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The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud.
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Biography EssayIn recent years, it has been impossible to discuss the career of Bernard Malamud without mentioning his place as the second partner, along with Bellow and Roth, in the ruling triumvirat...
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Bernard Malamud (1914-1986) is considered one of the most prominent figures in Jewish-American literature, a movement that originated in the 1930s and is known for its tragicomic elements.Malamud's st...
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"The purpose of the writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself," Bernard Malamud remarked in 1958, quoting existential writer Albert Camus. He managed to uphold this purpose during his half...
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In recent years, it has been impossible to discuss the career of Bernard Malamud without mentioning his place as the second partner, along with Bellow and Roth, in the ruling triumvirate of Jewish-Ame...
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Bernard Malamud writes Jewish-American fiction. He has been a leader in this field for years and has received international acclaim for his novels and short stories. His first short story, "Benefit Pe...
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Bernard Malamud , along with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, holds a preeminence among Jewish American writers that has consistently been reaffirmed by recent critical assessments. Early in Malamud cri...
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Critical Essay by Cynthia Ozick
In 1958, in his celebrated collection The Magic Barrel, Malamud published a short story about a Negro and a Jew. It was called "Angel Levine," and it cont...
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Bluefarb is an English-born educator and critic. In the following excerpt from an essay that originally appeared in English Journal, he comments on Salzman's cynicism.
In "The Magic Barr...
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An American educator and critic, May has written extensively on the history and theory of the short fiction genre. In the following essay, which focuses in part on the narrative form of "The Ma...
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In the following essay, Dessner discusses Malamud's self-conscious blending of fairy tale motifs and elements of realism in "The Magic Barrel" and the story's resultant amb...
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In the essay below, Adler interprets the interaction between Salzman and Finkle as a father-son relationship that culminates in Finkle's reintegration into the Jewish community.
In the stories ...
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In the following excerpt from an essay originally published in Critique, Goldman interprets "The Magic Barrel" as a fantastical parable centering on Finkle's journey of self-disco...
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An esteemed American critic and literary historian, Trilling was also an essayist, editor, and novelist. In the following essay, which was originally published in 1967 in his The Experience of Literat...
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Miller is an educator. In the following essay, he discusses Malamud's focus on love in "The Magic Barrel."
Although Bernard Malamud has colored his short story "The Magic B...
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In the essay below, Reynolds comments on the meaning of the prayers for the dead that Salzman chants at the conclusion of "The Magic Barrel."
Published analyses of Bernard Malamud'...
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In the following excerpt, Hoffer stresses the need to seriously consider the religious overtones and allusions of "The Magic Barrel," identifying parallels between the first five books o...
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In the essay below, Ray discusses parallels between "The Magic Barrel" and Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations (1861).
As Sheldon Grebstein has noted in "Bernard Mal...
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An Excerpt from "the Magic Barrel"
Leo was informed by letter that she would meet him on a certain corner, and she was there one spring night, waiting under a street lamp. He appeared, ...
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In the following essay, Cramer interprets "The Magic Barrel" as the story of Finkle's conversion from Jewish to American traditions.
The old world tone of Malamud's "...
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An Analysis of "The Magic Barrel"
Bernard Malamud's short story The Magic Barrel takes place in uptown New York and is centered around Leo Finkle, a rabbinical student who is about to be ordained. In...
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Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud
Bernard Malamud
Critical Essay by Cynthia Ozick
An Analysis of "The Magic Barrel"
