从迷失到觉醒──《修配工》中雅科夫之变形记-英语语言文学专业论文.docxVIP

But it is not Malamud’s desire to exclude men as a whole. As a matter of fact, he chooses the Jews, a group of selected people who have undergone thousands’ of years of tortures, as a symbol for the mankind in a dehumanizing modern world. Largely influenced by such romanticists as Emerson and Hawthorne, Malamud makes his moral stories delightful in prose reading and thoughtful in moral teaching. However, too much emphasis upon morality in Malamud’s works might underestimate their aesthetic values. Hershinow points out that “artists cannot be ministers, and as soon as they attempt it, they destroy their artistry” (1980: 2). In his novels and short stories, Malamud is careful dealing with every detail, ranging from the characters’ names, for example, Yakov Bok means in German the scapegoat, to their physical characteristics and occupations; paradoxes and symbols are frequently used; and a dialect style calling the sound of Yiddish. The distinctive Jewish style of humor is another striking feature in Malamud’s writings. Traditionally, Jewish humor is “stark, edged and cynical” (Malin, 1973: 186) and often regarded as “coarse and bawdy” (ibid.). Though Malamud takes all elements of Jewish humor, his mode of fantastic comedy are particularly interesting and successful. In his artistic world, the fantastic stuffings are taken as something real, which makes all the unusual events seem “as ordinary as bread” (ibid., 186-187). In fact, this sort of humor serves as a bridge, connecting the spiritual pursuits and the real situation of Jewish people, and to give them the strength to face the miserable reality. Malamud is entitled to be called the heir to rich Jewish traditions, because he remakes and reinvigorates them in his own way. In this paper, analysis will be centered upon Malamud’s masterpiece The Fixer. Malamud once recalled why he started to write The Fixer: “after I wrote ‘The German Refugee’ I was determined to do a novel using political or social experience as the