T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

transcend hlmself and get out of his prrson. The followinglines from "The 8111"(m W m) states thisph~losophy:He said that everything was run on credit, businessand everything else, because after all what wascredit but the fact that people were human beings,and if you were really a human being you gave creditto somebody else and he gave credit to you. (MB,~~o)To fail to give "credit" to another human being-even whenyou know that the credit is undeserved and even if repaid inhatred-is to deny the humanity In yourselves, to extinguishvlthin your own being the light which has been given you. ~t isthis denial which dries up the humanness in Julius Karp (mAssistant) transforming hlm from a man lnto the owner of aliquor store. It results in the punishment of Henry Freeman ("The Lady of the Lake") whose refusal to credit himself with hisown ldentlty causes him to lose his chance for love. InMalamud's stories over and over again is echoed the agonizedstraln of Job's unanswered question: "Why is light given to aman whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in". Thisexplalns whyMalamud's characters are dumped in dark crampedplaces welghed down by poverty, commercial greed and naturalcalamity. " Light" is given to them llke Job's man, along withfreedom of an existence without barriers.Whether it is, as wlth Moris Bober, a felt-sense of