Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Essay -- Appren

Mordecai Richlers The Apprenticeship of Duddy KravitzCunning though he is, Duddy Kravitz fails to learn the tricks of his handicraft and, consequently, fails to become a whole person. In Mordecai Richlers The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Duddys peers succumb to his antics, thereby becoming deficient as Duddys teachers. Duddys amoral business associates atomic number 18 masters of ruthlessness and deceit, and his family members are enfeebled by the society they live in. Trained at the hands of these cripples, Duddy Kravitz is unable to complete his apprenticeship.Duddy Kravitzs apprenticeship takes place where the boys grew up loathly and sad, spiky also, like grass beside the railroad tracks. (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, 46) At the Fletchers Cadets Parade, the boys whom Duddy learns from in his early years tell crude jokes and defect to buy rye. Duddy is also the death chair of room forty-one at Fletchers Field High School. He learns from his peers that the vulnerabi lity of others can be used to his own advantage. From singing songs with lewd lyrics to tormenting his family masters and the rabbinical college students, Duddy elicits positive reaction from his peers. No one dares to accuse Duddy of lying, though his classmates see the outrageousness in his tales of Bradleys exploits in Arizona. His peers humour him and cerebrovascular accident his ego. They applaud his pranks, but Duddy is a coward he does not take responsibility for his wrongs. Whether it is writing hurtful comments on the board or phoning MacPhersons wife jennet thus causing her death Duddy learns that he can use his peers to relieve his conscience, Were all in this together, you understand? (40) As the leader of the Warriors, Duddy learns that his weak peers ... ...and is nobody, and not explaining fully to the boy what he means, Simcha fires the boys imagination and lust for land.Surrounded by emotional and psychological cripples, Duddy mistakens his goals in his appren ticeship and does not complete what he should do in order to become a complete person. Duddys peers, business associates, and family members all have distorted views of how to approach life, therefore they are incompatible to preside as Duddys masters in Duddys apprenticeship in the field of life. Works CitedRichler, Mordecai. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Ed. Malcolm Ross. Toronto McClelland, 1969.Works ConsultedWainwright, J.A. Neither Jekyll nor Hyde In Defence of Duddy Kravitz. Canadian literary works 89 (1981) 56-73.McGregor, Grant. Duddy Kravitz From Apprentice to Legend. Journal of Canadian Fiction 30 (1980) 132-40.