Endurance and Suffering in Bernard Malamud's "The

Endurance and suffering in Bernard Malamud's "The Assistant" Endurance and suffering are main themes as projected through the two lead characters in Bernard Malamud's "The Assistant," a heartwarming mentor-student story set in early 20th century Brooklyn. As is the case with many of his stories, "The Assistant," By Bernard Malamud, tells the story of a simple man trying to make his life better through a struggle against bad luck. Through his characterizations in The Assistant, Malamud makes his themes of endurance and suffering.

Malamud, perhaps best known for "The Natural," which turned into a 1980s film starring Robert Redford, takes a turn at writing about those not in the limelight this time. The Assistant," Malamud's second novel, which some consider his best work, was published in 1957. Set against the backdrop of the Depression era, it tells of a Jewish grocery-store owner and his Italian assistant is like a morality play.

Malamud's first theme of suffering in order to attain a higher moral stature is apparent in the character of Morris Bober, the shopkeeper and also through Frank, the assistant. Malamud makes clear references to Dostoyevski, whose philosophy was that through suffering, one can be redeemed, and there are parallels throughout the story to the Book of Job in the Bible. Frank also links love and suffering as he works in the store for Bober.

Bober thinks one should turn suffering, a condition we are all forced to take, and turn it into something positive. "I suffer for you," Bober tells Alpino. Another theme through characterization is failure; but even as Bober thinks he is a failure, he is not. He has inner conflict with being Jewish and having success because of the innate role that Jews are doomed to uphold and that is one of suffering.

It is shown that Morris believes that honesty doesn't pay in the United States and that money is king. Friends of Bober don't even really see him as successful because he doesn't live to possess material goods. Bober's wife constantly tells him he's a financial failure, after all, the store is failing despite his hard work and there is disappointment that it won't bring in enough money to put daughter Helen through college. Frank Alpino, a drifter who is Italian-American, learns much from Bober.

He is an orphan who was raised in a Catholic children's institution and is a small-time thief. He has never loved a woman, in fact, he's never even had a real relationship of any kind. Alpino becomes the assistant in the shop and wants to understand the family and their Jewishness, eventually finding in his heart the sympathy for Bober. Bober stands for and is a lovely example of suffering (Jewish) humanity; through him and with him -- voluntarily sharing his fate -- Frank Alpino becomes a mensch.

The Sisyphean moral burden of Jewishness is passed on from one generation to another and what is good, what is fundamental, survives." 1. Bober is an old man who has been in the grocery business all his life. Alpino, who stumbles into the store one day represents the only contacthe has with the outside world for the most part. Bober sees the other storeowners, but keeps his distance. Although he hates Louis Karp, the liquor store owner, deep down he actually cares about him.

But regardless of the much-hated lectures Karp is constantly delivering to Bober, Bober is buoyed by his inner calmness through which he can endure the misery in his life. All he knew was he wanted better but had not after all these years learned how to get it. Luck was a gift. Karp had it [..] Life was meager, the world changed for the worse. America had become too complicated. One man counted for nothing. There were too many stores, depressions, anxieties. What had he escaped to here?" 2.

In The Assistant Malamud uses being a good Jew as a metaphor for the embodiment of suffering. His question is basically is "What is a Jew?" It appears his answer comes through the character of Bober, who teaches Alpine that to be a real Jew it is to endure the suffering, personal suffering as well as the suffering of the Jewish people whose history is inundated with persecution and tragedy. Bober would never inflict suffering on another person. The Bober character is a great illustration of a seasoned selflessness.

He gives Alpine shelter and food and never gives up on him until he discovers Alpine has been stealing. Although he fires him, it is more from disappointment than it is from anger. Alpine represents almost a hobby for Bober, who hopes to get through to the drifter and bring out the best in him. Bober, for example can be interpreted from both traditions.

Some critics have pointed to Morris Bober being a version of the schemiel, a traditional archetype from Yiddish folklore who acts as an ironic hero, using light humor and irony to soften an otherwise harsh world. At the same time other critics have suggested Morris Bober as the embodiment of the existential "I-THOU" philosophy described by Bober's close namesake, Martin Bober. Both of these interpretations seem fitting and they demonstrate that Malamud's novel reflects his ethnic familial background, while also maintaining the intellectual tradition in which he was trained. "3.

While Frank is Morris' assistant, Morris is more of an assistant on a spiritual and moral level - to Frank. Bober helps Frank learn matters of humanity and being a human being. Bober is not preachy, but he acts as an example through his actions. The store is his whole life, and represents his tomb.

Bober cares for the store and knows he may have had opportunities in his life to do better, but the shop is his destiny and there is no further mark he would have liked to have made in the business world. It is reward enough that he lives knowing he is doing the right thing in making a living to get his daughter through college and that he treats people right.

The fact that Bober dies after having shoveled away the snow so people can walk in front of the store shows his heart is in the right place. Although he does not die a rich man, he knows all his problems have gone away since Karp's offer to buy the store. The author would like us to believe that Bober has won and has beaten the problems of his life and that his suffering was not for naught.

When a Jew dies, who asks if he is a Jew? He is a Jew, we don't ask. There are many ways to be a Jew.

So if somebody comes to me and says, 'Rabbi, shall we call such a man Jewish who lived and worked among the gentiles and sold them pig meat, trayfe, that we don't eat it, and not once in twenty years comes inside a synagogue, is such a man a Jew, Rabbi?' To him I will say, 'Yes, Morris Bober was to me a true Jew because he lived in the Jewish experience, which he remembered, and with the Jewish heart.' Maybe not to our formal tradition - for this I don't excuse him - but he was true to the spirit of our life - to want for others that which he wants also for himself.

He followed the Law which God gave to Moses on Sinai and told him to bring to the people. He suffered, he endured, but with hope."4. The Alpino character also is familiar with suffering, yet needs a lesson in endurance. Alpino starts off as 'Jewish' because he too has had a rough road. But as he stays with Bober, he learns to avoid his vengeful and rough tendencies that he felt were justified because of how he had been treated by the world.

Alpine, the assistant, on whom the novel is titled, undergoes a tremendous transformation by book's end. He moves from dishonest to a character full of goodness. Participating in a robbery against the store, the perpetrator returns to the scene of the crime to "make it up" to the grocer. For some reason, Frank feels his place in the world will be assured by having interaction Morris Bober.

Although at first he remains there because of feeling guilty for the holdup, he then meets daughter Helen and finds her an additional reason for staying. Frank is innately good, despite his actions to the contrary. We are led to believe that Frank is fighting an inner conflict. He needs to put his thoughts into coordination with his actions, for although he thinks good thoughts his actions are almost automatically bad. While Alpino tries to be good, his bad ways are unstoppable.

His constant stealing from the store shows the contrast between what he really wants and his actions. Although Alpino feels guilty, his need to steal is like a disease where he keeps slipping stealing to get a thrill. Alpino's pursuit of Helen shows his lust for sex, but deep down we believe he really loves her. Helen represents to Alpino the light at the end of the tunnel to some degree; that if he makes a change only then will she be attainable.

Alpino eventually takes up Bober's outlook on life as his own. He confronts his own dishonesty and patches his life together. When he finally arrives at the conclusion that a calm and patient lifestyle may not make him rich but will grant him inner strength to survive, it is only then he can have Helen as his love. Alpino's behavior represents the ironies Malamud presents as a life thesis. For one, the name Frank Alpino, reminicent of St.

Francis of Assisi, wins Helen over, only to rape her; he is found out for being the thief as he is putting the money back in the register, only to lose everything after the confession which comes at the wrong time. Frank is a typical Malamud anti-hero, a failure at everything he tries, even theft.

But his final conversion to Judaism, a religion that he despised before, represents his becoming a fully human being, one who accepts responsibility for his actions and takes on the role of provider and protector for his adopted family." 5. Alpino's emergence as a righteous person -- one who learns self-control and who at the end of the story becomes transformed - is apparent to all, including Helen. The stranger had changed, grown unstrange.

That was the clue to what was happening to her [..] If he was hiding anything, she thought, it was his past pain, his orphanhood and consequent suffering. [..] She felt she had changed him and this affected her." 6. With a few more turns of the pen, Alpino's character could have been presented as the anti-hero since he is without values and is a coward and is unaware and dishonest to boot.

But From be seen as an anti-hero as he lacks some combination of traditional virtues and is often inept, cowardly, ignorant and dishonest. But Alpino brings out an empathy from the readers because the author has instilled a potential greatness in the street drifter. While Alpino comes into the story with certain uneducated opinions, the grocery store symbolizes the place where his transformation occurs. He represents an assistant on several levels - to Ward Minogue in the robbery, to Helen and Ida and also to Bober.

But by the end of the story he is much more than that. He has come to learn from the old man and has changed. By the end of the story, Alpino even gets circumcised and accepts Judaism. One day in April Frank went to the hospital and had himself circumcised. For a couple of days he dragged himself around with a pain between his legs. The pain enraged and inspired him. After Passover he became a Jew." 7.

The interaction between Alpino and Bober is an interesting mentor-student or father-son relationship. And an unlikely relationship it certainly is. Alpino initially feels he can learn nothing from the old man and Bober, patient and willing to teach sees there is a lot of work, but miracles can happen. A mixing myth with reality, a virtual monk, Morris Bober, a grocer, welcomes into his cell the itinerant ne'er-do-well, Frank Alpine, whose initials most surely stand for the wonder-worker, St. Francis of Assisi.

In the strictness of his prose, Malamud reshapes the grocery into a kind of Jewish monastery, as Frank, the repentant, becomes Morris's disciple in training for a new vocation.

At a certain point in his novitiate, Frank asks Morris: "Tell me why it is that Jews suffer so much? It seems to me that they like to suffer, don't they?" Morris answers: "Do you like to suffer? They suffer because they are Jews." Frank responds: "That's what I mean, they suffer more than they have to." Morris replies: "If you live, you suffer. Some people suffer more, but not because they want.

But I think if a Jew don't suffer for the Law, he will suffer for nothing." "What do you suffer for Morris?" said Frank. "I suffer for you," Morris said calmly. "What do you mean?" asked Frank. "I mean you suffer for me." 8. The other characters in the book ring true to the theme Malamud tries to convey. Karp, Morris' antagonist, seems to always catch a lucky break, even when his store burns down.

He is the envy of Bober to some extent, but he is also the object of Bober's pity. Bober.