1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述）

Bernard Malamud is one of themost well-known Jewish writers in the United States. It is said that Jewishliterature occupies an extremely important position in the field of Americanliterature, and among all the Jewish writers, Bernard Malamud has almost thestrongest Jewishness. Thus, studying his literary works will benefit us a lotto explore Jewish culture and literature. Owning a strong spirit of realism andhumanism, Bernard Malamud’s literary works depict mainly the Jewish backgroundand Jews, showing the readers the bitter living experiences of Jews in theUnited States and their persisting moral pursuits even if under the heavyburden of life. In his first successful novel The Assistant, Bernard Malamud interprets the theme of the spiritualconversion of Frank. At the end of the novel, Frank is just like a lonelyorphan who finds his father, a homeless vagrant who finds his home and a lostman who finds his goal. When it comes to the research purpose, the paperintends to focus on this Italian assistant Frank as well as his Jewishshopkeeper Morris Bober, hoping to discover the motivation of Frank's moralperfection.

In The Assistant, by suffering and self-sacrifice Frank ultimatelypromotes himself to be a Jewish saint from a criminal, which well exemplifiesthe universal responsibilities and obligations among the human beings.Therefore, the paper not only provides a mirror of the Jewish culture for us tounderstand and comprehend the moral pursuits of Jews, but also assists us inexamining our own morality and humanity and finding a right way to moralperfection. Besides, studying the reestablishment of Frank’s soul is conduciveto presenting the great moral exhortation of Jewish spirits. Taking Frank’scultural background into consideration, the paper also involves the mutualcultural coercion and communication of two different cultural backgrounds.

Asto the novel The Assistant, a lot ofscholars at home and abroad have tried to interpret it from variousperspectives such as symbolism, father-child relationship as well as sufferingwhile there are few studies on the reestablishment of Frank’s soul. As a matterof fact, there are also other similar papers regarding the novel as a typical Bildungsroman, which pay much more attentionto the growth of Frank on the layer of morality. For instance, Luo Wei and XiaZengqiang’s paper A PsychoanalysisInterpretation of Malamud’s Bildungsroman The Assistant applies Freud’spsychological theory of human psyche to interpret the growing process of Frank.Guo Qi’s paper Study on Frank’s Growth inThe Assistant shows Frank’s transition and growth under the influences ofMorris and Helen, which emphasizes Jews’ pursuit for “a new life”. These twopapers are both valuable treasures for us to inspect the growth of Frank;however, the two papers both lack the detailed contrast of Frank’s behavior andmoral cognitions before and after the “Jewish” redemption. The paper The Reestablishment of Frank’s Soul in TheAssistant will concretely present the contrast, which will furtherhighlight the power of the moral motivation of Morris and Helen.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

The structureof the whole paper will be divided into the following parts: the first part isthe introduction part, which will mainly introduce the primary content of thenovel The Assistant, the identitiesof the protagonists as well as their mutual relationships. The second part isrelated to the behavior and moral performances of Frank before his redemption. Inthis part, the overall image of Frank before his redemption will be presentedvividly through the descriptions of his experiences, appearances and words. Thethird part is about the behavior and moral performances of Frank after hisredemption, which will make an apparent contrast to his previous performances.The fourth and fifth parts will mainly explore the real reasons of histransition and growth, namely, the great influences of Morris and Helen. Theinfluences of Morris surpasses those of Helen to a large extent. These twoparts will reveal the moral motivation of the Jews, which is almost the mostimportant and profound content of the whole paper. In the last part of thepaper, the significance of the moral motivation and moral pursuits of Jews willbe analyzed and highlighted to give a profound moral lesson to the modernpeople.

3. 研究计划与安排

before 26th,december settlement of the title

before 25th,february submission of theoutline

before 25th, april submission of the first draft

4. 参考文献（12篇以上）

[1]brian beer. bernard malamud's religiousduality: frank alpine and morris bober[j]. the explicator, 2012.70(2).

[2] haiyan z. proceedings of the 2011international conference on education science and management engineering (part2), beijing, 2011[c].

[3] malamud b. the assistant[m]. new york: farrar, straus and giroux, 1977.