THE ASSISTANT of Bernard Malamud

Gao Huan

A story of tortured souls, Bernard Malamud��s 1957 novel The Assistant holds its appeal with its human universality as well as its particular Jewishness.

The story opens in a little gloomy grocery in New York whose owner, Morris Bober, is a Jew. The Bobers look forward to selling the store and thus starting a new life. They verge on bankruptcy as in the previous twenty-one years since the buyer never materializes. Instead, a tramp Frank Alpine comes, who first robs Morris as an accomplice and then helps out in the store as a secret expiator. As business picks up somehow, he begins to steal money from the cash drawer by a complicated guilty impulse. He falls for Morris�� daughter Helen and decides to put the money back. But it is already too late. Morris discovers his theft and refuses to forgive him. In a frenzied despair, he makes love to Helen against her will. Frank��s confession of robbery to Morris does not prevent the whole thing from being ruined in his own hands. After Morris�� death, Frank toils on to keep the store, supporting Helen and her mother. Finally, he converts to Judaism and readers can clearly sense the reconciliation between Helen and him.

Permeated through the novel is an atmosphere of suffering and endurance. This is a characteristic of so-called Jewishness, and in a broader sense, a characteristic of the modern human existence. Actually the alienation and uncertainty of man in this world as well as the contradictoriness and contingency of human existence have been the ��obsessive�� themes of modern art and existentialism. That Malamud has frequently chosen the Jew to explore and interpret these themes might be due to the author��s identity: a Jew born in New York in 1914. He is firstly an individual in this world, then a Jew bearing all that historical and cultural connotation:

The Jews originally inhabited the Middle East and believed themselves to be God��s Chosen People to represent him on the earth. From the days they were driven out of their homeland by the Romans, they have been a people without a country for almost two thousand years. They scattered all over the world but were ��denied an essential voice in their adopted country��. ¹ They were often despised and mistreated, as best exemplified by the Holocaust in World War II.

To many Jews, it seems that the world where they live is not theirs, because by keeping their own religious laws, customs and ways of life, they have usually remained distinctive from the majority among whom they live. Wrestling between alienation and assimilation, they encounter a conflict between their inner selves and the outside world. Furthermore, this struggle is pervasive and unrelieved to all human beings to a certain degree. Once Malamud claimed, ��All men are Jews except they don��t know it.�� ² Since he sees the struggle with sufferings as an innate part of the human lot, it is understandable that he lets the Jews, who suffered most intensely, be the representative of all. Though the Jews he chooses are not necessarily orthodox ones who strictly observe all the Jewish laws and carry out all the Jewish practices, Malamud has nevertheless managed to ��define the majority by means of the minority��. ³ Therefore, if The Assistant is merely regarded as a Jewish novel, the significance of it will be downplayed. To examine in a broader context from various sources might be more appropriate to understand it and appreciate it.

There are a lot of elements in The Assistant that keep reminding people of some biblical figures, which implies that it is not merely a work of pure Jewishness. They add a heavy touch of ancientness and surrealism to the book.

The grocer Morris Bober initially projects an image of schlemiel, which in Yiddish means a person who is unlucky but enduring, awkward but good-natured. But in him, there is Job, too, the Hebrew hero of the biblical Book of Job, ��which deals with the fundamental problem of undeserved suffering��. ⁴

Satan afflicts Job to test Job��s piety to God. But faced with the appalling loss of his possessions, his children, and finally his own health, Job still refuses to curse God. Three of his friends then arrive to comfort him. In the poetic discourse that follows, Job disputes with them and converses with God. The reason for Job��s undeserved suffering and the manner in which Job should react are probed. Job proclaims his innocence and the injustice of his suffering as he is convinced of his own faithfulness and uprighteousness. The speeches evoke Job's trust in the purposeful activity of God in the affairs of the world, even though God's ways with man remain mysterious and inscrutable. ⁵

Morris is almost a modern Job who has suffered a lot. Having fled from the Russian Army to America, he is ��like a fish fried in deep fat�� once he opens the grocery. ⁶ He toils long hours everyday but is still close to bankruptcy. He gets cheated in partnership and loses in competition. Already very poor, he falls victim to a hold-up while a better-off neighbor remains safe. At last, he dies from double pneumonia. ��It was his luck, others had better.�� (28)

Like Job, Morris resents his bad luck, but it does not stop him from continuing to be honest and kind, because ��to cheat would cause an explosion in him��. (19) While Job believes in God, Morris has his Jewish belief. When Frank wants to know what is a Jew, Morris answers, ��This means to do what is right, to be honest, to be good��Our life is hard enough. Why should we hurt somebody else?��We ain��t animals. This is why we need the Law. This is what a Jew believes.��(112-113) ��If you live, you suffer�� If a Jew don��t suffer for the Law, he will suffer for nothing.�� (113) Empowered by this belief, he carries on with an amazing capability for patience and endurance of suffering. However, Frank says, ��I think other religions have those ideas too��. (112) This again shows that the emphasis on suffering is not exclusively Jewish.

Malamud suggests, ��life _ at least for good-hearted, humane people _ is a search to make unavoidable suffering meaningful��. ⁷ He demonstrates how great ��man��s inherent potential of transcending the inevitable pain and hardship in life�� can be when there is something meaningful to believe in. ⁸ The spiritual victory that Morris finds in being good to others and suffering for others puts grandeur on him.

The sufferings are in the commonest sense undeserved. However, like Job, Morris persists in his belief, even though the belief has not been materially rewarding. To him, it is the spiritual principle that holds him up. Furthermore, suffering for others is not only faith in God, but also the ultimate test of humanity. Therefore, it is potentially beneficial and people should learn to accept it as their lot and see in it growth and fulfillment.

To Job, God��s ways seem ��harsh and unjust��, but he ��does not attempt to rationalize this injustice; rather, he acknowledges this as part of the mystery of life��. Neither does Morris. He accepts his suffering without a real attempt to combat it. ��To suffer out of love and principle is to see the ego die and self dissolve in the terror of complete dispossession.�� ⁹ Job and Morris are both doing this. And Morris is satisfied, though somewhat resignedly, that the affliction he experiences has brought out his hidden spiritual force to the full and proved him to be a very good man consummate with dignity and compassion.

Suffering has not only an affirmative function for the Job-like Morris, but also a regenerative force in bringing out the St. Francis of Assisi-like side of nature of Frank Alpine and transforming him into a better man. Malamud consciously lets St. Francis stand for the genuine yet obscure ideal of Frank, which makes plausible Frank��s final change and conversion.

Saint Francis of Assisi was the founder of Franciscan orders and the principal patron of Italy. One day at the ruined chapel of S. Damiano outside the gate of Assisi, he heard the crucifix above the altar command him: "Go, Francis, and repair my house which, as you see, is well-nigh in ruins." Taking this literally, he hurried home, gathered much of the cloth in his father's shop and sold it. He then tried to give the money to the priest at S. Damiano. Angered, his father called him before the Bishop. Covered only by a hair shirt, Francis said: "Until now I have called you my father on earth. But henceforth I can truly say: Our Father who art in heaven." Francis had renounced material goods and family ties to embrace a life of poverty. However, it was not mere external poverty he sought but the total denial of self. "To follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps " was Franciscan rule of life and St. Francis almost literally tried to imitate the life of Christ.¹⁰

Frank has always admired St. Francis who loved poverty like a queen and preached to birds. The saint��s story is more than just moving. ��This predicts his own salvation through suffering and begins an identification with St. Francis, reinforced by Frank��s name.�� ¹¹ Later, we find that Frank is feeding the birds in the park and birds perch on him. The resemblance of Frank to St. Francis goes beyond image: Frank��s attempts to revitalize the grocery by supplementing it with some restaurant services can be associated with St. Francis��s restoration of the ruined chapel of S. Damiano. And Frank finally manages to become a St. Francis-figure in terms of spirit.

Morris is Job-like. And in one sense, he is to Frank as Christ is to St. Francis. Frank learns the importance of responsibility and dedication to others from Morris and follows his way of life to complete his transfiguration.

Besides, St. Francis becomes Frank's ��intercessor with Helen�� at the end of the novel. ¹² Readers feel that Helen will accept the changed Frank for his loving sensitivity and goodness. While Frank is reading the Bible, of which ��he sometimes thought there were parts he could have written himself��, he daydreams that St. Francis plucks the wooden rose that he has made for Helen out of the garbage can and turns it into a real flower. ��With a bow he gave it to Helen �� ��Little sister, here is your little sister the rose.�� From him she took it although it was with the love and best wishes of Frank Alpine.��(217)

In associating Morris with Job, and Frank with St. Francis of Assisi, Malamud universalizes the theme of The Assistant beyond religion and ethnic. Further, there are considerable Existential influence present in the book, which makes it more contemporary.

Existentialism is a family of philosophy devoted to an interpretation of human existence in the world that stresses its concreteness and its problematic character. Though not a work of pure Existentialism, what The Assistant implies has a lot in common with some of the views of the different branches of this philosophy.

( I ) Focus on Choice

According to the Existentialists, man is open to the world where he chooses and acts. Man is also open to a future which he determines by his choices and actions. Man makes himself what he is by his choice, choices of ways of life, or of particular actions. But the choices available are limited. In one sense, man is free to choose and in the other, the freedom of choices is also a necessity of having to choose. As Sartre has said, man is ��condemned to free��, even though his situation may be wholly determined. ¹³ Indeed, we see the situation in The Assistant, especially for the Bobers and Frank, is largely a matter of difficult choices.

For Morris , his life is still a failure, though intangibly victorious in terms of morality. His bad luck is surely a contributing factor but not the only one. Morris is wavering in mind, unable to make a choice. Such indecisiveness partly leads to inopportune timing, and eventually misfortune and unhappiness. The author points out, ��The right thing was to make the right choice but he made the wrong. Even when it was right it was wrong.�� (183) Morris should have continued his education but he opens a grocery and wastes himself in it. He could have sold the store to a Polish refugee but he does not have the heart to let him take up his burden. Inspired to burn the store for the insurance, he changes his mind when the fire is started. But for Frank, he could have been burnt to death. At the crossroads, he tends to turn off the more successful way, often on the base of honesty and trust in others. ��Morris��s problem is not finding the right ideals, but rather putting off his despair long enough to carry out what he knows is right.�� ¹⁴ Morris�� attitude toward life is passive. He accepts things without protest, without reaching after fact and reason. He contents with the thought that he obeys their law of being good. The hardship that life offers makes him all the more firmly believe in goodness. He never takes into account the possibility that if he gets more decisive and bolder, life can be improved with his virtue still retained.

Moreover, a tendency toward masochism can be observed in Morris. On the surface, he longs to be unburdened of the store and start a new life. ��Yet if he miraculously did, where would he go, where? He had a moment of uneasiness as he pictured himself without a roof over his head.�� (9) The present is agonizing enough. The future might be better, or even worse. The challenge of an unforeseen future projects both a shadow and a light on Morris�� heart, which enables him to remain suffocated in the grocery ��with mixed feelings of frustration and release��. ¹⁵ To him, this stifling feeling is better than fidget and apprehension. He suffers and asks for more consciously or unconsciously. On the primary level, his chief burden is the store, but on the second, he himself is the hidden architect of his misfortune. ¹⁶ He fails to escape himself because he doesn��t know which will be the right choice beforehand. So he almost indulges himself in the accustomed agony though perhaps without awareness.

Morris is a product of his own choices from a limited availability. The choice among possibilities_ i.e., the projection of existence_ implies risks, renunciation and limitation. However, man must make a selection, to which he must then commit himself. Maybe there is no right or wrong. No matter how much suffering Morris has undergone as a result of his own painful choices, he commits himself to a principle that he thinks is correct_ to be good.

2. Frank Alpine

Choice is always a great challenge to Frank. Existentialists such as Heidegger and Jaspers have said, ��the existential possibilities, inasmuch as they are rooted in the past, merely lead every project for the future back to the past, so that only what has already been chosen can be chosen.�� ¹⁷ Therefore the past that Frank has made by his choices determines to a large degree his present and future. The past can��t be thrown away completely at a stroke by any means.

Frank comes into the story as a wandering dream-seeker who also seeks to get rid of the tragedy of past. His past is a nightmare full of uncertainties, which keeps casting a dark shadow on him. It dogs him, reaches into and jeopardizes his present and future, because it is a vicious circle he has fallen into: the past reappears in the form of future. Frank is aware of his own faults but can��t help relapsing. He does not learn from experiences. His life is ��mostly made up of lost chances, some so promising he could still not stand to remember them��. (83) He tells Morris, ��I work like a mule for what I want, and just when it looks like I am going to get it I make some kind of a stupid move, and every thing that is just about nailed down tight blows up in my face.�� (35) His guilty conscience is not enough to keep him off further misdeeds, which inevitably lead to a further predicament. His dishonesty-wracked past is self-induced with his lack of willpower. So to live a new life, Frank has to toil even more because he has to be a penitent first.

Frank��s ideal, in spite of the St. Francis in him, is initially like that of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky). ¹⁸ Frank reads The Life of Napoleon and yearns to be a great man. Though he has not read Nietzsche, he certainly has the superman ideas, even more consciously than Raskolnikov. Suddenly ��he had this terrific idea that he was meant for crime��At crime he would change his luck, make adventure, live like a prince.�� (84) Out of this powerful impulse, he takes part in the hold-up, a crime lighter than Raskolnikov��s homicide. But the moment he enters the store, the whole idea seems to him senseless. Seeing Morris�� bloody head, ��he realized he had made the worst mistake yet, the hardest to wipe out��. (85) He is brought down to earth, but the wrong he has done cannot be undone, similar to Raskolnikov��s experience. Both suffer from anxiety thereafter, Raskolnikov gets more distraught, though.

Here Malamud seems to suggest that Nietzsche ��s philosophy might be an illusion in real life. Nietzsche ��exalted life in its most irrational and cruel features and made this exaltation the proper task of the ��übermensch�� (superman), who exists beyond good and evil.�� ¹⁹ Raskolnikov realizes that he is but a member of the herd and finally converts to Christianity under the influence of Sonia. Frank finds himself not at all capable of being the superman he dreams about, and with the St. Francis in him waken up and the love for Helen burning, he chooses to take over Morris�� Jewish belief.

( II ) Focus on Human Condition

Apart from the focus on choice, Existentialism holds a rather gray view of the human condition. The keenly-felt alienation and experience of atrocity in the 20th century and ��a dramatic, often tragic confrontation between man and the world�� are much- written subjects in the literary works in this light. ²⁰ The Assistant is one of them. Both Morris and Frank are ��solitary, contingent and self-creating�� figures, the prototype for the existentialist view of the human beings. ²¹

Existentialism stresses the absurdity of man��s dangling between the infinity of his aspirations and finitude of his possibilities. The Nothingness of the world means that existence is a suffering and despair pervasive and universal to all. It all results from the radical, perpetual, and frequently agonizing ��freedom of choice��. ²² No matter how ultimately meaningless it is, people still have to choose. The inner struggle before any decision can be made is always afflicting.

In The Assistant, the inner struggle of Frank has been depicted with great vividness and verisimilitude. His stay in the grocery is a paradox. His morals are growing, yet he cannot resist the temptation of misdemeanor. ��He felt a curious pleasure��, as he had at times in the past when he was doing something he knew he oughtn��t to.�� (64-65) We know misdoing and crimes are radical ways of breaking away from the social norm, unchecked by the moral principles. That is why Frank feels excited and fulfilled: minor theft gets him pretty high though robbery might be too much for him. Everyone needs variety in a monotonous life. Shameful as it is, he has his oppressed love and desire for Helen somewhat satisfied by peeping at showering Helen. These are very base things. However, what Morris does is simply virtuous; what Helen tells him is discipline. Frank��s criminal pleasure is continuously at war with his conscience. His agony of remorse is growing with days and it attacks him in bouts, which is a proof of his veiled goodness. ��He groaned��Sometimes he felt short of breath and sweated profusely.�� (64) Thoughts kill him and he screams in nightmares. All these symptoms of disturbance are described again and again, every time more acute than the last. This is a Dostoevskian technique of psychological writing. As Raskolnikov himself states in his thesis, one gets sick after committing a crime.

Frank��s attempts of self-exhortation turn out futile. Once it suddenly dawns upon him ��that all the while he was acting like he wasn��t, he was really a man of stern morality��. (157) But according to Freud, a man of virtue is somebody who resists an evil temptation from the very beginning and never yields to it. If one sets his moral principles only after he has committed wrongs, he is to be blamed; he has made things too easy for himself. He has not grasped the essence of virtue_ self-discipline. The St. Francis ideal is at that time still a vague notion. Repentance, after all, cannot wipe the past out. When Frank tells Helen, ��even when I am bad, I am good��, he is again trying to justify himself. (26) In fact, he has always been finding excuses for his wrongs. These excuses initially sound plausible, but do not work out for him. Raskolnikov��s lofty purpose of improving the society by killing the bad is just a self-deluding excuse. Money is what he indeed kills for. Sickened to realize that, he throws the money away immediately to confirm his lofty purpose, but it doesn��t help. Frank notes down the sum he steals so as to pay it back one day and thus justifies himself in further theft. But the nature of things is decided by what one does, not what one thinks. So both Raskolnikov and Frank have to taste the bitter aftermath of what they have done.

Tied down by the past, Frank knows that confession is the only way of ��squeezing through the stone knot��. (26) The longer he puts it off, the more risk he is to take. But it needs so much courage. The instinct of self-preservation and the indulgence in others�� ignorance and trust often outweigh the potential relief of the burden. He ��struggles continuously with the desire to confess��, but a second thought constantly defers his decision. ²³ Malamud has succeeded in delineating Frank��s psychological activities and displaying fully the uncertainty of confession, which makes some parts of the book very Dostoevskianly tense.

Like Raskolnikov, Frank has the impulse to ��vomit up in words�� his wrongs and ��change his life before the [stinking] smell of it [his past] suffocated him�� (82), but then ��the thought of confessing��almost panicked him�� (62). So when the chance comes, he equivocates and retreats. He tries to coax himself but gets unnerved again pretty soon. He then promises himself that he is to confess it all next time. Finally, the seemingly right time comes, and it turns out already too late. To deserve Helen��s love, he decides to turn over a new leaf, starting by putting the money back. At this he ��felt a surge of joy��and his eyes misted��. (143) But Helen calls him for a date right after. He takes a dollar back and is irretrievable discovered by Morris. Frank��s last stroke of hope is to confess the robbery. He ��experienced a moment of extraordinary relief_a tree full of birds broke into song; but the song was silenced�� when Morris says he has long before figured that out. (176)

After all that painful and tense inner struggle, Frank conquers all the selfish spiritual obstacles. However, his confession doesn��t seem immediately rewarding. Punishment has just started for him. In Raskolnikov��s case, the most severe punishment is finished after the confession is done. Though he has experienced much more afflicting mental disturbance than Frank, life is actually more lenient to him. The police inspector plays cat and mouse with Raskolnikov yet gives him a chance to confess. His beloved Sonia has always understood him and takes care of him during his exile. Morris doesn��t forgive Frank. Helen is hard on Frank for a very long time, when he needs her most. Both women play a deciding role in both men��s transfiguration. But it is Sonia��s love for Raskolnikov that changes him while it is Frank��s love for Helen that changes himself. In this sense, Frank is more unfortunate than Raskolnikov.

It is indeed difficult to make a decision. The inner struggle is in one sense the most intense of all conflicts on the earth. Hesitation at the crucial moment and clumsy timing is also a characteristic of Hamlet. When they eventually act, too many chances have been wasted; too many mishaps have taken place. So they have to pay a higher price to get what they should have got before. Not only Hamlet, not only Frank and Raskolnikov, but also we have this problem. We put off a painful decision in the remote hope that we might get away with it. But the delay just all the more adds to the pain. In time, we have to face the reality point and blank. Existential universality is manifested in the hesitation that results from the inside conflict between guilt and moral, pleasure and misery, past and future.

( III ) Focus on Interpersonal Relationships

Existentialists maintain that the self or ego emerges from one��s experience of other people. While they emphasizes on the dominance of man��s dependence of all his possibilities upon his relationships with things and with other men, they have nonetheless advocated a still positive attitude toward life_ ��the liberating of human existence from the beguilements or debasements to which it is subject in daily life and the directing of human existence toward its authenticity; i.e., toward a relationship that is well-grounded on itself, and with other men, with the world, and with God.�� ²⁴ Once the nullity of the existential possibilities is recognized, man cannot but resign himself to Being, which conducts him to a new epoch. As Merleau-Ponty has said, it is man��s duty to ��assume the responsibility of an effective action for the transformation of society and, in general, of the world that he inhabits��. ²⁵

Malamud illustrates this point of view through the characterization of The Assistant. His characters achieve their existential humanity through their confrontation with extreme situations_ conflict, guilt, suffering and death.

Morris runs in winter-time without hat or coat, without rubbers to protect his feet, two blocks in the snow to give back five cents that a customer forgot. Poor as he is, he trusts others, fully aware that he can never have the money back. But his goodness still fails to hold customers for his little store. Morris persistently sticks to his morality and transcends the absurd disorder around him. As for Frank, he has not been sincere in dealing with the Bobers, though he has an urge to straighten himself up. Morality, no matter how ideal it looks for him, never has validity until he actively participates ��in the difficult process of forging personal meaning out of universal chaos��. ²⁶ __ He labors hard to support the store, Helen and her mother with determination. The very personal meaning of spiritual freedom lies, paradoxically, in the binding of Frank himself to others ��in a web of commitments��. ²⁷

To both Morris and Frank, life is full of choking restrictions on freedom and development. Morris is confined by his moral principles while Frank is confined by his free-floating impulses. They are both caged in the grocery, which is frequently referred to as a tomb or a prison. The store, or such a life, can never be sold out. It can only be passed on from one generation to another. Nevertheless, instead of being crushed, they manage to survive with persistence. The Assistant tells us that to suffer is the very way of human life but people should persist in their own efforts to be better than they are.

At first reading, we may not be conscious of the multi-textualness of The Assistant. But soon we are somewhat surprised to find that the story could be so rich in allusions. In describing for us a rather gloomy picture of life, Malamud has successfully merged, more than mere Jewishness, biblical and existential elements, disparate as they look at first sight, in the novel of The Assistant. While admitting the world is an absurd disorder (even God��s ways with Job or the Jews can hardly be figured out), Malamud staunchly affirms his belief in morality and responsibility to realize human beings�� true worth. The story begins with and goes on in relentless bleakness, but ends in an atmosphere of regeneration. Although it is possible that Frank��s life will be a deadly boring repetition of Morris��, hopefully he can start all over again. Anyway, he has learned from Morris and his dignity wins out in the face of hardship, injustice and the existential anguish of life. Though the story is a simple one, Malamud has explored for himself and the readers, in his artfully unpretentious language, something not simple at all.

NOTES

1. Sidney Richman, Bernard Malamud (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1966), p. 20.
2. Jean C. Stine and others, ed., Contemporary Literature Criticism Vol.27 (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1984), p. 295.
3. Marcus Cunliffe, The Literature of the United States (Beijing: Embassy of the United States of America), p. 338.
4. Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia. (Oxford: The Learning Company, Inc., 1997)
5. Encyclopedia Britannica CD 99 Multimedia Edition (Michigan: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 1994-1999)
6. Bernard Malamud, The Assistant (Great Britain: Penguin Books in association with Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1978), p. 76. All subsequent page references are to this edition.
7. Stine, p. 295.
8. Sheldon J. Hershinow, Bernard Malamud (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing CO.1980), p. 34.
9. Richman, p. 70.
10. Britannica
11. Mordecai Marcus, Cliffs Notes on Malamud��s The Assistant (Nebraska: Incorporated Lincoln, 1972), p.20.
12. Hershinow, p.36.
13. Britannica
14. Jeffrey Helterman and Richard Layman, ed., American Novelists since World War II, Dictionary of Literary Biography, II (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1978), pp. 294-295.
15. Richman, p.50.
16. Ibid., p.68.
17. Britannica
18. The story outline of Crime and Punishment: Raskolnikov is a poor university student, influenced by Nietzsche��s superman philosophy. He kills an old woman of usurer, thinking he has eliminated an old useless louse for society. But then he is painfully disillusioned that he is actually motivated by the want of her money. The inner conflict between his guilty conscience and the instinct of self�Cpreservation brings him to the verge of insanity. He is always teetering on the point of confessing. Finally, moved by the Christian virtue of a poor prostitute Sonia, he goes to confess and is exiled with Sonia accompanying him.
19. Britannica
20. Oxford
21. Ibid.
22. Britannica
23. Richman, p.57.
24. Britannica
25. Ibid.
26. Hershinow, p.13.
27. Ibid., p.145

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cunliffe, Marcus. The Literature of the United States. Beijing: Embassy of the United States of America, publishing year not stated.

Encyclopedia Britannica CD 99 Multimedia Edition. Michigan: Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 1994-1999

Helterman, Jeffrey., and Richard Layman, ed. Dictionary of Literary Biography. 5 vols. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1978.

Hershinow, Sheldon J. Bernard Malamud. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing CO.,1980

Malamud, Bernard. The Assistant. Great Britain: Penguin books in association with Eyre and Spottiwoode, 1978.

Marcus, Mordecai. Cliffs Notes on Malamud��s The Assistant. Nebraska: Incorporated Lincoln, 1972

Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia. Oxford: The Learning Company, Inc., 1997

Richman, Sidney. Bernard Malamud. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1966.

Stine, Jean C., and others, ed. Contemporary Literature Criticism. 48 vols. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1984.

* My undergraduate thesis, got an A from Professor Huang Yongmin, my adviser. I in turn defended it in front of an evaluation committee.

Copyright © Gao Huan All Rights Reserved