Introduction

INTRODUCTION Having been exhausted with the different forms of expression such as poetry, prose, essay and drama for many centuries, the writers longed to adopt a new mode of expression and it resulted in the emerge of novel. The novel owes its interest to the curiosity of humanity in the realm of human passion and action. While the drama is subordinate to stage effects, the novel is independent of them. Although the novel is defined as a long narrative in prose, Marion Crawford terms it as ‘pocket theatre’. The novel started becoming popular right from the early eighteenth century not only in England but also in America. The writers also feel comfortable at making use of novel as a tool to analyse the social, moral, cultural and political problems of the day. Of them, Bernard Malamud, a distinguished twentieth century novelist of American Jewish society, was born in 1914 in Brooklyn, New York to Bertha Malamud and Max Malamud. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia who lived with a meagre income from a small grocery store they ran in Brooklyn. Despite their poverty and lack of formal education, they encouraged their son’s desire for education. Malamud studied at the City College and Columbia University in New York. In 1940 he got a job at Erasmus Hall Evening High School in Brooklyn, where he had his school education. Even as a school boy he started writing stories which were published in the school magazine. In 2 1945 he married Ann de Chiara, an Italian. The couple had a son, Paul and a daughter, Janna. Since 1947 he had been planning to move from the city, though he taught, night classes in Harlem. It was possible only in 1949 to leave New York and join Oregon State College where he remained a member of the English Faculty till 1961. Since then he had been a member of the Bennington College Faculty, with two years spent at Harvard University. His first story, The Cost of Living was published in 1949. He has written seven novels and five collections of short stories. They are The Natural 1952, The Assistant 1957, A New Life 1961, The Fixer 1966, The Tenants 1971, Dubin’s Lives 1979 and God’s Grace 1982. The collection of short stories are The Magic Barrel 1958, Idiots First 1963, Pictures of Fidelman 1969, Rembrandt’s Hat 1973 and The Stories of Bernard Malamud 1983. Of them, The Fixer and The Assistant are the most famous works, which made him popular in the American literary circle. The Assistant won the Rosenthal Award in 1957. The Fixer won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1967. A Good Review Fellowship and Rock feller Grant enabled him to spend a year in Rome with his wife and two children and while there he wrote The Magic Barrel, which won him the National Book Award in 1967. He is a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and one of the most distinguished of American-Jewish novelists. The contribution of ethnic writers gives an unbeatable strength to the treasury of twentieth century American Literature. Among the various religious and cultural groups, the Blacks and the Jews have been the most 3 concerned with the problems of a pluralist society. However, the problems of Jews are totally different from that of Blacks, the Blacks have their own stamp of racial discrimination and they show their protest for being treated inferior. The Jews from different parts of the world are moving to the centre of the American social structure. Agitated by their tragic and terrible past, the immigrant Jews from Spain, Portugal, Germany and particularly from the Russian pale have constantly tried to acquire a secure refuge from religious persecution. The major problem, with them in America, is cultural adjustment with the protestant ethos mingling together with the non-Jews. Not only the common Jews but also the American Jewish novelists have to face a cultural fate of being a Jew in America. Among the American Jewish writers, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth play a significant role in the expression of acculturation in their works. Of them, Saul Bellow dislikes being called a Jew and Philip Roth is a severe critic of Orthodox Judaism. Both of them are aware of Jewish heritage and culture, but their great emphasis is on secular trans-ethnic values. Saul Bellow’s response to Jewishness is quite striking; he regards himself as a mid-westener and not a Jew. Saul Bellow does not want to be included in the list of American Jewish novelists. Philip Roth is another Jewish writer who totally rejects the idea of racial and religious superiority. Once he was charged by the Jewish religious forum for his unwillingness to be a Jew and called him a hysterical self-hate. 4 On the otherhand Malamud’s position is somewhat different from that of Bellow and Roth. The stamp of Jewishness is invariably assigned to the creative genius of Malamud. Such a view is proved wrong by the evidence provided in his novels and stories. Malamud is writing neither in praise of Jewish heritage nor condemns other religions. He is standing as a model for the moral ethos apart from racial and religious dependence. And at the same time he is happy to say that he knows well about Jewish life, culture and literature, from which he is getting the ideas for all his works. He is emphatic in asserting that there is a broad humanistic concern in his works about the Jews. He feels happy to accept that he is a Jew, fully conscious of his heritage of exile and suffering. His statement that “everyman is a Jew” (TH, 137) tends to suggest that Malamud looks upon the Jew as a model of human values and not as a creature of a chosen tribe. Even Roth accepts this humanistic premise in Malamud’s writings. To Malamud, the Jew is humanity seen under the twin aspects of suffering and moral aspiration. When he is specifically asked about his Jewish subject matter, his answer is, As far as Jewishness is concerned, it is there, of course, and I draw from its love of morality to strengthen my own; and from its history as a symbol of man’s struggle, and use whatever other material fascinates excites my fascination; I am not a religious Jew (TAI, 9). His assertion that he is not a religious Jew correlates with Philip Roth’s perception that Malamud is not a champion of Jewishness but an 5 admirer of the Jewish belief in the moral world and its acceptance of suffering as an unavoidable aspect of human life. At the outset, Malamud does not look upon the Jew as a specialist in alienation, for that would imply that Jews alone are prone to pain, sorrow and bad luck. He believes that even non-Jews can be the victims of fate, although he admits that he has been influenced by the Jewish concern with morality. In other words, Malamud’s moral vision is shaped by his Jewish heritage which blends realism with idealism. On the whole Malamud highlights the concept of suffering in relation to the doctrines of Judaism which focuses on moral ethics as essentials of human life, with reference to the characters he created in his works. Despite their suffering, his characters do not become fallen victims to evil forces. Throughout their lives they remain untainted. Adversity, in no way, shakes the honesty of Malamud’s characters. This moral and humanistic philosophy is obviously seen in the works of Malamud. Malamud’s speculation towards Judaism and its experience are very well depicted in the works such as The Assistant, The Fixer, The Tenants, A New Life, The Natural and so on. The Assistant is perhaps the most popular of Malamud’s novels. Although its protagonist, Frank Alphine is an Italian and initially a Jew-hater, he gradually discovers the affinities between a Jew and a Christian. Though Roy Hobbs, the protagonist of The Natural, is not concerned with the religious problems, he also realises that it is suffering that reveals the true value of life. As 6 Irish Lemon explains, suffering has an instructive role for it teaches people to want the right things. Similarly, The Assistant can be called an elaborate rendition on the theme of suffering which runs throughout the entire Malamudian corpus. Morris Bober, a Jew of sixty years old, runs a small grocery store in the Bober’s lane, Brooklyn, New York. He, with his family, is living in the upstair tenement adjoint to the store. Greatly agitated with the problem of seclusion in the Tsarist Russia, he has migrated to America with a hope to smell the sweetness of freedom. His wife is Ida, and the couple has a daughter namely Helen. One fine morning as usual when he opens the store, he sees a boy, Frank Alphine, an Italian Gentile, lingering near the store. Morris offers him food. Having starved many days, Frank eats it ravenously looking at Morris gratefully. He says “Jesus, this is good bread” (TA, 239). Soon after this incident, Frank becomes a loyal assistant to Morris. Ida and Helen are not happy about having a stranger, particularly a Gentile in the store. They have a preconceived notion that a Gentile-Jew integrity is not practically possible in the modern order of days, and therefore Ida keeps an eye on Frank. Even though Morris is struggling to meet out the demands of his family with the meagre amount of income that they get from the poor store, he readily comes forward to stretch his helping hand to the sufferers.

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