Morris’ Anxiety
Malamud describes, “Often after he had locked his grocery at night, he would go secretly around the corner and cross the quiet street. The empty store, dark and deserted, was one door to the left of the corner drugstore; and if no one was looking the grocer would peer through its dusty window, trying to see through shadow whether the emptiness had changed. For two months it stayed the same, and every night he went away reprieved. In a few days the shelves stretched many arms along the other walls, and soon the whole tiered and layered place glowed with new paint.”
Here, Morris anxiously spies on the new grocery shop because he dreads that it would offer him competition in the neighbourhood. His spying becomes so habitual that he cannot resist them. Morris conducts a covert competitor analysis to establish whether he would lose his customers to the new grocery store. He had preferred to be the only dealer of groceries to the degree that he requested the owner not to let it to an individual who would directly compete with him.
Helen’s Summer
Malamud explains, “She found herself ensnared in scenes of summer that she would gladly undo, although she loved the season; but how could you undo what you had done again in the fall, unwillingly willing? Virginity she thought she had parted with without sorrow, yet was surprised by torments of conscience, or it was disappointment at being valued under her expectations? Nat Pearl, handsome, cleft-chinned, gifted, ambitious, had wanted without too much trouble a lay and she, half in love, had obliged and regretted.”
Helen is bothered by memories of her intimacy with Nat Pearl that transpired during the summer. Being her first intimacy she is concerned that it may not have been worth it. Clearly, she was not absolutely smitten with Nat Pearl at the time of their intimacy which could explain her remorse. Her feelings demonstrate how the forfeiture of one’s virginity can trigger feelings of low self-esteem.
Nat Pearl
Hellen contemplates, “Why should he-magna cum laude, Columbia, now in his second year at law school, she only a high school graduate with a year’s evening college credit mostly in lit; he with first-rate prospects, also rich friends he had never bothered to introduce her to,; she as poor as her name sounded, with little promise of a better future. She had more than once asked herself if she had meant by her favors to work up a claim on him.”
Hellen recognizes her low social ranking relative to Nat Pearl’s. Evidently, Nat Pearl is more educated and has wealthy friends. Although she offers her virginity to him, she feels that Nat Pearl does not appreciate it and he does not respect her. Psychoanalytically, she may have been intimate with Nat Pearl to gratify the unconscious yearning she has for social mobility; Nat epitomizes the class and respect that Helen yearns for.
‘Drunk Woman’
Malamud narrates, “Morris gave her a quarter-pound of butter, the bread and vinegar. He found a pencilled spot on the worn counter, near the cash register, and wrote the sum under ‘Drunk Woman.’ The total now came to 2.03, which he never hoped to see. But Ida would nag if she noticed a new figure, so he reduced the amount to $1.61.”
Morris attends to the drunk lady’s daughter who comes for groceries on credit. He agrees to offer her the “Butter, bread and vinegar” after the girl cries. The inscription ‘drunk woman’ is instrumental in the profiling of main customers. Besides poverty, the neighborhood has drunk residents. The woman, evidently, spends on alcohol to the extent that she cannot afford basic necessities, like bread.
