T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

=he nation's stance in foreign relations. As genuine myth thisbellef System has been a vehicle for meanlng and spring toaction in virtually every period of American history. To~mericans, unlike Asians, history is linear, and thus theirmyth is oneof creativity and progress, of a steady climbingupward into power and prosperity ...... Consequently,they erivision themselves "standing at the cuttingedge of history as representations for all mankind".America in contrast to EuroDe. never had its "driveto conquest and expansion' thwart by physicalrestraints or traditions. (Fitzgerald 1973,g)This study focuses upon how Malamud and Mukherjee blendmyth and reality into visible frctlon-flction which parallelscontemporary American society and mirrors ~ t s problems. Thestudy shows how Malamud and Mukherjee use their fiction as amedium and testing ground for their premises about manlwoman'sultlmate need for self-transcendence to dellver hlm/her fromhlsjher essentially myth-dominated existence, an existencewhich 1s part of the American Dream.The world Malamud depicts In hrs fictlon 1s a world whereman, Cod and the devil meet and interact. Malamud usuallysymbolizes the process of maturation from 'eros' to 'caritas'In terms of a character's learning KO live outside of the myththat has beer) controlling tlls llfe. Malamud ever expands theimplications of his controlling myths to a new life which