Oskar cannot reconcile his ternary heritage and identity operator because his distorted and hateful view of Germany has colored of all timeything around him in a negative light. His wife converts to Judaism but she is shot in Poland while trying to su
Fidelman desperately seeks out Susskind, the first human being with whom he has ever had any kind of real relationship. The survivor has taught the writer how to fabricate human contact, the beauty of responsibility. Fidelman learns Jews, human beings, menschen, in Malamud's terms are responsible for each other (Brown 480).
Unfortunately, Oskar never develops these kinds of relationships with others due to his inability to overcome self-loathing and bitterness.
In sum, we see that the predicament of the German-Jew as a refugee is similar to that of a Jewish refugee. Some survive it and some, homogeneous Oskar do not. Without reaching out to others and without humanity, survival is impossible.
May and Magill hold up that in this story Malamud extends his perspective and this theme to the world at large by shifting his protagonist to a dual identity and heritage: "In framing his story about this new kind of refugee, Malamud has also broadened it for the first time in any of his shorter works to a full and overt genius of the world at large" (135). In so doing, Malamud expresses the lose humanity of others because of Germany as well as the humanity wooly-minded by Germany as a culture and people in so doing.
Richman, S. Bernard Malamud. New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1866.
Brown, M. "Metaphor for Holocaust and Holocaust as Metaphor: The Assistant and the Fixer of Bernard Malamud Reexamined." Judaism, 29(4), Fall 1980: 479-488.
pport the Jews. Ironically, because of his hatred of his German heritage and identity, Oskar also kills off his Jewish identity and heritage when he commits suicide. The sum total of Oskar's troubles adjusting to himself and a new milieu is extended because of Oskar's dual heritage and identity to all humanity. As Unger notes, "The German Refugee is a superb rendering of the culture dishonor the educated, previously successful Jews encountered when they fled Hitler" (436). Ironically, in many Malamud works the pr
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