On The Writing Techniques In Malamud's The Assistant

Bernard Malamud is a famous American Jewish writer. He is considered the most powerful one in expressing Jewish characteristics. His description of Jewish suffering usually reveals and reflects the general existence problems of the whole human beings. Having published seven novels and four collections of short stories, he has twice won National Book Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and achieved the stature of a major American author.The Assistant, published inl957, is Malamud's second novel. This novel is taken as his masterpiece and won him the Rosenthal Foundation Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. In The Assistant, Malamud magnificently explores a recurring theme of his novels— man's longing to salvage a new life from the wreckage of the old through sufferings. Malamud reveals his consummate skill when he makes the best of the tension between optimism and pessimism, and between hope and despair. This thesis attempts to analyze the excellent writing techniques used by the author in the novel through which the theme is fully revealed.This thesis falls into five parts.The introduction mainly introduces the life and writing experiences of Bernard Malamud. His immigrant life and Jewish cultural background has influenced him so much that he is usually considered an autobiographical writer. Then it briefly introduces the novel The Assistant, so that people could have a general comprehension of the novel. Malamud sets the novel in an immigrant setting with strong Jewish main characters. The novel manages to evoke the tradition of Yiddish folklore while maintaining Malamud's training in classic literature and philosophy. The introduction also includes the critical responses on the novel and the reason why this topic is chosen. Although there are abundant critic reviews concerning the theme, techniques and social significance of the novel, most of them focus on one or two aspects, and...