T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

placed. Dubin in Dubin's Lives by slowly overcoming fear,anger, shame, arrives i~t his manhood by an act of affirmationby going to his roots. In the sameway inena ants, HarryLesser slowly stumbles his way into his true manhood andarrives at a new commitment towards life by the end of thenovel and expresses his affirmation by showing care for thewelfare of both blacks and whites. Lesser grows mature andcommitted, through a process of learnlng by shedding all hisprevious lllusi0nS and expresses Malamud's belief in humanpotential with a call for universal affirmation. He criticisesthe illusory world ot in1:ellectuals whose life is governed byindifference and non-commitment. These intellectuals fail todistingursh th~good from the bad.Malamud is a novelist, who belleves passionately in thepossibility of change but he lnslsts that the change has to befundamental. In Malamud's last completed novel God's W hepresents the traglc intensity of allenation In the context oftotal annihilation of life. HIS was not an act of defiance butof wilful preservation. In an effort to protect civilizationfrom self-destructlon and from the horrible consequences ofnuclear war Malamud pins hls hope on compasslon as a means oftransformatlon and redemption. His God has not falled for himas had for ~ichard Wright. Malamud had in him theremarkable iron wlil responsibll~! forbringing art in