On The Theme Of Spiritual Imprisonment In Bernard Malamud’s Short Stories

Bernard Malamud is one of the greatest Jewish American writers after World War Ⅱ. Throughout his writing career over fifty years, he produced eight novels and six collections of short stories,which concentrate on the survival plight, confusion, depression, and the eventual self transcendence of the marginalized shlemiels struggling at the bottom of society. Rich humanism prevails in all his works.Chapter one of this thesis paper briefly introduces Bernard Malamud, the literature review, the thesis of this paper. Chapter two analyzes the formation of the unique Jewishness of Bernard Malamud and its reflection in Malamud’s works, especially his short stories. As for the author’s Jewishness, the greatly divergent opinions of overseas scholars and researchers sharply contrast with the almost unanimous praises in the Chinese academic circle. This is worth of serious consideration because the Jewishness of the Malamudian Jews, instead of being stale, keeps on changing with change of the authors’s literary concepts. Chapter three analyzes the theme of spiritual imprisonment in such classic strories as "The Prison,""Spring Rain,""The Letter,""My Son the Murderer," and "The Last Mohican" in three specified aspects: the prison of the self, the failed father-son relations, and imprisonment as Jewishness. Chapter four points out that spiritual imprisonment is a natural phase in the characters’ quest for self identity and freedom. They must transcend it through the trial of suffering and love to inject meaning into their lives.The spiritual imprisonment of the Malamudian Jews in their quest for identity and freedom is the result of the influence of the macro postwar American social environment, culture trends and the author’s literary concept. To Malamud, only by transcending misery and personal limitations, can one gain rebirth and freedom.