of con^wasion. He is a man who loves all people and who

knows life and mankind so well that he can empathize with the entire

human race, Last, the Jew in Malamud*s- fiction becomes a hero in the

traditional sense; he develops into a man of great spiritual strength

and abilities, He becomes truly heroic because he, like Santiago in

The Old Man aid the Sea, has battled the forces of nature and has

emerged from the battle. The hero is not destroyed, for he has

conducted himself well and has endured with honor.

The effect of suffering i^ich, in most cases, is most startling

to the reader is the climax of the hero's gradual awakening to the

realities of existence. In this process of awakening, the htero

actually undergoes catharsis. In A New Life, Sy Levin realizes that

the soul is the source of all life. Sy understands that if man is to

build a "new life" he must first cleanse his soul; Sy says, "The future

as a new life is no longer predictable" (NL«164)o In other words, the

future is not a firm foundation for a better existence; the proper

foundation is a soul purified by truths Since "the new life hangs on

an old soul , , ," (NL-58), there must be a change in the soul if man

ia to have a "new life" which is notably different from the old one.

The soul is the element to be purged because it is with the soul that

the hero truly sees the world. He sees, not in the sense of perception

of form, texture, and color, but he perceives the intricacies of hunan

nature and sees the sorrows and pains of others.

N 83

The hero is first confronted with the realities of what he

considers his own peculiar being. The knowledge \ihich he gains about

Mjnself is not special. In fact, it is quite ordinary because,

generally, the Malamud hero learns what millions before him have

learned. He attains awareness of the extent of his own himanity.

Many tines individual man is prone to think of himself as a creature

apart from the main stream of hunan life; he knows he is different

from all the common sludge which fills the houses and the streets of

the world. Man, as has been too vividly proven in the streets of the

Uiited States, thinks that he is different and deserving of special

treatment because his skin hjqjpens to be white, or black, or yellow.

The individual looks at his own actions and sees them as just and

necessary, but he looks at the same things in the lives of his neighbors

and sees only the selfishness, the pettiness, and the evil. He sees the

mote in his brother*s eye, but not the beam in his own. The point is

that the single man considers himself a little better than all other

people; he feels that he is special, that his personality is unique.

It is true that each individual is unique, but there are some things

yihich all men have in common.

Even the Malamud hero seems to possess this concept of his

individuality. At the beginning of The Fixer, Yakov Bok thinks only

of hinself and the pain which he has encountered. In "Angel Levine,'*

Manischevitz is within inches of cursing God because he does not see

beyond his own life and the troubles which seem to be only hirs. Frank

Alpine, early in The Assistant, is intoxicated with himself; he wants

only to satisfy his desire for love and, later, his desire for

84

forgiveness, Sy Uvln, mtil the very last pages of A New Life, is

concerned only with fulfilling his needs and desires and removing

anything which causes him pain. The exan^les are nunerous, but these

will suffice to show that the hero's attention is focused on himself

because he conceives of himself as a special being who, because of

his distinguished qualities and problems, deserves special attention

and treatment which are not due all other mono The self, however, does

not conmand the hero's concern throughout the entirety of Malamud*s

fiction« Eventually, the hero's concern is for other people.

The turning away frcn the self to humanity is a slow process which

often continues to the very conclusion of the novel or short story.

During most of the story '*The Mourners*' in The Magic Barrel, the land­

lord Gniber deals with Kessler as if Kessler were a piece of furniture

instead of a man. Even when Gniber realizes that there is something

wrong with Kessler, he does not want to become involved; he wants to

run awa/e The only thing which does not permit Gniber* s escape from

Kessler*s apartment is his mental picture of himself falling down five

fliglhts of stairs. It is only at the conclusion of the story that

Gniber reaches a profound insight; he understands that "it was he who

was dead" (MB-25) and that Kessler is mourning Gniber* s death.

Gruber, of course, is not physically dead; he is dead in spirit because

he has failed to concern hinself with the plight of others, Gniber

becomes a changed man when he feels ''unbearable remorse for the way he

had treated the old nan" (MB«26). Gniber has, thus, come to understand

that there are others with problems, others who should neither be

mistreatei nor ignored. In the closing lines of the story, it is

85

evident that Gniber has seen the oneness of mankind and has grasped

the Inplication of the oneness, the fact that all men are brothers in

the sense that their lives are intinately and inextricably intertwined.

At the end of Tlw Assistant. Frank Alpine is deeply involved with the

lives of people other than Ida and Helen Bober, He gets up early to

•ell the Polish woman a three-cent roll, and he makes tea for Breitbart

and sympathizes with the bulb salesman who also suffers.

In TTie Fixer, the ultimate truth \ihich Yakov finds is that

"there's no such thing as an unpolitical man, especially a Jew" (F-335),

In the light of all that Yakov has suffered throughout the novel, one

can interpret the word "unpolitical" in a very general way. Obviously,

Yakov does not mean that a man must be a member of one particular

political party. Specifically, he does not mean that a Russian must be

either a nenber of the White faction or the Red faction, the two major

political movements in Russia during the early 1900*s. Instead, Yakov

means that a man cannot disengage himself from the affairs of mankind

because each man is an important and inherent part of the whole of

life. In fact, Yakov feels that if a Jew is to be at peace with him­

self, he must freely and coaq;>letely immerse himself in the lives and

the sorrows of the people around himo The hero, particularly Yakov,

comes to the realization that all men are special, that all men are

deserving of kindness and goodness because they, like the Jew, also

suffer. In "The Last Mohican," Arthur Fidelman finally realizes that

he must care for Susskind because Susskind is mankind. In T2ie Magic

Barrel, even Manischevitz, the hero of "Angel Levine," comes to accept

the fact, that he must help Angel Levine if he is to help himself. As

86

the story concludes, Manischevitz tells his wife Fanny of the truth

which he has gained in his suffering. He says, '"Believe me, there

are Jews everywhere*** (MB.56), Manischevitz has also seen the oneness

of life; he no longer looks upon himself as one man who, out of all

people in the world, must suffer alone.

In TTie Magic Barrel there is a story which, in a most interesting

manner, explains the idea that the link between all men is suffering.

In **The Loan," the baker Lieb tells a friend that he was once very

poor. One day his nisery becomes such a burden that he weeps into the

dough which he is kneading. The bread which has been salted with a

few tears is bought by people from many places. The sorrow which Lieb

experiences and which is represented by his tears is the bond which

unites him, an individual, with other individuals to create the whole

of hunanity. The hero eventually understands that all men suffer as

he suffers and that the pain in the world demands some kind of action

from the individual,

Malamud's hero must perceive the relationship between men before

the second result of the suffering can be made clear. Without the

belief that all men have similar needs, desires, and troubles, the

hero cannot be a man of con^assion, for the first step toward

compassion is the hero*s awareness of man's true state, of man's life

of pain. It is important to note that the word is "man" and not "Jew."

Although Malamud*s hero is a Jew, the hero transcends the religious

and minority group limits and is actually a representative of man,

who suffers throughout his lifetime and throughout history. Compassion,

however, is much more than mere knowledge of man's pains and sorrows.

87

It is not enough that Yakov Bok knows that other Russians suffer; it

is not enou^ that Arthur Fidelman knows that Shimon Susskind is a

pitiful, deprived man. CoiH)assion implies and demands from the hero

empathy and, most important, a true desire to make easier the suffering

of mankind, to be a coiafort to man in his life of sorrow.

Seme of the characters have become ccnpassionate people before

they are encountered in the novels and short stories. Morris Bober,

of course, is the most memorable of these characters. At the beginning

of The Assistant. Morris is already more concerned with the welfare of

others than he is with his personal well-being. His life, in this

sense, is in stark contrast with that of Frank Alpine, who, at first,

is only concerned with the self. In "Take Pity," Rosen has reached

the point where he is willing to give his life in an atten^t to make

the life of another person better than what it is. In "Black Is My

Favorite Color," Nat Lime tries in every way he knows to help the people

around him, particularly the Negroes. Tomny Castelli, the rabbi in

•*Idiots First," Martin Goldberg, and Orlando Krantz in •*The Maid*s

Shoes'*-°all these men are deeply concerned with the well-being of

their neighbors. They all attenpt to make the lives of their neighbors

better by giving thera material goods, advice, companionship, love, or

any other thing i^ich they feel is necessary^

Other characters in Malamud* s fiction are seen as they gradually

and painfully begin to form their personal, yet universal, principle

of coD^assion. Frank Alpine almost openly fights his own self as he

is awakened to the sorrows of mankind by Morris Bober, Frank is

antagonized by the Jew's acceptance of suffering and his concern for

88

others, even when this concern is not returned. From his own personal

grief, however, Frank learns the meaning of compassion. At Morris'

fineral Frank undergoes a synfcolic resurrection when he falls into

Morris* open grave and is retrieved. After this, one cannot tell Frank

frcn Morris, because Frank has becone the man of ccn9)assion that ftorris

was when he lived. Just as Frank and Morris can be coopered^ so can

Sy Levin and Leo Duffy in A Na^ Life, Both Sy and Leo are presented

as liberals, as men who search for love, and as men who are needed by

Pauline Gilley, The success of both men is similar in their relation­

ship with the college caapus^ But in examining their personal lives,

there is, in the end, a great difference. Leo never finds a way to

reconcile himself with nankind; Sy does, Leo never helps Pauline; Sy

does. The difference can be attributed to the concern for man i^ch

is a part of con^assion. Sy is not willing to leave Pauline when she

needs someone to help her find her way through the chaos that is her

life, Sy has experienced similar personal turmoil; thus, he can

enpathize with Pauline, But he goes further than enpathy and rescues

her fron the unhappy situation. Sy's actions are certainly not

proBipted by selfish desires; they are prompted only by Sy's pity for

anyone who suffers and by his desire to help others \ io suffer. When

The Fixer opens, Yakov Bok is not a man of conpassion; he has not

realized the universality of the sufferer. Later, however, his

conpassion is evident when he feels that he must remain steadfast in

his innocence, not only to satisfy his own conscience, but to help all

the other people in Russia who suffer. Yakov can Justly rebuke the

Tsar in the closing scene of the novel, "'In you, in spite of certain

89

sentimental feelings, it is nissing somewhere else-the sort of insight,

you night call it, that creates in a man charity, respect for the

most miserable'" (F-334). Obviously, Yakov is speaking of ccnpassion,

a feeling which causes a man to want good things for all people and to

try to help all people secure for themselves a satisfying life.

Several of the short stories show the development of conqjassion

within the hero. In "The Last Mohican" in The Magic Barrel, Arthur

Fidelnan at last shows that he is capable of compassion when he shouts

to the fleeing Susskind, '"The suit is yours. All is forgiven'" (MB-182)

**The Bill" is the story of Willy, a man who first takes from a man who

gives and then sees the suffering which his actions have brou^t.

Finally, Willy is overcome with pity and sympathy for the people he

has wronged, and he sells his one valuable possession in an attempt to

help his miserable neighbors. The short story which best shows

Malanud's use of conqjassion is also from The Magic Barrel. In the

title story, Leo Finkle is suddenly the possessor of many insists

about himself and about his relationship to other people. In the

**magic barrel" of Pinye Salzman, Leo Finkle not only finds a wife,

but he also finds conpassion, Mong all the pictures which Leo

exanines, only Stella's has a quality \4aich moves him. He realizes

that she "had somehow deeply suffered . . ." (MB°^209). He identifies

the bond which can link his life with hers, and he believes that there

is, through a relationship with Stella, an opportunity for him to do

something truly good and worthwhile.

Compassion is, essentially, a plan of salvation for the Malonud

hero, In '*The Magic Barrel" Malamud expresses the value which Leo's

90

conpassion for Stella has for his life, "He pictured, in her, his own

redein)tion" (MB-214). When compassion becomes the ruling force in the

life of the hero, good can be the only result. Also, the hero finds

that his life has become stable; it has purpose and meaning. When

there is a purpose for living, when life is dear to the hero, then

absurdity has been avoided and the suffering of the hero has been

justified.

The age-old problem of man's dignity and heroic nature is evident

in the novels and short stories of Bernard Malamud, And, of course,

the problem is interwoven with Malamud*s basic theme of suffering.

It is, perhaps in these modem times, the usual thing for mankind to

be considered quite unheroic, unheroic in the sense that the common

man does not exhibit the nobility of character and the great courage

which is associated with the kings, princes, and heroes of classical

literature. Most people will say, after weighing their experience

with man, that the hunan race, taken as a whole, is not characterized

by stperiority of the mind or the spiritc It is obvious that many

contemporary writers agree with such a hypothesis about mankind

because their works are filled with men who are endowed with no quality

of the mind or spirit that separates them from the remainder of the

animal kingdom. Milo Minderbinder, in tdv^2^, is an excellent

example of the contenporary character who is the opposite of a heroic

n m . Milo has no nisgivings -v^iatsoever about contracting with both

the Americans and the Germans for acts of war; his only concern is for

the amount of profit vrtiich he gleans from his extremely irregular

enterprise. When con55ared with such characters as Oedipus, Odysseus,

91

and Beowulf-men conmonly considered heroic-Milo is truly a poor and

disheartening picture of modem man,

Ranenbering fictional characters such as Milo Minderbinder, one

nay find himself doubting that any modem man is capable of achieving

the stature which distinguishes most of the heroes of the past,

Bernard MAlamud»s fiction, contrary to much that has been written since

World War II, presents to the world a very positive and, surprisingly,

hopeful picture of hunan nature. The novels and the short stories are

dominated by men who, at one time or another, prove that heroism and

nobility are not things confined to the pages of history or the

literature of the ancients, Morris Bober, to name only one, proves

that great men can be found on the back streets of New York as easily

as in the pages of Homer* s Odyssey.

Of course, there are si^rficial differences between the tradi­

tional heroic figures and Malamud*s characters, Yakov Bok is not the

gallant ruler of a small nation who leaves his kingdom to defend a

friend; Sy Levin does not go into the depths of forsaken country to

slay ah awesome monster; and Morris Bober does not sit astride a

prancing stallion as he leads his valiant army into battle. But, one

must remember, these differences are only external; the actual basis of

coB^arison is the intangible, the spirit of the man, for it is only

man*s spirit which nakes hin great.

In exanining the spiritual or intangible world of Malamud* s

characters, one may go so far as to say that perhaps the Morris Bobers

of the world are greater men in their own way than many of the ancient

heroes. It seems that courage and nobility are much more alluring to

92

men yrhmi there is the possibility of public praise and fane. The

Malamud character never has the possibility of reward presented to him

an an inducement to heroism. In fact, just the opposite is true; the

nodem world in which the Malamud characters exist is an unfeeling

world, a world of indifference even to the best of men and the best of

actions, Why should a man worry about principles and good deeds in

this kind of world? It would be easier to sit by and avoid much of

the sorrow which a wall of indifference can keep out of a man's life;

yet, the Malamud hero does not sit by unmoved; he involves hinself

in the life of those who need help.

The central figures of Malamud* s fiction continue their struggle

against the hostile forces of nature--the environment, other people,

and history--v^ich threaten to destroy then at any moment. It is the

way in which the character conducts hinself in his struggle with life

that is the essence of the third result of suffering in Malanud*s

fiction. The final result of the suffering is a reconfimation of the

essential strength and goodness "of mankind. The discussion in

Chapter II of the universal nature of Malamud* s characters is in^rtant

here because in showing that his hero is a strong and valuable man,

Malamud is also proving the inherent goodness and value of the hunan

race--the hunan race is only as good as one individual.

First, the fact that the Malamud hero has compassion for the whole

of hunanity indicates that the hero, and mankind, is much more than an

aninal. As discussed earlier in this chapter, compassion is the means

by which the hero achieves something worthwhile in his world, Yakov

Bok forces the world to see the corruption of the Russian government

93

and the pitiful state of the mass of the Russian people; he, in his

small w ^ , is the initiator of great reforms, Sy Levin, throt«h

compassion, is able to bring some order to Pauline Gilley*s chaotic

life, and Frank Alpine, like Morris Bober, brings a little sunshine

into the bleak lives of those with whom he associates by performing

small, seemingly insignificant, deeds for those around hiOo Malamud

allows his hero, througjh compassion and the manifestations of this

compassion, to prove that man has worth, to prove that man's existence

has purpose.

The most ennobling feature of the Malamud hero is his imfailing

determination in the face of unbearable injustices and injuries.

Eventually, the hero comes to accept his suffering as a part of his

life; he accepts his life of suffering as meaningful and atteo^ts to

live it in an honorable and tpright manner. It is interesting that

none of the main characters in Malamud* s fiction give up their struggle

with the forces which form the boundaries of their lives, Yakov Bok

cries out many times in anger because he must suffer, but he does not

let himself be destroyed by his suffering. Although he is almost

physically annihilated, Yakov's spirit is stronger than it was before

his in5)risonment. The tribulations of his existence have forced Yakov

to grasp for certain principles, principles of truth, honor, and

conqpassion vAiich he longs to see in the lives of others, Yakov's life

is shored 14) by these principles; these principles will not allow Yakov

to abandon his struggle for vindication. It would be easy for Sy Levin

to turn his back on Pauline Gilley and her children, but Sy»s moral

nature, his sense of right, prevents the collapse of the man in a time

94

of strife. Even Morris Bober never allows hinself to become a

driveling, cowardly creature who does not care what kind of image he

presents to others. To the end, Morris remains faithful to his

philosophy of kindness and love, although it would be less painful

merely to give up and let death and destruction take hin without a

struggle. In "Black Is My Favorite Color" from Idiots First, Nat Lime

does not give up in his fight to convince the Negro of his love. As

the story closes, Nat*s continued determination in the face of rebuffs

is clearly seen as he shouts to his scornfully unreceptive maid,

**»Charity ^eetness--you hear me?--come out of that goddamn toilet!*"

(IF-30) In "The Magic Barrel" Leo Finkle shows the great honor of man

as he knowingly enters a battle with the forces of nature that will,

no doubt, prove to be very intense. And although he has a premonition

of the ferocity of the coming struggle, Leo does not withdraw.

Manischevitz in "Angel Levine," at first, appears to be a man who is

immobilized by the thoughts of meeting suffering and dealing with it

as best as he can. Happily, however, Manischevitz proves himself to

be a man capable of employing all personal resources in order to regain

balance in his life.

There are two characters that serve as a contrast to the Malamud

hero who does not let himself be destroyed by the forces of existence

wfiich are always waiting for man to succumb to the fatal weakness-

hopelessness. When man fails to see or feel that there is value in

living out his life, then, he has been destroyed. Leo Duffy, in A

New Life, has already been mentioned as a man who stops wanting to

oppose the injustices of life. He gives t?) and coninits suicide. In

9W

S ® S^^D) Bibikov is a man much like Yakov because he desperately

seardies for truth and justice in life; yet, he is unlike Yakov because

his spirit is crushed by the oppression which is dire'-ced toward him.

Yakov's oppression serves only to point out to the f^xer that freedom

is within the hunan spirit and that the human spirit is the tool with

which man can form a defense against nature.

The hero is sustained in his conflict with nature by his percep­

tion of truth and by the depth of his compassion. His life, because

of truth and conq?assion, has order and form. The hero finds that he

is an individual who has control of himself only because of the way

in v^ich he lives his life. He can either accept freedom of the spirit

and all the responsibilities and the suffering which acconqjanies the

freedom, or he can reject the meaningful principles in life and become

a victim of life itself. Perhaps the words of Sy Levin summarize

best the dignity and the nobility vdiich the hero achieves when he

stands straight and copes with existence in the best way which he

kncws, "°Pve reclaimed an old ideal or two . . . ,'" he said. '"They

give a man his value if he stands for them*" (NL-IB). Certainly, the

Malamud hero stands for what he believes is right, and he sincerely

tries to do what he considers right. When the hero acts in this

mannerp he, like Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea, may find that he

cannot defeat nature, but he learns that nature will never defeat his

spirit, the essence of his being.

The Malamud hero is a man whose life is dominated by sufferingo

Everything vtfiich the hero does, thinks, or says must be examined as a

part of the controlling theme. The hero's universal character is

96

•imply Malamud* s way of forcing the reader to recognize that the world

is filled with sorrow and that man must, in seme way, deal with the

suffering of the world; such an imposing element of existence as

suffering cannot be ignored. The fact that the hero cannot ignore

suffering is evident when the overwhelming nature of suffering is

explored, first in the environment of the hero and then in the inner,

or mental and spiritual, realm of the hero's self. Because the hero

accepts his suffering as a duty or as a part of his Jewish heritage,

he must then cope with the suffering. The hero, eventually, is able

to accept his suffering because he has become a man of principle, a

new man. He is a man controlled and strengthened by truth and

compassion; he is a man who proves to the world that the hunan race

has some value, that man has the potential to do great deeds and .

become a man of honor if he will follow truth, duty, determination,

and conpassion. The epigri^h to The Fixer is in contrast to the

affirmative tone of Malamud"s work; Malamud borrows Keats' words,

'"Irrational streams of blood are staining earth . . . .*" One may be

tempted to agree with this statement when the depth of the hero's

suffering is realized, Malamud, however, does not end his fiction on

a note of irrationality. Instead, Malamud, with positive results of the

hero's suffering, indicates that shed blood is not actually irrational

or useless because it is through suffering that the Jewish hero proves

that he and mankind are worthy of the most valuable possession ever

given--life.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMAror SOURCES

Malamud, Bernard. The Assistant. New Yorks Farrar^ Straus, and Cudahy, 1957. •" — ^ • '*

" The Fixer. New York? Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1966.

« Idiots First. New York? Farrar, Straus, and Co., 1963.

« The Magic Barrel. New York? Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1958.

0 The Natural. New Yorkj Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1952.

« A New Life. New Yorks Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, 1961.

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Baunbach, Jonathan. "The Economy of Loves The Novels of Bernard Malamud." The Kenyon Review, XXV (Sunmer, 1963), 438-57.

. "Malamud's Heroes." Commonweal, LXXXV (Oct. 28, 1966), 97-99.

Bluefarb, Sam. "Bernard Malamud? The Scope of Caricature." The English Journal, LIII (May, 1964), 319-26.

Castell, Alburey. An Introduction to Modem Philosophy. New York: The Maanillan Co., 1^3.

Feathers tone, Joseph. "Bemard Malamud." Atlantic Monthly, CCXIX (March, 1967), 95-98.

Fiedler, Leslie. No! in Thunder. Bostons Beacon Press, 1960.

Francis, H. E. "Bemard Malamud's Everyman." Midstream, VII (Winter, 1961), 93-97.

Goodheart, Eugene. "Fantasy and Reality." Midstream, VII (Winter, 1961), 102-05,

Hassan, Ihab. Radical Innocences Studies in the Contemporary American Novel. Princeton! Princeton University Ptess, 1961.

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98

Hicks, Granville. "Generations of the Fifties? Malamud, Gold, and Updike." The Creative Present. Edited by Nona Balakian and Charles Simmons. New York? Doibleday, 1963.

o "His Hopes on the Human Heart." Saturday Review, XLVI C0c^l2, 1963), 31-32. *

o "One Man to Stand for Six Milliono" Saturday Review, XLIX T^pT. 10, 1966), 37-40.

Hollander, John. "To Find the Westward Path." Partisan Review, XXIX (Winter, 1962), 137-39.

Hoyt, Charles Alva. "Bemard Malamud and the New Romanticism." Contemporary American Novelists. Edited by Harry T. Moore. Carbondale? Southern Illinois University Press, 1964.

Hyman, Stanley Edgar. Standards % A Chronicle of Books for Our Time. New York? Horizon Press, 1966. "

Jacobson, Dan. "Magic and Morality." Commentary, XXVI (Oct., 1958), 359=61. /

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, "Fantasist of the Ordinary." Commentary^ XXIV (July, 1957), il^-92.

Kermode, Frank. "Bemard Malamud." New Statesman, LXIII (March 20, 1962), 452-53.

Leer, Norman. "Three American Novels and Contemporary Society? A Search for Commitment." Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature> III (Fall, 1962), 67=1^5.

Leibowitz, Herbert. "Malamud and the Anthropomorphic Business." The New Republic^ C (Dec. 12, 1963), 21-23.

Malin, Irving. Jews and Americans. Carbondale? Southern Illinois Uriiversity Press, 1965,

Marcus, Steven. "The Novel Again." Partisan Review, XXIX (Spring, 1962), 171-95. '~'

Podhoretz, Norman. "The New Nihilism in the American Novel." Partisan Review. XXV (Fall, 1958), 589=90.

Popkin, Henry. "Jewish Stories." Kenyon Review, XX (Autunn, 1958), 637-41. ^—

99

Ratner, Marc. "Style and Hunanity in Malamud's Fiction." The Massachusetts Review, V (Suimerj 1964), 663=83. "

Richman, Sidney. Bemard Malamud. New York:: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1966.

Rovitj Earl H. "Bemard Malamud and the Jewish Literary Tradition." Critique, III (Winter-Spring, 1960), 3-10.

Schroth, Raymond Ao Review of The Fixer. America, CXV (Sept. 10, 1966), 284. _ _ _

Siegel, Ben. "Victims in Motion? Bemard Malamud's Sad and Bitter Clowns." Recent American Fiction. Edited by Joseph J. Waldmeir. Boston? Houghton Mitflin COo, 1963.

Solotaroff, Theodore. "Bemard Malamud's Fiction? The Old Life and the Newo" Commentary. XXXIII (Feb., 1962), 196=204.

Wolff, Wemer. The Dream-Mirror of Conscience. New York? Grune and Stratton, 19527"