버나드 맬러머드 단편소설 연구 : 실존적 삶의 추구 = A study on Bernard Malamud's short story : the pursuit of an existential life

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study is to examine Bernard Malamud´s characters´ existential life in his short stories from the perspective of Jewish Humanism. This study seeks to suggest Malamud´s characters´ moral growth through trials and sufferings.
Malamud, one of the most important writers among Jewish American writers, sees Jewish people as a symbol of modern people under the alienated tragic circumstances. In modern society where material prosperity is the ultimate goal, human beings have fallen into merely adjuncts and face existential problems such as loss of identity. Malamud combines his humanistic moral vision with a sense of ethnic identity to create what might be called a ″Jewish″ humanism. In his works the Jew is a metaphor for the good man striving to withstand the dehumanizing pressures of the modern world: The Jew stands for a person who can overcome the individual´s alienated situation by establishing his self-identity and sense of community as an isolated, displaced loner who has the potential for moral transcendence through suffering that engenders insight and a commitment to love. He demonstrates in his works how characters can transform their lives into meaningful ones after realizing that they lead futile lives.
Chapter Ⅱ covers the hardships of the protagonists caused by their failure to recognize their ethnic identity in Malamud´s short stories. Chapter Ⅲ deals with the main characters´ moral growth achieved through trials and errors in an existential context.
In ″The Lady of the Lake″, the protagonist Henry Levin is a past-denying, and self-denying specimen of immaturity. His hypocrisy shows his childish and divided personality. In the end, Levin comes to lose a woman he loves in his denial of ethical identity. In ″The Jewbird″, Harry Cohen unconsciously wants to discard his Jewishness and become a fully assimilated American. Schwartz serves as a character who stands for Cohen´s Jewish identity. Harry fails to accept the Jewbird who reflects his neglected self. In ″The Last Mohican″, Arthur Fidelman is a self-confessed failure as a painter. Susskind is Malamud´s most questionable minister of salvation. He is an opportunist of fabulous proportions who awakens Fidelman´s humanity. After undergoing the suffering and adversity of life, Fidelman turns into a true human being who feels responsible for others. In ″Angel Levine″, Manischevitz goes through Job-like trials and tribulation. Levine, an angel disguised as a black man, is an allegorical figure that provides Manischevitz with a test of faith. Manischevitz by Levine´s influence gains the insight that ″there are Jews everywhere″, which shows if we recognize and have faith in our common humanity, we can transcend our ordeal. In ″The Mourners″, Kessler, a Jewish grotesque, is isolated from others by his ego-centricity. He had long before forsaken wife and children and now devours himself in lonesomeness. However, he has a sudden epiphany through his troubles with Gruber and subsequently his mourning for his dead spirit of humanity. In ″The Magic Barrel″, as Leo Finkle is bound in his deceit, he, a rabbi-to-be, is tormented by a guilty conscience that washes over Malamud´s love-hungry and God-hungry young Jews. His salvation depends on his pity for others in misery and his sense of responsibility for humanity. The reader is left with the vaguely unsettling, illogical, but deeply touching impression that Pinye´s mournful chant somehow arouses human suffering, and compassion as well as the possibility of spiritual growth.
In conclusion, Malamud manages to create beautiful parables that captures the pleasure as well as the pain of life; in the existential context, he evokes the dignity of the human spirit searching for freedom and moral growth in the face of injustice, misfortune, and the torment of life in our time.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 서 론 1
• Ⅱ. 자아 상실의 양태 12
• Ⅲ. 실존적 삶의 추구 32
• Ⅳ. 결 론 52
• Bibliography 55
• Abstract 61