MASTERARBEIT / MASTER’S THESIS Titel der Masterarbeit / Title of the Master‘s Thesis „Man or Mensch? – Masculinity in Crisis in Selected Short Stories by Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth“ verfasst von / submitted by Katharina Schuh Bakk. BA angestrebter akademischer Grad / in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (MA) Wien, 2018/ Vienna 2018 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt / A 066 844 degree programme code as it appears on the student record sheet: Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt / Masterstudium Anglophone Literatures and degree programme as it appears on Cultures UG 2002 the student record sheet: Betreut von / Supervisor: emer. o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Waldemar Zacharasiewicz Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Zacharasiewicz for introducing me to the authors Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth in his literature seminar and for his continued input and guidance throughout the writing process. I would also like to thank my parents for their support and encouragement. Special thanks go to my friend Karina for her meticulous proofreading and continued feedback. Last but not least, I would like to thank my friends for sitting with me in the library, listening to my worries and for keeping me as sane as possible throughout the stressful process of writing this thesis. Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 1.) Historical Background: Post-World War II American Jewry ....................................... 4 1.1.) The Second and Third Generations: “Jewish Americans” rather than “Jews living in America” ................................................................................................................................. 4 1.2.) The Impact of the Holocaust on American Jewry .......................................................... 5 1.3.) Post-War Silence: Coming to Terms with the Holocaust in American Culture ............. 7 1.4.) Postwar Prosperity: Suburbanization and Middle-Class Life ........................................ 8 1.5.) Jewishness as a Religion not an Ethnicity ...................................................................... 9 2.) Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth as Jewish American Authors............................... 11 2.1.) The Authors: A Biographical Approach to Malamud and Roth .................................. 11 2.1.1.) Bernard Malamud: A Successful Late Bloomer .................................................... 11 2.1.2) Philip Roth: A Career Defined by Controversy and Autobiography ...................... 13 2.1.3.) Malamud’s and Roth’s Attitude towards the Label “Jewish American Author” .. 15 2.2.) Jewish American Literature: The Disputed Definition of a Genre .............................. 16 2.3.) ‘Jewishness’ in Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth ..................................................... 17 2.3.1.) Bernard Malamud: Where Jewishness Disappears Into Metaphor ........................ 17 2.3.2.) Jewishness in Philip Roth: Corrupted Values in a Hypocritical Community ........ 19 2.4.) Philip Roth: Bad for the Jews? ..................................................................................... 21 2.5.) Malamud and Roth: Friends, Critics and Rivals .......................................................... 24 3.) Jewish Self-Hatred and Menshlichkeit ............................................................................ 26 3.1.) Jewish Self-Hatred ....................................................................................................... 26 3.1.1.) A Historical Survey: From the European Fin-de-Siècle to the American Forties . 26 3.1.2.) The Age of Jewish Self-Hatred.............................................................................. 29 3.1.2.) The Self-Hating Jewish Author ............................................................................. 30 3.2.) Menshlichkeit (Yiddish: Mentshlekhayt) ..................................................................... 31 3.2.1.) Bernard Malamud, the Author of Menshlichkeit ................................................... 33 4.) Jewish and American Concepts of Masculinity ............................................................. 35 4.1.) A Theoretical Approach to the Concept of Masculinity .............................................. 35 4.1.1.) Masculinity as a Product of Social Practice .......................................................... 35 4.1.2.) Power Relations between Masculinities ................................................................ 36 4.1.3.) Masculinity and National Identity ......................................................................... 37 4.2.) Jewish and American Masculinities ............................................................................. 38 4.3.) Jewish (American) Masculinities: Between Stereotypes and Reality .......................... 40 4.3.1.) Feminized Jews ...................................................................................................... 40 4.3.2.) The Rabbinic Jew .................................................................................................. 42 4.3.3.) The Muscular Jew (or Jewboy).............................................................................. 43 4.4.) Man as Mensch ............................................................................................................. 44 4.5.) Masculinity in Roth ...................................................................................................... 45 5.) Objects of Analysis ............................................................................................................ 47 5.1.) Bernard Malamud’s The Magic Barrel (1958) ............................................................ 48 5.2.) Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories (1959) .............................. 50 6.) Man or Mensch? – Male Characters in Crisis ................................................................ 53 6.1.) Fateful Encounters in Malamud’s and Roth’s Short Stories ........................................ 53 6.1.1.) Encounters with Holocaust Survivors ................................................................... 53 6.1.2.) Encounters with Nuisances .................................................................................... 56 6.1.3.) Encounters with Objects of Desire ........................................................................ 58 6.2.) Navigating Identity: Between Self-Hatred and Menshlichkeit ..................................... 59 6.2.1.) Accusations and Displays of Self-Hatred .............................................................. 59 6.2.2.) How to be a Mensch: Male Characters Embracing the Moral Code ..................... 67 6.3.) The Magic Barrel: A Crisis of Faith and Love ............................................................ 70 6.4.) Epstein: A Story of Regret and Unfulfilled Expectations ............................................ 72 6.5.) Identity Defined by Superficiality and Respectability ................................................. 73 7.) Representations of Masculinity in Malamud’s and Roth’s Short Stories.................... 78 7.1.) Nathan Marx: Approaching Hegemonic American Masculinity ................................. 78 7.2.) Stereotypical Representations of Jewish American Masculinity ................................. 80 7.3.) Malamud’s and Roth’s Male Protagonists: Inadequate and Marginalized .................. 82 8.) Female Characters in Malamud’s and Roth’s Short Stories ....................................... 84 8.1.) Women: Objects of Desire and Repulsion ................................................................... 84 8.1.1.) Objects of Desire ................................................................................................... 84 8.1.2.) Objects of Repulsion and Irritation ....................................................................... 86 8.2.) Acts of Emasculation ................................................................................................... 89 8.3.) Women in Philip Roth .................................................................................................. 92 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 95 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 98 Appendix ............................................................................................................................... 102 Introduction The most significant development American Jewry experienced in the twentieth century was their transformation from Jews living in America to Jewish Americans. This process of Americanization was never without criticism from within the community, but the majority of former immigrants and second generation Jewish Americans welcomed the immersion into the so-called American melting pot. However, this development was called into question when World War II, and more specifically the Holocaust, forced Jewish Americans to re- evaluate the significance of their heritage in their lives. As a result, an identity crisis spread among the community of assimilated Jewry in the United States. This struggle became a characteristic element of Bernard Malamud’s and Philip Roth’s postwar literature. Several of their short stories