Bernard Malamud Short Stories Essay Example

to project their own children’s discontent with having to “deal” with them in their old age.

In a real way, while the joys of parenthood and having a family ought to have conjured a sense of pride and fulfillment, the author’s language suggests that the elderly couple feel very much victimized within their own family. They want to be financially dependent, but more telling, they also want to “completely independent of [their daughters]. ” The inevitable failure of the Panessa’s led her to the place where she wanted to be the least, and ”Mrs.

Panessa moved away to live first with one stone- faced daughter , then with the other. And the bill was never paid,” (92). Mrs. Panessa’s dignity ultimately got in the way of her success and is the cause of her and her husband’s fall. In much the same way that the Panessas have not been able to “cash in” on the currency that American society oftentimes ascribes to the family, they cannot actualize that part of the “American Dream” that is often associated with owning their own business.

In the story, the store is described as, “really a hole in the wall”(87), but shortly after they purchase their business, that which should might have otherwise been a source of tremendous pride and self-sufficiency actually becomes the source of their misery and seals their fate as victims. After Mr. and Mrs. Willy Schlegel failed to pay for the bill, Mrs. Panessa, against her nature sent them this letter. In it she wrote, “her husband was sick across the street, and she had no money in the house so he could pay her just ten dollars

and the rest could wait for later,”(91).

Pride was no longer an issue, but instead, her husband was dying and she tried to do whatever she can to help him. When Mr. Panessa died because of his lack of medical attention, Mrs. Panessa fails to mention the true cause of death because she has too much pride to say that she couldn’t afford the treatment and health care he needed. When Mr. Schlegel finds out that he dies, at the grocery store he says, ““what’d he die of? ” he whispered to a tenant,”(91) and Mrs. Panessa bitterly states “Old Age,”(92).

This emphasizes the point about Mrs. Panessa’s being too prideful to even be truthful about the fact that her husband died as a result of poverty, rather than of old age. It’s saying that while the widow’s relationship with her own husband might have at one point served as a tremendous source of honor, her pride and dignity would not allow her to accept financial relief, not even to save the life of the man she loved. In this case, Mrs. Panessa’s pride victimizes her own husband, and consequently, he “falls. Similar to the Panessas, Eva and Axel Kalish have two daughters, and they have, likewise, purchased a grocery store. The Kalish family were polish refugees, and the father and husband, Axel Kalish, was a hard worker. When he got to America, he saved up as much money as he could so that he could buy this grocery in a “dead neighborhood where he didn’t have a chance”(175), as said so in the story. Rosen new that they would make it, and warned his that buying

this store was a mistake because he didn’t want the family to have to suffer.

Rosen said, “ ‘Here they will bury you if you don’t get out quick! ’”(175), sharing his strong feeling about the Kalish family and their investment in the run-down grocery. Unlike the parent/child relationship the Panessas have with their children, Mrs. Kalish values her relationship with her younger daughters. Furthermore, while Eva admits that she never expects to become a millionaire, “all [she] wants is … a little living and [to] take care of [them]” (177). In an effort to accomplish her goals, she and her husband purchase the small grocery.

Despite their best intentions, it becomes clear that the bout of entrepreneurism, her sense of pride Eva has about her past, as well as her refusal to accept charity when she faces financial difficulty contributes to her family’s and to her own victimization. For example, when Eva and the ex-coffee salesman, speak about marriage, Mrs. Kalish reveals that she believes she will be impoverished for her whole life and that she is used to this lifestyle. She says, “Yes, Rosen, yes. In my whole life I never had anything.

In my whole life I always suffered. I don’t expect better. This is my life’”(177). Given the fact that Eva has a beautiful family and that she and her husband have just purchased their slice of the American Dream, it is ironic that she would seemingly take such pride in a life of suffering and, further, that she would be proud of the state of victimization, of suffering, that is her life. In this one sentence, she devalues her family, lumping them in

with the failure that has become a constant part of her existence.

Finally, in much the same way that purchasing the deli becomes a bane for the Panessas, the little grocery store, or at least keeping it afloat, becomes a source of oppression for Eva, especially in light of her vehement opposition to accepting financial assistance from Mr. Rosen. Although Mrs. Kalish believes that she will stay poor, Rosen tries to convince her that she deserves better and in one of the many conversations they have about her being superior he says, “Don’t throw away your life here. Don’t flush in the toilet,”(177).

She continues to refuse his offer saying, “Thank you very kindly, my friend Rosen, but charity we are not needing,”(178), and he remains to say that it is not charity. Her constant turning down of his offers cause him to go from the reasonable thought of giving her money to marriage, and the to the extreme idea of him killing himself so that she and her daughters, as his insurance beneficiaries, would have no choice but to take the money. It is often said that “pride comes before the fall,” and while neither female protagonist exhibits a haughtiness, or arrogance, that precipitates heir own destruction, both women’s refusal either to ask for or to accept the monetary payment of Schlegel and Rosen, respectively, signals the demise of both men. Mrs. Panessa’s actions actually fuel Schlegel’s addiction to debt; Mrs. Kalish’s actions cause the salesman to be overcome with emotion and commit suicide. Ironically, the women’s unwillingness to exchange what some readers might perceive as dignity or morality, for monetary gain, even their most financially

desperate times saves them from “the fall” associated with the “American Dream. ”