Volume : 2, Issue : 9, September - 2013

Defying the American Melting Pot Theory: A Study Through Bernard Malamud�s the Tenants

Dr. Rabi Narayana Samantaray

Abstract :

My objective in this paper is to contradict the popularly held notion that American society is a Melting pot, which is in reality a “Cultural Mosaic” of different races and communities as manifested in American ethnic literature. The elements of ethnic diversity dominate the ethnic literature which gives rise to a different concept of Americanness. The picture of the American society, as it appears to us, is an amalgamation of different cultures merging into one common “American” culture. When we use the expressions like “Jewish–American”, “Afro–American”, and “Native–American”, we tend to place a hyphen to establish a link between the ethnic groups and America which is suggestive of a sense of equality and not a way of withdrawing from the rest of the society. In an Urban environment where everyone including the Native–American was something else besides being “American”, one had to be an ethnic to find one’s place on the map.