"The Magic Barrel" was written by Bernard Malamud in 1958 as part of a short story collection. The story follows the life of Leo Finkle, a soon to be rabbi who is looking for a wife. Unsure of marriage and love, he enlists a matchmaker to aid him in his search. The matchmaker, Pinye Salzman, is a sly marriage "salesman" with the job of finding Leo a wife. There have been numerous articles written about the "Magic Barrel" and many of them have different opinions and interpretations of the story. .
The first article I examined was Stephen Bluestone's article titled "God as a Matchmaker: A Reading of Malamud's "Magic Barrel"." Bluestone's basic intent in the article is to compare "The Magic Barrel" to a biblical tale. The quote, ""The Magic Barrel" can be seen as a projection of the whole course of human spiritual existence, its" moral and erotic dimensions, including and subsumed by the human relationship to god."(Bluestone 404) perfectly sums up Bluestone's feelings toward the story. He begins to draw his parallel by relating the characters in the story to characters from the tale of Adam and Eve. Leo represents Adam, a man deeply dissatisfied with his lonely existence, and Salzman represents God as a matchmaker on the Sixth Day. Bluestone raises the question of how Adam chose Eve; he questions why Adam was not consulted first about his choice. Bluestone basically is using the tale of the "Magic Barrel" as a missing part of the tale of Adam and Eve. In Bluestone's case, Adam/Leo's freedom to choose a woman requires the exact consultation that is not found in the story of Adam and Eve. In Bluestone's words "God, in partnership with man, must now broker His own handiwork."(Bluestone 406) Since Salzman and Leo come from different generations, Salzman needs to learn what kind of woman Leo wants. Salzman tests Leo by matching him up with a school teacher named Lily Hirschorn, the older, traditional wife that a rabbi would want.
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I would like to offer an alternative viewpoint here, without diverging too much into the rationale behind the US government position on Iraq. I ask anyone who considers attending an anti-war demonstration, in the interests of fair-mindedness, to please ruminate on it. Simply put, anyone who ha...