Jewishness in Bernard Malamud’s Short Fiction

Abstract

20 th Malamud’s short fiction features the different aspects of Jewish experience of century. They explore the theme of suffering and their tragic experience just being the minor ethnic group in America. Being himself from the Jewish immigrant society, Malamud presents his character as a sufferer Jew, taking the burden of whole Jewishness. His characters always try to preserve their Jewishness and establish harmonious relationship with other people but get disastrous result in return. So, use of these experience of the Jews and their suffering not only helps highlight the Jewishness in Malamud’s short fiction but also helps capture the specificity of Jewishness by delineating the pain and trauma of Jews with remarkable degree of analytical stance. By depicting such experiences of the Jews and their consciousness of Jewish heritage, Malamud tries to establish the harmony and mutual relationship with other ethnic groups and sense of belonging to their own Jewishness.