• Dr Rupali Mirza

ABSTRACT Malamud often explores the theme of alienation in his fiction. There are many characters, especially his heroes who are non-natives or outsiders, who came into an unknown culture. When a hero enters a culture different from his own culture, he is able to make a thoughtful analysis of the values of his own culture in contrast with the values of the new culture that he has entered. Albert Camus discusses Nada, Nihilism or nothingness in the life of man. It is this nothingness which makes him feel that he is caught up in a biological trap. He comes out of his trap and becomes free from human suffering only at the time of his death. The early years of Malamud’s life also form the reason why he chose to write for and about human suffering. He was a motherless child as he had lost the care of his mother only when he was fourteen years of age. He and his elder brother were raised by their father who ran a small grocery store and depended completely on it for their subsistence. Just like the other Post-modern authors, Bernard Malamud struggles to find the real meaning of life. His novels talk of individual responsibility of the actions, decisions and freedom to exert individual powers and take into purview the fear and anxiety which is the result of exercising individual decisions. Sartre and Camus theorize man essentially as the subject with an indifferent objective which is often not understandable to the world. Man has no limits and can be interpreted to any limits of absurdity.

Absurdism, Nihilism, Suffering, Alienation, Nothingness

"Absurdism and Nihilism in Bernard Malamud’s The Assistant", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 10, page no.a220-a232, October-2021, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2110030.pdf

"Absurdism and Nihilism in Bernard Malamud’s The Assistant", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 10, page no. ppa220-a232, October-2021, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2110030.pdf