Good Boy

Bernard Malamud’s, “A Summer’s Reading,” is a short story written in the 1950s. In this story we meet a young man named George Stoyonovich. Being a high school dropout, George goes on a, “Hero’s Journey,” in order to find his place in society through conformity. The author seems to use a couple different writing and story methods, in order to subconsciously persuade the reader to be a good boy. Some of these methods come in the form of; his sister Sophie, the neighbor Mr. Cattanzara, and the, “Hero’s Journey,” that George embarks on.

The first Manifestation of conformity comes in the form of his sister. The idea behind the bribe Sophie offers George seems to emulate any external gratification in society. But Sophie seems to also manifest an illusion of conformity. Everybody should work hard, come back to a happy house hold, and be bombarded by advertisements from the same system that everybody works for. All of the advertisements in the magazines that Sophie brought home are most likely aligned with the ideals and morals in the books she occasionally read as well, the illusion of perfection in consumerism and capitalism. And of course after Sophie thinks that George is reading, she starts rewarding George like a dog, almost as if to give the good dog a green papered treat.

The second noticeable character in this subliminal messaging is that of Mr. Cattanzara. The part in the story where Mr. Cattanzara warns, “George, don’t do what I did,” is the most obvious sign in the authors meaning. If Mr. Cattanzara were analyzed at for even a second, a functioning alcoholic would come to mind. This perception of just being one of the heard is another picture. To take the full symbolic meaning behind this character though, it would probably do best to look at Mr. Cattanzara’s wife. The wife continually staring down at her husband and the newspaper seems to give a “big brother” impression. Because Mr. Cattanzara is a bad dog, he must be watched. Because he commits the sin of becoming drunk, he is punished by his big wife.

The third and most important mask is one outside of any visible character. The Hero’s Journey is a concept where a character goes through hardships in order to become a hero, much like Batman. The type of heroism that this short story glorifies seems to say that it is heroic and brave to become like the rest of the system. It is glorious to be another good dog who listens to big brother. That only a perfect society can make perfect people. Anyone outside of the social norms must be lazy and unmotivated, like a dead beat dad, and people will suffer if they do not join in with the rest of society.

Conformity of individuals into society seems to be how one finds their place. The author seems to do this through putting George in a state of disability throughout the story making George this unmotivated, unemotional, narcissistic doglike person. To me this is a direct attack on any person, specifically those in countries with extremely religious laws, who does not immediately accept society standards. I think that the author is saying to get with the program deal with the consequences. I think this piece probably did its job extremely well for an entire nation moving at an alarming rate towards an overly biased ideal of what the perfect America is.