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THE FIXER Bernard Malamud

First published: 1966

SETTING

set in Russia. It begins in a shtetl (a small Jewish village) near Kiev. As the story goes on the action moves to the city of Kiev and then to a prison in that city. The time period of the story is around 1911 to 1913.

CHARACTER LIST

Major Characters

Yakov Bok is the main character. He is a very likeable person. He is Jewish, and the Jewish people have a very difficult time in Russia. There is always the possibility of becoming the victim of a pogrom (an uprising of physical attacks and persecution against the Jewish people in a region or city). Yakov enjoys reading. His wife has left him.

Shmuel is Yakov’s father-in-law. He is a father figure for Yakov, whose father died years ago. He lives near Yakov as the story begins. He is very serious about his religion.

Bibikov is one person who believes that Yakov is innocent of the crime of which he is accused. He is the Investigating Magistrate for Cases of Extraordinary Importance. He wants the person who is really guilty of the crime of which Yakov is accused to be found.

The Deputy Warden The Deputy Warden is the antagonist of the story. He is very cruel, crueler than the warden is.

Minor Characters

Nikolai Lebedev is a man who Yakov rescues in Kiev. He rewards Yakov for his help by giving him a job. Later, he hires him for a more important job working at his brickyard.

Zhitnyak is a guard at the prison where Yakov is held. He gets in trouble for allowing Shmuel to visit Yakov. After that incident, he is no longer Yakov’s guard.

Kogin is also a guard in the prison where Yakov is held. Usually he works at night. He worries a lot about his son who has been sentenced to prison.

Berezhinsky is another guard. He replaces Zhitnyak.

Grubeshov is the Prosecuting Attorney. He wants to prove that Yakov is guilty. He knows that to do so would please Tsar Nicholas II. He knows that his career will be advanced if he is successful.

Marfa Golov is the mother of the boy, Zhenia, who was murdered. Bibikov suspects that she or one of her group is the real killer.

Ivan Kuzminsky assists Bibikov in his job.

Zinaida Lebedev is the daughter of Nikolai Lebedev. She tries to be friends with Yakov, but later turns on him after he is accused of the murder of Zhenia.

Aaron Latke has a flat in Kiev where Yakov stays before he starts staying at the brickyard.

Father Anastasy is considered by some to be an expert in Judaism. He talks to those who are gathered at the reenactment of the murder. He is expected to be an “expert” witness at Yakov’s trial.

Colonel Bodyansky is with Grubeshov during his interrogation of Yakov. He threatens Yakov.

Fetyukov is a prisoner. He is a murderer. He believes Yakov when he says that he is innocent.

Gronfein is another prisoner. He is a counterfeiter. He tricks Yakov into writing letters that he then gives to the authorities so that he can obtain his own release from prison.

Tsar (Czar) Nicholas II is not actually in the story. But, Yakov imagines him. Also, he is the driving force behind the persecution of Yakov because he needs a distraction to keep the people from thinking about the bad things that he himself has done.

NOTES--

CH.1 A verst is approximately equal to a kilometer, or approximately equal to two-thirds of a mile. It is a Russian measure of distance.

CH.2 A "shtetl" is a Jewish village. Treyf means unkosher. In this chapter, the wheel on the wagon gave Yakov trouble. Also, on the last page of the book, a wheel on the carriage in which Yakov was riding wobbled.The Lavra catacombs are visited by tourists in Kiev today.Nikolaevna means daughter of Nikolai.

Ch.3 A sledge is: A vehicle mounted on runners and often drawn by draft animals, used for traveling or for conveying loads over snow, ice, rough ground.Decembrists were involved in an uprising in Russia in December of 1825.The Narodniki were populists active in Russia from 1860 to the end of the nineteenth century.The term Hasid refers to: A member of a Jewish mystic movement founded in the 18th century in eastern Europe by Baal Shem Tov that reacted against Talmudic learning and maintained that God's presence was in all of one's surroundings and that one should serve God in one's every deed and word.

Ch.4 Yakov said that he was not a religious man. But, notice later that he becomes more religious.

Ch.5 Throughout the book, many things are called as green. In this chapter, Zhenia’s and Vasya’s faces are said to have been green when they described to Marfa what they had seen on Yakov’s table. Sofya Shiskovsky, Marfa’s neighbor, is mentioned again for Bibikov’s describes of his Father Anastasy. He refers to him as a charlatan.

Ch.6 In this chapter, the prosecutor’s suit is green.Throughout the book, prison officials want Yakov’s hair to be long. The officials seem to think that long hair makes him look more religious, and they want him to have that appearance. But near the end, that will change.

ch.7 The Deputy Warden is the antagonist of the book. While he is under Warden Grizitskoy in rank, he seems much less humane and civilized.

ch.8 We also read about the slop-pail worker with the broken glasses in Part 3. The requests for fingerprints, hair sample, and handwriting sample give the impression that the authorities were really trying to find the guilty party. More likely, they were trying to manipulate the evidence so that Yakov would look guilty, or trying to give the appearance of being thorough, or procrastinating in the hope that Yakov would eventually confess.

ch.9 In this chapter we see the reason why Yakov’s hair was not cut and why a prayer shawl and phylacteries were left in his cell. The guilt by association that the allegations against Yakov put on all Jews would be strengthened by making him appear to be a religious Jew. A ukase is an edict or order of a Russian tsar. Again, the color green is said. This time it is the color of the paper wrapping the Tsar’s cigarette in Yakov’s vision. Unpolitical has the same meaning as apolitical.

Plot I first read about what happened on the day that Zhenia Golov’s body was found. Then, the author takes me back five months and tells me about that earlier time. At the end of Chapter 2 we are again at the time when Zhenia’s body was found. From the end of Chapter 2 onward, the tale is chronological. Secondary to the main plot is the story of the relationship of Yakov and Raisl. Another minor plot is the story of who really killed Zinaida

Point of view The Fixer is written in the third-person limited point of view. The story-teller can see into only the mind of Yakov Bok.

MOOD The mood of The Fixer is somber.

SHORT SUMMARY The Fixer begins in a shtetl in Russia where Yakov lives near his father-in-law, Shmuel. Before the beginning of the story, Yakov’s wife, Raisl, left him. There was friction in the marriage because the couple did not have a child. Yakov has made a decision to leave the shtetl and go elsewhere. Yakov thinks that surely elsewhere his luck will improve. He loads a few things, including his books, onto a wagon and heads to Kiev.

When Yakov reaches Kiev, he has difficulty making a living. Then, he rescues a drunk from the snow where he had fallen. The man, Lebedev, rewards him for his help by giving him a short-term job. While working at Lebedev’s home, Yakov becomes acquainted with his daughter, Zinaida. Lebedev likes the work that Yakov does and offers him a job at a brickyard that he owns. On Yakov’s last day at Lebedev’s home, Zinaida invites Yakov to have dinner there to celebrate the end of one job and the beginning of a new one. After dinner, they go to Zinaida’s room to have sex. When Yakov sees that Zinaida is what he refers to as “unclean,” he decides not to go forward. Yakov remains stubbornly against admitting what he did not do. He even refuses the offer of forgiveness for his crime as part of an amnesty decree in celebration of three hundred years of Romanov rule. Accepting amnesty would imply that he knows that he is guilty. It is tempting, in that he may be set free from prison, but he is innocent and the acceptance of the amnesty would not sit right in his heart.

Finally, Yakov receives an indictment for the crime and is allowed to speak with a lawyer. Slowly, the time of the trial arrives. As Yakov rides to the trial in a carriage, he knows that he has achieved his goal.

Theme Freedom; Responsibility

Marijuana Legalization Organization Why should marijuana be legal?

* People have a basic right to make choices for themselves as long as their actions do not harm others. Responsible individuals in a free society should be allowed to choose whether or not they use marijuana. Individual liberty is a fundamental value.

* The government is wasting our time and money by prohibiting marijuana. Taxpayers are forced to pay billions of dollars to persecute, prosecute, and incarcerate people for having marijuana. If marijuana were legal and regulated (like alcohol and tobacco) this money, plus tax revenues from marijuana sales, could be used for other purposes such as education and health care.

* Prohibition is not an effective solution to the problems associated with marijuana use. Marijuana, like tobacco and alcohol, can be abused. But prohibition is expensive and ineffective; education and regulation are better solutions. Regulating sales of marijuana and teaching people the truth about its health effects will allow us to minimize the harms and costs to society.

* We have learned a lesson from history. Alcohol prohibition did not work, and there is no logical reason to believe that marijuana prohibition is a better idea.

Over the course of modern history marijuana has been stigmatized, associated with negative connotations and been blamed as the gateway to stronger more addictive drugs. While marijuana use has been recorded throughout history as a relaxant, mood elevator and aid for pain, it is still a drug that the government knows very little about. In the 1970's the Food and Drug Administration conducted extensive research into the properties of cannabis and its properties at the University of Washington, exhaustive research concluded that it had such a complex structure that many more years would be needed to ascertain the true medicinal value.

6. Marijuana's legalization would simplify the development of hemp as a valuable and diverse agricultural crop in the United States, including its development as a new bio-fuel to reduce carbon emissions. Canada and European countries have managed to support legal hemp cultivation without legalizing marijuana, but in the United States opposition to legal marijuana remains the biggest obstacle to development of industrial hemp as a valuable agricultural commodity. As US energy policy continues to embrace and promote the development of bio-fuels as an alternative to oil dependency and a way to reduce carbon emissions, it is all the more important to develop industrial hemp as a bio-fuel source - especially since use of hemp stalks as a fuel source will not increase demand and prices for food, such as corn. Legalization of marijuana will greatly simplify the regulatory burden on prospective hemp cultivation in the United States.