T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

Seymour ~evin Of A NSh! Li&z gives him strength to give up hisjob and shoulder the responsibility of Pauline Gilley and heradopted children.Suffering chastens Yakov ~ o k of The Fixerwho ultimately decides to Suffer for the sake of his race, anddoes not yield to the tempting offers of release by the Tsarist~fflcials despite inhuman torture.Malamud is at his best InAssistant and The Fixerwhere the themes Of Suffering and compassion are evoked mosteffectively. Speaklng about The U Malamud himself calls it"the best book I ever WrOte".(MalOff 1966,109)It recievedwide acclaim and won the National Book Award and the Pulitzerprlze.The themes of suffering and compassion are consistentIn the early novels, while the later ones somewhat falteringlysuggest It.The last novel God's Grace reveals that Malamudhas not lost his falth in humanity.To hlm "llfe is betterthan death" and suffering and compassion makes llfe better.Maimed and crippled, both physically and mentally, thecrlmlnal loses his fltness to llve and hls heart 1s embitteredby this klnd of punlshment.He compromises hls guilty-conscience after and even during the punlshment wlth thesatisfaction that he has suffered hls transgression. But, theWestlon 1s whether there 1s any redemption In hls llfe afterthls mechanical punishment.It cannot be denled that bothMalamud's and Mukherjee's protagonists possess the redemptive