SOURCE: Sant, Arvindra. “Surrealism and the Struggle for Identity in The Fixer.” Studies in American Jewish Literature 7, no. 2 (fall 1988): 177-88.

In the following essay, Sant explains the significance of Malamud's use of fantasy and the surreal in his protagonist's imprisonment and eventual physical and emotional freedom.

“I thought that if I could make the fantasy world real, then I could make Yakov's world real.”

—Bernard Malamud in an interview

The alienated self, cut off from society and even from itself, is nowhere more powerfully portrayed than in Bernard Malamud's The Fixer. Malamud's paradoxical philosophy of ultimate, internal freedom being achieved only through some kind of bondage is taken to an extreme in this novel, as we see the protagonist, Yakov Bok, imprisoned not only physically but also morally and emotionally. In fact, most of the action takes place while Bok is imprisoned for a heinous crime that he...