6. Frank's process of becoming a Jew (in bezug auf Vorurteile)
6.1. Methodisch-didaktische Vorüberlegung
Die Person des Frank Alpine ist von großer Bedeutung für das Verständnis und den Ablauf der Romanhandlung. In seiner Komplexität fordert sie dazu heraus, vielschichtige Interpretationsansätze und Thematiken (z.B.: American Dream, Jewishness) auszuprobieren und anzuwenden. Angesichts seines gespaltenen und verwirrenden Charakters ist es sinnvoller, mit den SchülerInnen vereinzelte Entwicklunsstufen Franks zu untersuchen, als eine allgemeingültige Definition seiner Person zu finden.
Speziell in bezug auf das Judentum sollte der/die LehrerIn zeigen, dass Frank keine geradlinige und vorbildliche Entwicklung durchläuft, in der er eine Art Bekehrung zum Judentum erfährt. Es ist eher ein äußerst langwieriger und für den Leser oft auch unbefriedigender Prozeß, den Frank selbstverschuldet durchläuft. Die SchülerInnen sollen erarbeiten, dass Frank in einem sogenannten vicious circle festgehalten wird, auf welche Weise er gelegentlich auszubrechen versucht, und wie er ihn schließlich abschütteln kann. Es ist wichtig, die beeinflußbare Menschlichkeit seines Handelns, auch seiner Straftaten, in seinem Für und Wider herauszustellen und zu verdeutlichen.
Seine Vorurteile gegen die Juden zeugen hauptsächlich von großer Unkenntnis dieser Religion, die er durch Nachfragen und -lesen abzubauen lernt. Das eigentliche "Judentum", welches ihn fasziniert und auch später beeinflußt, beobachtet er tagtäglich bei Morris selbst. Indem er offenkundig Kritik übt, setzt Frank sich automatisch mit der jüdischen Lebensweise auseinander und gerät in ihren Bann. Abschließend sollte der Gedanke des vicious circle, zu dem auch die Bildung einer vorgefertigten Meinung durch Unwissen gehört, verallgemeinert und den SchülerInnen durch alltägliche Situationen vergegenwärtigt werden.
Eine Möglichkeit, Franks Entwicklungsprozeß in der Klasse zu erarbeiten, kann durch eine Untersuchung einzelner Textstellen stattfinden. Ohne die SchülerInnen vorher zu informieren, dass der Charakter des Frank Alpine keine geradlinige Entwicklung zu dem Judentum durchläuft, sollen in Gruppenarbeit jumbled sentences (chronologisch ungeordnete Textpassagen), vom dem/der LehrerIn aufgelistet, in eine sinnvolle Reihenfolge gebracht werden, um eine durchgängige Entwicklung Franks darzustellen. Obwohl die SchülerInnen versuchen werden, eine gewisse Chronologie (in Hinblick auf die Seitenzahlen) der Geschehnisse zu rekonstruieren, werden sie bald feststellen, dass sich Frank Alpine im Kreis dreht. Sobald er sich dem "Guten" zugewandt zu haben scheint, verführt ihn schon die nächste Situation im darauffolgenden Augenblick.
Nachdem die SchülerInnen die Auswirkung des vicious circle auf Frank erkannt haben, sollte der/die LehrerIn Anweisungen geben, die vorliegenden Passagen nach zwei Gesichtspunkten chronologisch zu ordnen: nach Rückfällen in sein "altes" Leben und nach Anstrengungen, sich einem besseren (nach Morris: jüdischen) Weg zuzuwenden. Mit diesen Ergebnissen kann den SchülerInnen die Komplexität von Franks Charakter und seine immer wieder neu ansetzenden überwindungsschwierigkeiten des "inneren Schweinehundes" verdeutlicht werden. Der/die Lehrerin sollte in einem anschließenden L-S-Gespräch vermitteln, dass Franks komplizierte Entwicklung (u.a. Abbau von Vorurteilen, Identitätsfindung) gerade durch seine Rückfälle realistisch wirkt. Wie gerade durch die Analyse der Textpassagen festgestellt, braucht es seine Zeit, ehe Franks Überzeugung überhaupt sein Handeln erreichen und bestimmen kann.
Abschließend sei von der Lehrperson zu bemerken, dass Unkenntnis und Nichtverstehen häufig zu Vorurteilen, gerade in religiösen und kulturellen Bereichen, führen (Frank ist ein Beispiel unter vielen). Gerade The Assistant ermahnt, diese Vorurteile durch Lernbereitschaft und tolerantes Verständnis abzubauen, was in der Beschneidung Franks und seinem Bekenntnis zum Judentum verdeutlicht wird.
6.2. Aufgaben zu den jumbled sentences - Frank's process of
becoming J ewish:
a.) Try to reflect Frank's development of becoming a Jew by putting
the passages in the right order.
(-> SchülerInnen erkennen, dass es keine geradlinige Entwicklung gibt.)
b.) Divide the passages into two groups: (1) Collect all the passages which indicate Frank's attempt to become a different person, his good intentions (development of becoming a Jew).
(2) Collect all the passages which show a breach/contrast to Frank's willingness to change
Textpassagen in chronologischer Reihenfolge
(bewertet nach den Fragen zu b.), positiv/negativ):
(+) The one at the sink hastily rinsed a cup and filled it
with water. He brought it to the grocer ... (27)
(+) 'That's all the dough he has, let's beat it.' (28)
(-) 'I work like a mule for what I want, and just when it looks like I
am going to get it I make some kind of a stupid move, and everything that
is just about nailed down tight blows up in my face.' (35)
(-) '... and usually I end up like I started out, with nothing.' (...)
'All my life I wanted to accomplish something worth while - a thing people will say took a little doing, but I don't. (...) The result is I move into a place with nothing, and I move out with nothing....' (36)
(-) 'You people are Jews, aren't you?'
'Yes', said the grocer, still watching him.
'I always liked Jews.' His eyes were downcast. (it's a lie!) (37)
(-) 'Did you (Frank) steal from me my milk and rolls?'
'Yes,' he confessed. 'On acount of I was hungry.' (39)
(+) To get up in the middle of the night for three lousy cents was a joke
but he did it for the Jew. (55)
(-) Alone, he did a lot of casual eating (...) he also opened packages
of crackers, macaroons, cup-cakes and doughnuts, tearing up their rappers into small pieces and flushing them down the toilet. (56)
(-) Otto Vogel,..., warned him in a low voice, 'Don't work for a Yid, kiddo. They will steal your ass while you are sitting on it.' Frank, ..., felt embarassed for being there; ... (56/57)
(-) ..., for he had heard that these Jewish babes could be troublemakers
and he was not looking for any of that now - at least no more than usual;
... (58)
(-) He thought she didn't look Jewish, which was all to the good. (59)
(-) During the day, ..., he sold at least a buck's worth, or a buck and
a half, that he made no attempt to ring up on the register. Ida guessed
nothing. (...) It wasn't hard for him to scrape up here a bit of change,
there a bit. At the end of the second week he had ten dollars in his pocket. (...) He had nothing to be ashamed of, he thought - it was practically his own dough he was taking. (...) Thus he settles in his mind only to find himself remorseful. (...) Yet he felt a curious pleasure in his misery, as he had at times in the past when he was doing something he knew he oughtn't to, so he kept on dropping quarters into his pants pocket. (64/ 65)
(+) One night he felt very bad about all the wrong he was doing and vowed
to himself to set himself straight. (65)
(+) He remembered thinking as they went into the store, A Jew is a Jew,
what difference does it make? Now he thought, I held him up because he
was a Jew. What the hell are they to me so that I gave them credit for
it? (66)
( +) 'I want my gun, Ward. Where is it?'
'What for?'
'I want to throw it in the ocean.' (67)
(+) (rejecting Ward's offer to commit further crime) 'Not with me,' Frank
said. (...) 'I've all I want.' (68)
(-) He thought he could anchor himself on it (air shaft) and see into the
bathroom. (...) It was a mistake to do it, he thought. (...) ...her eyes
reflecting his sins, rotten past, spoiled ideas, his passion poisoned by
his shame. (...) ... instead of the grinding remorse he had expected to
suffer, he felt a moving joy. (Helen under shower) (69/ 70)
(-) But he continued to steal. He would stop for a few days then almost
with relief go back to it. There were times when stealing made him feel
good. (...) ..., and it felt good to pluck a buck from under the Jew's
nose. (...) Besides, he planned to return everything some time or why
would he be marking down the figure of what he took? (78)
(+) He was afraid to look into the mirror for fear it would split apart
and fall into the sink. (...) He was full of sudden rages for himself.
(...) The rage he felt disappeared like a wind-storm that quietly pooped
out, and he felt a sort of gentleness creeping in. (...) He was gentle
to Morris, and the Jew was gentle to him. And he was filled with quiet
gentleness for Helen and no longer climbed the air shaft... (78/ 79)
(-) What kind of a man did you have to be born to shut yourself up in
an overgrown coffin and never once during the day, so help you, outside
of going for your Yiddish newspaper, poke your beak out of the door for
a snootful of air? The answer wasn't hard to say - you had to be a Jew.
They were born prisoners. (79)
(-)That's what they live for, Frank thought, to suffer. And the one that
has got the biggest pain in the gut and can hold on to it the longest without running to the toilet is the best Jew. No wonder they got on his nerves. (81)
(+) He wanted her (Helen) but the facts made a terrible construction. They were Jews and he was not, (81)
(-) Ward sat down and told him that it was a Jew he planned to rob, so
Frank agreed to go with him. (85)
( +) He wasn't really sorry they had stuck up a Jew but he hadn't expected to be sorry that they had picked on this particular one, Bober; ... (82)
(+) ... that he had really known all his life he would some time, through
throat blistered with shame, his eyes in the dirt, have to tell some poor
son of a bitch that he was the one who had hurt or betrayed him. This thought had lived in him like claws; or like a thirst he could never spit out, a repulsive need to get out of his system all that had happened - (...) - to change his life before the smell of it suffocated him. (82)
(-) ...; besides, how much of a confession was the Jew entitled to for
the seven and a half bucks he had taken, then put back into the cash register drawer, and for the knock on the head he had got from Ward, whom he himself had come with unwilingly? (...) That showed his goood intentions for the future, didn't it? (...) And was now even keeping him (Morris) from starvation in his little rat hole? (....) ..., he had decided that once he had told the grocer all there was to say about the hold-up, he would at the same time start paying back into the drawer. (83)
(-) ...; so after a time he gave up and let himself be a bum. He lived
in gutters, cellars if he was lucky, slept in lots, ate what the dogs wouldn't, or couldn't, and what he scrounged out of garbage cans. (...) ... he was living this kind of life only because he hadn't known he was meant for something a whole lot better - to do something big, different. (...) ... and had spent all his energy to do the wrong things. (...) At crime he would change his luck, make adventure, live like a prince. He shivered with pleasure as he conceived robberies, assaults - murders if it had to be - each violent act helping to satisfy a craving that somebody suffer as his own fortune improved. (84)
(+) ..., but the minute they were both tying handkerchiefs around their
mouths, the whole idea seemed senseless. (...) His plans of crime lay down and died. He could hardly breathe in his unhappiness. (85)
(+) '...I started out wrong and have to change my direction where I am
going. ...' (88)
(+) (possible reaction to Morris's advice 'Don't throw away your chances
for education.' (35) '... The first step to that, I know for sure now,
is to get a good education. I didn't use to think like that, but the more
I live the more I do. Now it's always on my mind.'(90) He was often at
the library. (94) Frank said he had definitely made up his mind to start
college in the fall. (96)
(-) Yet what was the pay-off, for instance, of marrying a dame like her
and having to do with the Jews the rest of his life? (107)
(+) '... My nature is to give and I couldn't change it even if I wanted.
...' (108)
(+) His aspirations, she sensed, were somehow apart from the self he presented normally when he wasn't trying, though he was always more or less trying, ... (...) ...; for if he could make himself seem better, broader, wiser when he tried, then he had these things in him because you couldn't make them out of nothing. There was more to him than his appearance. (109)
(+) (Helen) 'Don't forget I'm Jewish.'
So what?' Frank said.
Inside the dark, recalling what he had answered her, he felt this elated
feeling, as if he had crashed his head on through a brick wall but hadn't
bruised himself. (110)
(+) 'Say, Morris, suppose somebody asked you what do the Jews believe in,
what woul d you tell them?' (...) 'What I like to know is what is a Jew
anyway?' (long conversation about Morris's Jewishness) (112)
(+) 'To be truthful to you, Morris, once I didn't have much use for the
Jews.' (113)
(+) His eyes were quieter, wiser. His crooked nose fitted his face and
his face fitted him. It stayed on straight. He was gentle, waiting for
whatever he awaited with a grace .... (117)
(+) Frank ... was struggling to realize himself as a person, a more worthwhile ambition. ... Frank knew more about life and gave the impression of more potential depth. (120)
(+) (rejects Ward's offer again) 'I told you I am not interested in your
jobs, Ward.' (129)
(+) ... that the clerk would now and then paste a two-dollar bill on some
nag's useless nose, from which it blew off in the breeze. (135)
(+) ... the beauty of a person being able to do things the way he wanted
to, to do good if he wanted; and this feeling was followed by regret -
(...) ..., he made up his mind to return, bit by bit until all paid up,
the hundred and forty-odd bucks he had filched from Morris in the months
he had worked for him, ... (141)
(-) But when he pictured himself confessing, the Jew listening with a fat
ear, he still could not stand the thought of it. (...) The past was the
past and the hell with it. He had unwillingly taken part in an hold-up,
but he was, like Morris, more a victim of Ward Minogue. (...) So what was
there to confess if the whole thing had been sort of an accident? (142)
(+) ..planned to put it all back in the register: (...) After ringing up
the six bucks, to erase the evidence of an unlikely sale he rang up 'no
sale'. Frank then felt surge of joy at what he had done and his eyes misted.
(143)
(-) He thought it would be better to take a buck out of the register drawer, out of the amount he had just put back. (...) The clerk, after a time of long agony, heard himself say, 'It's just a mistake, Morris.' (...) Anguished, the clerk tried lying. (...) Frank thought. This shouldn't be happening to me, for I am a different person now. (..) The clerk realized it hadn't occurred to him to borrow from the grocer. The reason was simple - he had never borrowed, he had always stolen. (145/ 146)
(-) (After raping Helen) Oh my God, why did I do it? Why did I ever do
it? Why did I do it? (155)
(-) Where have you ever been, he asked the one in the glass, except on
the inside of a circle? What have you done but always the wrong thing?
(...) He had lived without will, betrayed every good intention. Had he
ever confessed the hold-up to Morris? Hadn't he stolen from the cash register till the minute he was canned? In a single terrible act in the park hadn't he murdered the last of his good hopes, the love he had so long waited for - his chance at a future? His goddammed life had pushed him wherever he went; (...) There was no place left to escape to.(156/157)
(+) (saves Morris twice: gas (158/ 159) and fire (190))
(+) 'Look, Mrs,' Frank said. 'Why don't you stop worrying about the store
while Morris is sick and let me take care of it?...' (161/ 162)
(+) He withdrew twenty-five dollars from his savings account and put the
money into the register, ...(163)
(+) The wrong he had done her was never out of his mind. He hadn't intended wrong but he had done it; (...) ...and he would do it all on his own will, nobody pushing him but himself. He would do it with discipline and with love. (164)
(+) (allusion to skull cap) 'Helen,' he said, snatching off the cloth cap
he now wore in the store,... (165)
(+) He also reduced the gas bill by lighting only one of the two radiators downstairs. (167)
(+) (tries to get debts from Carl, the painter and sympathizes with the
hungry children. Leaves without the money.) (170)
(+) He read a book about the Jews, a short history . (...) He couldn't
finish the book and brought it back to the library. (170)
(+) (Takes on 2nd job) The work was from ten to six a.m. and paid thirty-five dollars. When he got home in the morning, Frank opened the grocery. At the end of the week's working, without ringing it up, he put the thirty-five into the cash register. This, and Helen's wages, kept them from going under. (171)
(+) He thought endlessly of escape, but that would be what he always did
last - beat it. This time he would stay. (171)
(+) (Frank confesses the hold up to Morris) The thing you got to understand is I am not the same person I once was. (176)
(+) When the bearded rabbi entered the chapel through a side door, Frank
took off his hat but quickly put it on again . (201)
(+) The other funny thing is that there are more of them (Jews) around
than anybody knows about. (204)
(+) 'Things are changed. I am not the same guy I was.' (...) ... but there
he stood under the yellow lamp, fondling his lascivious cap. (207)
(+) He figured the best thing he could do was to help her get the college
education she had always wanted. (...) He figured that to do it would be
a rocky load on his head, but he had to do it, it was his only hope; he
could think of no other. (209/ 210)
(+) (He confesses the hold-up to Helen.) (112)
(+) But he never missed a payment of rent to Ida. He valued his payments
to her because Helen had returned to night college in the autumn, and if
he didn't give the ninety to Ida, Helen wouldn 't have enough for her own
needs. (213)
(+) 'Jesus,' he said, 'why am I killing myself so?' he gave himself many
unhappy answers, the best being that while he was doing this he was doing
nothing worse. (214)
(-) He climbed up the air shaft to spy on Helen in the bathroom. Twice
he saw her disrobe. (...) he swore to himself that he would never spy on
her again, but he did. And in the store he took to cheating the customers. (214)
(+) Then one day, for no reason he could give, though the reason felt familiar, he stopped climbing up the air shaft to peek at Helen, and he was honest in the store. (definitely changes!) (214)
(+) He had kept them alive. Because of him she (Helen) had enough to go
to school at night. (...) It came to her that he had changed. (...) ...
without understanding the why or the aftermath, or admitting there could
be an end to the bad and a beginning of good. (215)
(+) It was the Bible and he sometimes thought there were parts of it he
could have written himself. (217)
(+) One day in April Frank went to the hospital and had himself circumcised. For a couple of days he dragged himself around with a pain between his legs. The pain enraged and inspired him. After Passover he became a Jew. (217)
Points to talk about:
- Konversion zum Judentum mit einer Glaubensauffassung, die der Einstellung (humanism) von Morris entspricht.
- store is something that he clings on to, the only way to escape the vicious circle
If the store blows away some dark night I might as well
be dead, Frank thought. He tried every way to hang on.(...)
With all but the last five dollars from the bank account, he bought a few
gallons of cheap paint. (166)
Frank told anybody who asked that he was keeping the business going for
the widow. (206)
- Frank's lowest point is when Morris forces him to leave for stealing money (177), and at the same time is rejected by Helen for literally raping her in a most vulnerable situation (150/151). The past has caught up with him.
- man can have no future as long as he hasn't come to terms with his past
- (Möglicher Verweis auf ein Wortspiel: Frank = trying to be "frank"
-> "that he only pretended to be frank about himself")
Sinn der Analyse der einzelnen Passagen:
- Einblick in Franks struggle to strive
- Einführung des Begriffes vicious circle und seine Auswirkung.
- Beispiel, wie und mit welcher Anstrengung religiöse Vorurteile abgebaut werden können
7. Vorschlag eines Klausurthemas zu American Dream und
Jewishness (spiritual success and economic failure) in The Assistant:
7.1. Methodisch-didaktische Vorbemerkung:
Die Klausur soll mit einem neuen Text die SchülerInnen dazu auffordern, selbständig einen Transfer zu dem Roman zu leisten.
In diesem Gedicht wird die Umkehr des American Dream in Form einer persönlichen Beziehung deutlich dargestellt. Für das lyrische Ich hat sich der American Dream zu einem nightmare entwickelt. Indem die erste Aufgabe (a.) die SchülerInnen zu einer inhaltlichen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Gedicht auffordert, stellt die zweite (b.) eine direkte Verbindung zu The Assitant her. Durch eingehende Vorbereitung in den Schulstunden sollten die SchülerInnen in der Lage sein, einen Transfer zu der Person des Morris Bober zu leisten (möglich wäre gegebenenfalls auch Frank Alpine). Die dritte Aufgabe (c.) fordert eine Wiedergabe und Inbezugsetzung des gelernten Stoffes (wie in Punkt 2 und 3 von Britta Buch herausgearbeitet). Eine Definition des persönlichen
"Jüdischseins" des Morris, die auch Frank später übernimmt, und ein Bezug zu dem American Dream in The Assistant, der Wirtschaftlichkeit und dem (Miß-)Erfolg des Lebensmittelgeschäftes (bei Frank: zu seinem Leben insgesamt), sind hier gefordert. Abschließend (d.) sollen die SchülerInnen zeigen, dass sie die eigene Meinung mit sinnvollen Argumenten darstellen können. Als Aufhänger, der auf den American Dream verweist, bietet sich ein Cartoon an.