Discussion Topic

"The Magic Barrel" Analysis: Summary, Characters, Symbols, Themes

Summary:

Bernard Malamud's "The Magic Barrel" explores themes of identity, love, and divine intervention through rich symbolism and character dynamics. Leo Finkle, a rabbinical student, seeks a bride through matchmaker Pinye Salzman, who symbolizes divine grace. Symbols like fish and Salzman's mysterious presence suggest spiritual undertones, while Stella's red shoes and white dress signify her past and potential redemption. The story's themes highlight the journey to self-awareness and the necessity of love for spiritual fulfillment, as Leo discovers love through Stella, Salzman's daughter.

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What are significant symbols in Bernard Malamud's "The Magic Barrel"?

Symbols in Bernard Malamud's "The Magic Barrel" abound. First, a symbol is...

A word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level.

We are surrounded by symbols in our daily lives: a dove symbolizes peace; hearts and roses both symbolize love; black symbolizes evil or death. In literature, sometimes finding symbolic meanings is more difficult, but adds an entirely new hidden meaning to the story.

One symbol in the story may be Salzman's "black, strapped portfolio that had been worn thin with use." The story's title has "magic" in it. Salzman appears in the hall of Leo's building out of the darkness. He promises to arrange a marriage for Leo from cards he pulls out of the bag: the bag, like a magician's black hat, could symbolize magic. 

Eyes are referred to many times throughout the story. Salzman has "mournful eyes." Stella's eyes are "filled with desperate innocence." Eyes are said to be "windows to the soul." We might assume that the eyes in the story symbolize truth, for Leo seems to find feelings projected through Salzman and Stella's eyes to reflect the truth of their inner feelings.

Fish are also referred to in a variety of ways. When Salzman arrives at Leo's apartment the first time...

He smelled frankly of fish.

When he visits Leo again, he brings his lunch (perhaps a reference to the Biblical miracle of loaves and fish)...

...a hard, seeded roll and a small, smoked white fish.

Salzman's wife is described to almost look like a fish:

"No." Her mouth, though left open, offered nothing more.

As he looks around Salzman's apartment...

An odor of frying fish made Leo weak to the knees.

Salzman arrives again at Leo's home, and the young man fixes Salzman something to eat: a cup of tea and "a sardine sandwich." And when Leo runs into the old man at a cafeteria on Broadway, he was "sucking the bony remains of a fish."

Fish have a great deal of religious significance in terms of miracles in the Bible. Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes, feeding five thousand from the lunch of a young boy. Several of the disciples were fisherman. When Jesus first called the apostles, the first miracle they saw was when he told them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat: there are so many fish that their nets broke. Perhaps "salz" infers that Salzman is a man with the power to perform miracles. (Leo thinks he could make it snow if he wanted to.)

Salt is also reference in the story, though indirectly. Salt's importance can be seen in...

...symbolizing immutable, incorruptible purity...

"Salz" in German means "salt." Historically, salt was used in trade as a valuable commodity; to cleanse the ground of blood where a battle had taken place; it preserves meats (and fish). It is associated with magic in many cultures. Perhaps the most common belief is that a circle of salt will protect one within the circle from evil. Perhaps Salzman's character is associated with magic and he is able to protect his daughter from evil—finding Leo to save her. He may have a purity of spirit.

The color of red is often symbolic of prostitution, hence the term "red light district" for an area of town inhabited by prostitutes. White is symbolic of purity. At the end, Stella wears a white dress with red shoes, but Leo imagines momentarily that the dress is red, and the shoes, white. The red dress may symbolize her past and the white dress, her desire to start anew.

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What evidence supports the theme in Malamud's "The Magic Barrel?"

In Malamud's short story, "The Magic Barrel," the author does not present a "thesis." We can, however, discover the story's themes. A thesis is defined as...

...a proposition stated or put forward for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved...

Malamud does not come right out and tell the reader what to think. But his themes, the life-truths he wishes to share with the reader, can be discovered through observation. The themes are presented in the story in the form of the narrative.

There are several themes in the story. The first deals with one's identity. When Leo goes out walking with Lily Hirschorne, one of Salzman's potential brides, he becomes aware that he is not the man he believed himself to be. His relationship with God does not exist:

..."I think," he said..."that I came to God not because I loved him, but because I did not."

His lack of a relationship with God is devastating to Leo, for his entire future was based upon serving God and a congregation. Leo realizes that he is imperfect. He knows he is living without love in his life. And while he believes that he has lost a great deal, he feels that his "redemption" can be found in love—something he never looked for in his arrangement with Salzman.

Another theme is God and religion, and for Leo, his identity is tied closely to God and his faith, for he "has always been interested in the Law." In finding himself, he may also find a relationship with God.

Central to Malamud’s ‘‘The Magic Barrel’’ is the idea that to love God, one must love man first. 

Leo has not learned to love others; he does not love himself. And so, he is unable to love God.

...he did not love God as well as he might, because he had not loved man.

While Leo has attended classes and learned about religion from the theoretical and analytical perspectives, he has never learned to know and live it in a personal way: he has studied the facts, but not practiced love—he has always approached religion (and life, it seems) at arm's length. It would appear that this side of his work (loving others) has never occurred to him before. And while he acts dejected and defeated for a time after realizing his imperfections, he finally decides that he must go out and look for love in the world...not through a marriage arranged by Salzman. Ironically, however, it is through Salzman that Leo finds the picture of Stella—and love. In helping Stella to find redemption, he is learning to love, and traveling much the same road as she is: neither of them is perfect, but each is capable of loving another, and each desires a fresh start. It is no mistake that Leo meets Stella on a spring evening. Spring denotes new life and rebirth.

Malamud conveys to the reader (through his narrative) that to love others is to be truly fulfilled. And to love others allows one to love self, and moreover, love God—which in central to Leo's relationship with God and those he will serve.

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Can you summarize "The Magic Barrel"?

A brief summary is as follows:

Leo Finkle is studying to be a rabbi. He decides he needs to get married, and consults a marriage broker named Pinye Salzman. The marriage broker sets him up with several women, but none are quite what he's claimed they are. Then Salzman includes a picture in the selection of women of his own daughter, then withdraws it, claiming it was included by accident and that she's too wild and shameful for a rabbi. Finkle falls for her, and insists on meeting her, but doesn't know if he was manipulated.

For a longer summary, see

http://www.enotes.com/magic-barrel/summary

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Summarize 'The Magic Barrel', describe the characters, and identify any symbols or metaphors.

In Bernard Malamud’s “The Magic Barrel," Leo is a young rabbinical student who contacts a marriage broker, Salzman, because he does not have the time to meet a bride on his own. He reasons that using a matchmaker is an honorable way to meet a partner—it is how his own parents met. Leo agrees to meet Lily, but the meeting does not go well. At his next meeting with Salzman, Leo insists on seeing photos of the prospective brides and selects one that Salzman balks at, saying that the photo was included by mistake. The girl turns out to be Salzman’s own daughter, and Salzman describes her as “wild.” Leo insists, and Salzman watches their first meeting surreptitiously and “chanted prayers for the dead.”

Because this is a short story and there is minimal time for character development, the characters are relatively flat, although there are several complex relationships the author alludes to but does not fully develop. For instance, why does Salzman call his daughter, Stella, "wild," and why does he pray for her? This is never explained. We also never learn about Leo’s own romantic background, which, on the surface, is the focal point of the story. What the reader is told is that Leo “had for six years devoted himself almost entirely to his studies, as a result of which, understandably, he had found himself without time for a social life and the company of young women.”

The story is replete with symbolism and metaphors. For instance, Leo glances at the night sky and “observed the round white moon, moving high in the sky through a cloud menagerie, and watched with half-open mouth as it penetrated a huge hen, and dropped out of her like an egg laying itself.” When Malamud compares the moon to “an egg laying itself,” it is a metaphor for birth and procreation.

When Lily asks him when he became “enamored of G-d," this is a form of personification, as if Leo could be in love with a deity the way he might love a person. In his mind, Leo thinks this reference likens him to “some mystical figure…no relation to the living or dead.” In other words, Lily makes Leo seem like the personification of a mystical being, not like a real person.

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