Jake Paucar
Dr. Amy Kratka/ Prof.Kayle Nochomovitz
Fiqws
08 May 2023
Better Love Life
These stories “The Magic Barrel” and “The Lady of the Lake” both authored by Bernard Malamud are each unique in their way. The author is a Jewish man explaining how in the stories each character is trying to find their love life. In “The Magic Barrel ” the author is explaining how Leo, the character, is risk taking by trying to find his wife which isn’t too easy for him. While in “The Lady of The Lake” the character Freeman founded his women but got denied because of the mistake and lies he has made. Each character is finding love in their way but it doesn’t play off so well. The author is taking a risk in the story because he makes the reader upset by giving us a not so happy ending and thinking what will happen to the characters later on, making us anxious for more. The author has made these two interesting stories explaining how their love life is but each having a different outcome because of their culture.
Throughout the story in “The Magic Barrel”, Leo finds a match marker which goes by the name of Salzman, later on trying to help him find a partner but Leo has cards of his clients which he keeps in the barrel . Leo doesn’t have too many friends because he’s really focused on his studies which is why he doesn’t interact with people and is not finding his love yet. Salzman hooks up with Leo with Lily who is supposedly 29 but really 35 years old. He doesn’t find an interest in her because of the made up age Salzman said, and Salzman lied to Lily saying he’s a religious man which he isn’t. He then finds a “missing picture” and shows Salzman but he denies him because it’s Salzman’s daughter. In which he said “she should burn in hell” and forcefully helped him to meet his daughter. Overall he meets up with Stella (Salzman’s daughter) and everything goes along and all the suffering they both experience Leo and Salzman goes away.
In the story “The Lady of the Lake”, it’s of a Jewish man called Henry R. Freeman who found his lady. Freeman is a man trying to hide his true self because of a woman he has fallen in love with called Isabella. Isabella asked him questions like”are you a Jew” which he responded with and processed on saying no, making it bad for him later on in the future. They both get along well knowing each other and setting the tone right for them. The connection he is feeling is strong but she keeps asking him if he’s a jew which he says ”Why do you persist with such nonsense, Why would I lie?” He was shaking with fear because he was scared of losing her, seeing her one last time. She goes on saying they cant get married because he’s not a Jew which is heartbreaking for him making him suffer because of the lies he made just to hide his true self.
These two stories by Bernad Malamud are examples of how the author is risk taking because of how the stories tend to end. Both stories are about their love life and them trying to get to know the person but ends in a surprisingly different way that makes readers want more and have many questions for the characters. In “ The Magic Barrel”Leo finds his women but Salzman doesn’t want to help him until later when Leo and Stella meet up but we don’t know if they hit off. Making us want to know more as a reader and upset because of the way it has to end. In the story “ The Lady of the Lake” Freeman finds his love of his life called Isabella in which he then Denise’s his identity by hiding his true self. We as readers get upset because he could’ve just been truthful since the beginning to start no problems, but he decided to lie about being Jewish, making it more complicated for him. At the end we get left with a sad ending instead of a loving one, in which Leo “cried brokenly. listen, I-I am”. He was left broken/sad because he wasn’t truthful since the start with her. Overall these stories end differently because of the way the characters end it. As readers we are upset because the ending was happy or like a loving ending it was sad and questionable. We have many questions left about why it ended. In which is understandable because both of the stories did very well and wanting people to read more of his stories.
Bernard Malamud wrote these two stories, “The Magic Barrel” and “The Lady of the Lake”, both are meaningful to the author because of how well they did. In the journal article “The Bitter and The Sweet: The Angel Levine and Black is my Favorite Color” Bernard Malamud says some things that are towards his books that he has written for a better understanding, he said “I write about Jewish subject matter, first, because I know it”. He indicates that he has experienced enough to know what he is writing with the books he has read, giving him a better understanding to Jewish people. In both of the stories it was about a Jewish man trying to find love. In Article it says “Most of Malamud stories contain Jewish character Jewish characters… they must recognize and attempt to pay”. It proves that the characters that Malamud writes about always are always trying to find his way to not lose either a person or thing. Overall he explains he has a good idea of what jewish people are and uses it in his stories because of the experiences he has.
Therefore Bernard Malamud is an amazing author writing these stories how each of these can impact a reader reading this. It shows how much effort he puts in like in “The Magic Barrel” Leo found his love life but we got left on the important part if they hit it off, if they fell in love, same with “The Lady of the Lake” Freeman found his love life but lost it because he was being himself, wasn’t being truthful of where he was from which he lost her. Both stories ended in a surprising way and were different from each other, in the article it shows why he decided to take the characters to be Jewish because he knows the topic and knows what to write about, he leads to a good ending making the readers want more and have questions about it. Reason why he keeps on writing amazing stories and leading to a good plot makes it interesting for us to read.
