磨难与救赎 --论《魔桶》

磨难与救赎---论《魔桶》
The Suffering and Redeem
Abstract
American-Jewish writer Malamud` The Magic Barrel is his most representative short story, it depict the Jewishness and also has its universal means. The writer put the Jewish people as a representative or a symbol of human being. So, the theme of The Magic Barrel that only love can make our rebirth and end the suffering is not limited to Jewish people, but also represent the redeem that the modern people want.
Key words: The Magic Barrel Jewishness Love Suffering Redeem
摘要
美国犹太裔作家马拉默德的《魔桶》是他最具有代表性的短篇小说，既描写了犹太性，也具有一定的普世性。

作者把犹太人作为人类的代表或象征, 表现了人类普遍性。

因此，《魔桶》中体现的在唯有爱使我们重生，不在受难的主题不再仅局限于犹太人，也代表了现代人希望得到的救赎。

关键词：《魔桶》犹太性爱受难救赎
Introduction
Bernard Malamud (1914-1986), was an American author of novels and short stories. Along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century.a famous Jewish writer, who was born in Brooklyn in New York. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants, struggling hard to maintain life in the Unites States. Malamud entered adolescence at the start of theGreat Depression. From 1928 to 1932, Bernard attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. During his youth, he saw many films and enjoyed relating their plots to his school friends. He was especially fond of Charlie Chaplin's comedies. Malamud worked for a year at $4.50 a day as a teacher-in-training, before attending college on a government loan. He was excused from military service in World War II because he was the sole support of his widowed mother. Although his childhood was spent in poverty, he had a strong love for books, writing and story-telling. In 1936 he got bachelor degree in New York City University after 4 years' study there; and in 1942 he received his M. A. from Colombia University. Since then Malamud started his teaching life in evening high school, college and other educational institutes for a few years and then became an instructor in the English Department at Organ State University. Meanwhile,he started his writing.
In comparison with some other Jewish literary pioneers such as Saul Bellow and Phillip Roth, Bernard Malamud's literary fame came relatively late. Malamud wrote slowly and carefully; His first novel, the Natural, came out in 195Leo, it received little recognition, perhaps because of its obscure mysticism. But in 1958, his second novel The Assistant, was an immediate success and is generally concerned as Malamud`s masterpiece. His collection of short stories The Magic Barrel, won the National Award for Fiction and established him as a famous writer. Malamud is a diligent and prolific writer, in his whole creative life, he wrote eight novels, four collections of short stories and a number of uncollected stories as well as an unfinished fiction when he died in 1986. His works are well-accepted and won him numerous awards and earned a reputation as an acknowledged fiction writer, with his work impressive both in quantity and in quality.
Malamud is signified as a Jewish writer, not only because his Jewish identity, but also because in his works. He focused on the low-status Jewish people and presents a typical Judaism
claim of "to achieve moral transcendence through suffering".His works have a sense of Jewishness, them talk about how Jewish people struggle their lives in America, enduring their physical or spiritual suffering, how they try to keep their religious believes in a hostile land and search for their own identity. Malamud is keenly aware of ages of Jewish suffering, Poverty, indebtedness, homelessness and solitude are common pressures on many of his Jewish characters. He often uses a prison motif to evoke any place or circumstance which restricts man`s freedom of development. Malamud is a Jewish writer characterized by his Jewishness and his heartfelt concern for their Jewish fate.Malamud cares much for the future of the Jewish people, as well as the continuance and development of the Jewish tradition and spirit.Around the theme of suffering, Malamud puts forward his belief that the Jewish spirit will continue and develop rather than extinguish for its strength can influence others and transform others, in the process of which the Jewish spirit is not only inherited but also sublimated. As a Jewish writer, it was quite right for Malamud to describe the Jews. So what did the Jews mean? From his point of view, the so-called Jews meant suffering and seeking the relief from destiny in suffering. And in his short story The Magic Barrel, that`s love give both Leo and Stella rebirth.
But Malamud denied his tendency towards Jewish writing. His work is about the Jew, but not only the Jew, but everyone. He would like to pursue a universal value by surveying and examining the Jews in the development of human culture. The history of Jewish people is a concentrate of human history and the common destiny. The is why the Jewish writers tried hard to get rid of the narrow and limited part of Jewishness, and put the Jewish people as a example or a symbol of all human kind. When the Jewish writers represent the suffering and self-confusing of Jewish people, they actually is describe the life situation of everyone.
The suffering and redeem
The Magic Barrel, which is taken from the short story collection of the same title, is considered to be as Malamud`s “super story”. There are two main characters in this story, Leo Frinkle and Pinye Salzman. Leo is a student in the Yeshivah University who is going to be a rabbi. In order to help his career, Leo decided to get married. But due to his six-year devoted into studies, he is alone is this world, no social life and on company of young women. So he called in Salzman, the marriage broker for help. Unhappy and total disappointed about a blind date with one of the
proposed women, Lily, he retreats questioned his life and relationship with God. The marriage counselor suddenly turns up delivering him photographs of women, which he initially ignores. However, some day later, he discovers another one in the envelope. He instantly falls in love with that picture and eager to meet her. After he's found the marriage counselor, (who left him immediately after delivering the photographs)he found out that the girl is the counselor's daughter ,who is evil and not goog for a rabbi. After the deep thought, Leo decided to meet her anyway; the Salzman hiding around the corner, "chanting prayers for the dead”.
The story mainly concerned a rabbi's growth in spirit and in mind.In this story, the analysis and exploration of the Jews on the spiritual level was extremely profound; the depiction and portrayal of the characters was particularly vivid. It was holy for spiritual growth and leap, but the loneliness and suffering through its process was unbearable for ordinary persons. Having experienced pains and failures in the course of blind date, the hero Leo managed to root out his what he really want, his destiny and redeem. In spite of all manner of difficulties in mind and in moral, he still insist his love and finally met Stella. By redeeming the lost girl, he attained a self-redemption and came to spiritual rebirth in the end.
The suffering theme is an crucial part of the Jewish historical and cultural connotation in Malamud`s works . It plays a vital role in Malamud's writing. The suffering theme represents a close relationship among Jewish theology, history and literary. Probably because for the Jews, who consider themselves as the God`s “chosen people”, they are suffering for a better life, and besides,the sufferings means not only enduring the miseries, but also carrying their own responsibility and hope. In the Malamud's stories, "suffering" is a necessary step for people to realize moral growth and get redeem.
at the beginning of this novel, Leo had been advised by an acquaintance that he should get married to make it easier to win himself a congregation. And later in the story, Leo told Salzmant that except his parents who had married comparatively later in life, he was alone in the world. What`s more, because he had devoted himself into studies for six years, he has no time for a social life and the company of young women. From these description, it is not hard to find that Leo is suffering of loneliness. He has no friends, the advise was given by an acquaintance. No family member to care about, his parents have new family and left him alone on this world. No social life, because he has no time and no lover, because he already forget how to love someone. He had been
lonely for such a long time he did not even know that he is lonely. He isolated himself in a small world which is made up with books, shelves of books. He did not look out of the window, only after the appear of Salzman, and for cover his shyness, he looked out of the window and noticed the it was still February, winter was on its last leg for the first time in years.
In The Magic Barrel, after several meeting with Salzman,Leo finally decide to meet one of the girls---Lily, who is older than him. At the date, when Lily asked Leo, did he become enamored of God, he could`t answer it. And after a long pause, he only answered that he is not enamored of God, and he come to God not because he love Him, but because he did not. This blind date is nothing but a disappointment. what`s worse, the talk with Lily threw him into deep thinking about himself, his religion, and his true relationship with God. For the first time, he saw himself clearly.
Her (Lily's) probing questions had somehow irritated him into revealing---to himself more than her---the true nature of his relationship to God, and
from that it had come upon him, with shocking force, that apart from his parents, he had
never loved anyone. Or it perhaps it went the other way, that he did not love God so well
as he might, because he had loved man.
This bitter revelation brought Leo into a point of panic. And his life turned to be the worst, he could`t eat and study, and he was seriously thinking of leaving the Yeshiva, because God said, love me, love my people, but he did`t love God, and he did`t love anyone. This was no reason for him to continue study the Law. He suffered the pain of doubts, he doubted his love to God, to mankind, to his religion and career. After a painful straggle, he come to the conclusion that "he was a Jew and that a Jew suffered." Because they are the chosen people by God, they must endure these sufferings for themselves, for the mankind. Only by enduring the suffering of deep thinking, overcome all his doubts, can Leo realize his true nature and purpose of life.It was the beginning for his sin destiny, and a preparation for his later journey of rebirth.
Then, here comes the climax of the stroy . Just when Leo was so disappointed and anger about Salzman, and he decided to seek his wife in a different way, he found the packet of Salzman, and saw the picture of Stella. At the first sight of the snapshot, he was deeply moved by the face. He fell in love with her youth, like a flower in spring, and her suffering eyes, wasted. As his eyes rested on it for a while,
a sudden vivid likeness passed before him. He hurried to find Salzman for his matchmaking. Unexpectedly, Salzman turned pale with a big scare and refused to tell him the girl`s name. He told Leo there was a mistake about this photo. It was not for him. The girl in the photo is Salzman's daughter who he thought was not qualified to marry with Leo, a soon to be rabbi and she should burn in hell. But Leo is already fell in love with Stella even she is a wild one. Lying on the bed, he thought his life through. Though he prayed to get rid of her, he was scared he did not love her any more. The struggle in his spirit tortured him endlessly. And through those torments, he gained the wisdom which can not get from book, but life. In this suffering, "He then concluded to convert her (Stella) to goodness, himself to god." Till now, Leo finished his rebirth ultimately. He finally find his redeem and realize how what he want in life. He made up his mind, and told Salzman: “love has at last come to my heart.” he got out of his isolated small world, pursuing love and serving people.Wanting to be loved, one must love others at first. can really love God. conclusion
From the story, we learned that Leo was a poor student who is going to be a rabbi and enjoy a good life. But in order to do that, Leo has get married. His search for wife made him rethink his life and finally realize what he really want and what`s his life aim at. He voluntarily went onto a track of the Jewish destiny to endure suffering, and to redeem others. From serving for God because of the desire to have a better life, finding a wife just for have a better career, to bravely choose a guilty woman as his wife and convert her to goodness, himself to God, he ended his suffering and got a spiritual rebirth in this way. At the end of the story, the man who planed all this, Salzman, stand around the corner, leaning against a wall, chanted prayers for the dead." The dead meant the death of Leo`s suffering and Stella unclean past.
In Malamud`s works, he tried to associating the Jewish cultural traditions with modern social background, Malamud has established a close relationship between Jewishness and universality by allegorical portrayal of the Jews and the Gentile. The spiritual waste land is grow fast in the modern society, everyone is isolated and lonely, everyone is suffered, just like Jew, as Malamud said, "All men are the Jews." In this sense, the Jewish characters he has depicted are as well as the common people. In this way, the Jewish people become a symbol of all human beings. And the only thing to end this isolation and suffering, is love. Love people and to be loved, is the
only way to redeem.
Bibliography
Malamud, Bernard, The Magic Barrel, New York: Farrar, Straus&Giroux 1980
Astro, Richard and Jackson J., Benson, eds. The Fiction of Bernard Malamud. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1977.
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