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Calvin Cohn: Confidence Man. Interpreting Bernard Malamud’s God’s Grace As a Parody of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man

Wolford, Donald Lee
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu1253394734

Abstract Details

2009, Master of Arts in English, Youngstown State University, Department of Languages.
This thesis interprets Bernard Malamud’s God’s Grace (GG) as a parody of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man (CM). It contrasts the two works in terms of historical milieu, setting, genre, plot, structure, and characters. Furthermore, it delves into a comparative thematic analysis, exploring such topics as God, theodicy, the Fall, evolution, an anti-Christian polemic, misanthropy, confidence (faith), deception, isolation, madness, imagery of the bottle, time, apocalypse, Apocrypha, slavery, and optimism and pessimism. My main conclusion is that there is overwhelming evidence to support a Melvillean reading of GG. I contend that Malamud deliberately modeled GG on CM and that CM is the most important source in a literary analysis of Malamud’s final novel published during his lifetime. Malamud used other sources to be sure, but his reliance on CM is so painstaking and all-encompassing that no Malamud scholar can gain a full understanding of GG without reading and studying CM in depth.
Stephanie Tingley, PhD (Advisor)
Corey Andrews, PhD (Committee Member)
Dolores Sisco, PhD (Committee Member)
140 p.
American Literature; Comparative Literature; Judaic Studies; Literature
Bernard Malamud; God's Grace; Herman Melville; The Confidence-Man; American Literature; American-Jewish Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wolford, D. L. (2009). Calvin Cohn: Confidence Man. Interpreting Bernard Malamud’s God’s Grace As a Parody of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man [Master's thesis, Youngstown State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu1253394734

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wolford, Donald. Calvin Cohn: Confidence Man. Interpreting Bernard Malamud’s God’s Grace As a Parody of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man. 2009. Youngstown State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu1253394734.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wolford, Donald. "Calvin Cohn: Confidence Man. Interpreting Bernard Malamud’s God’s Grace As a Parody of Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man." Master's thesis, Youngstown State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu1253394734

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2009, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Youngstown State University and OhioLINK.