T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

.ision.Few writere Can transform pain into responsibility~ith the quiet, steady glow Malamud can give to language. Muchof the sweetening or more accurately bitter sweetening, comesfrom the comedy, almost as typical of Malamud's work as itsconcern with Suffering.The tltterness of Jewish humour isnowhere better exemplified than rn The Flxec :The days were passing and the Russian Officials werewaiting impatiently for his menstrual period tobegin. Grubeshcv and the army general oftenconsulted the calender. If ~t didn't start soonthey threatened to pump blood out of his penis witha machine they had for that purpose. The machinewas a pump made of lron with a red indicator to showhow much blood was berng drained out. The danger oflt was that lt dldn't always work right andsometines sacked every dzcp of blood out of thet,scy. It was used ~uc,lis;vely on Jews; only theirpenises fltted lt. (TF 207)Therefore, Malamdd's protagonists sustaln their comicsense even durlnq the time of crlsls and save themselves fromanguish, isolation and inferiority complex unllke Bellow'sJoseph.If on the one hand, in his early works, Malamud'sProtagonists are the victlms u: their overwhelming urge forWomen and thelr overpowering passion for wealth, on the otherhand Mukherjee's hero~nrs becox 'vlctlms of fun and SOclalsecurity provided by ren. Conseque?rly, they exhibit acompulslire desir,? to ncvc from n:ie place to another in search