Mordecai Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

Emily Cho

Duddy Kravitz’s apprenticeship takes place where "the boys grew up dirty and sad, spiky also, like grass beside the railroad tracks." (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, 46) At the Fletcher’s Cadets Parade, the boys whom Duddy learns from in his early years tell crude jokes and defect to buy rye. Duddy is also the president of room forty-one at Fletcher’s Field High School. He learns from his peers that the vulnerability of others can be used to his own advantage. From singing songs with lewd lyrics to tormenting his class 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 Bradley’s exploits in Arizona. His peers humour him and stroke 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 MacPherson’s wife Jenny – thus causing her death – Duddy learns that he can use his peers to relieve his conscience, "We’re all in this together, you understand?" (40) As the leader of the "Warriors," Duddy learns that his weak peers will do as he bid: they are enthralled when he teaches them about stealing, smoking, and sex, and they become his shield while Duddy continues to hurt the innocents who come across his path. With strength gained from the weakness of his peers, Duddy learns to cheat stamp companies and sell pornography and stolen hockey sticks.

After Duddy graduates from school, he is lead further astray by his peers in his apprenticeship. The McGill boys whom Duddy works with at Rubin’s Hotel teach him to be ruthless by playing pranks on the young boy. Irwin, without much conscience himself, not only makes life miserable for Duddy, but also enlists his girlfriend Linda to cheat Duddy at his roulette game. Losing his entire summer savings, Duddy realizes the truth about Linda and says to her, "I thought you went out with me because you liked me. Boy, was I ever a sucker." (94) While working in Uncle Benjy’s dress factory, Thérèse encourages Duddy to follow Adèle into the washroom, thus getting the young girl into trouble. This sets in motion the part of Duddy’s apprenticeship that deals with women. Mr. Friar is right when he says Duddy is "callow…he hasn’t the first notion of how to treat a woman." (163) Yvette is crippled in that she is submissive like many of Duddy’s peers. She suffers verbal abuse from Duddy such as "you little fool" (98) and knows that he is using her to buy land, as he is underage. When Yvette mentions romance, Duddy laughs, "I don’t get it. Imagine guys getting married and tying themselves down to one single broad for a whole lifetime when there’s just so much stuff around." (191) When she asks how he would react if she gets pregnant, Duddy simply says that he can get his brother Lennie to perform an abortion on her. Yvette needs to ask Duddy for permission to go out with Virgil and though she is only Duddy’s "Girl Friday" (214), she remains emotionally attached to Duddy. She would rather be tamed with Duddy’s kisses, flowers, chocolates and sexual appetite, then return to her family, which she is no longer allowed to see because of her relationship with Duddy. In his apprenticeship, Duddy learns that he can be callous and unfeeling towards women. He learns that his needs can always come before others’ and that others can always be pacified with material goods. It is ironic that Duddy believes that "a friend is a friend. You’ve got to trust somebody." (181) As he becomes increasingly self-centered during his apprenticeship with Yvette, Duddy no longer trusts the very person who has helped him gain the land he wants. Without "a decent sentiment in [his] body" (300), Duddy makes Yvette sign over all the deeds to his father and Yvette finally realizes that she no longer knows what Duddy is. Duddy is truly transformed by his apprenticeship among cripples.

The "crap artists" Duddy surrounds himself with are also cripples who have lost their roots in their culture, their faith. Hersh, who had won a scholarship to McGill, had quit the university, "There was no sense in staying on. I had no intention of becoming the apogee of the Jewish bourgeois dream…I think I’ve succeeded in purging myself of the ghetto mentality" (225). Other artists, writers, and playwrights attend Duddy’s parties regularly and help themselves to free food and drinks. However, many – such as Cuckoo Kaplan and Mr. Friar – are always on the move, with no roots to hold on to, no faith to guide them. Duddy, in his attempt to become a successful apprentice, dabbles in this world newly opened to him and in turn, loses his faith in traditional Judaism, the way of life.

Mr. Friar, a "vagabond" (116), is enshroud by pretentiousness and hypocrisy. Yet, Duddy chooses to make him his business partner and one of his masters for his apprenticeship. Lying about his past career, Mr. Friar convinces himself that he is indeed a notable film director. He tells Duddy that a documentary he had made for an Venezuelan oil company had won a prize in Turkey, but that "even though he had directed it his name was not actually on the picture for a dark reason he only hinted at" (115). He tells Duddy that he is on the FBI and the National Film Board’s blacklist due to his "left-winger" Communist ideals. Moreover, Mr. Friar is proud of his artistic abilities, though his films are definitely not of professional quality, as Mr. Cohen later discovers. Mr. Friar pretends to get angry when Duddy attempts to "interfere with his artistic expression" and he storms out of restaurants, so that he may elude dining bills. Albeit he criticizes Duddy for not treating women properly, Mr. Friar is a hypocrite. While on the job, he cannot "keeps his hands off Seigal’s daughter" (159). Duddy acknowledges that the Bernie Cohen’s bar-mitzvah is being turned into "some circus" (147), but knowing he can swindle the Cohens out of their money with Mr. Friar’s Happy Bar-Mitzvah, Bernie, Duddy plays along with the latter’s ridiculous filming of the event. Rabbi Goldstone, the minister presiding over the bar-mitzvah, forsakes traditions. He makes "sure to send copies of his speeches to all the newspapers and radio stations" (147) and, upon viewing the screening of the event, says, "A most edifying experience…A work of art" (159). If Duddy had any piety at the beginning of the bar-mitzvah, he lost it all during Mr. Friar’s filming of the event.

Mr. Cohen, for whose son Mr. Friar created Happy Bar-Mitzvah, Bernie, knows Duddy lies "through [his] ears," yet he wishes to see Duddy get a start on the film business (124). He even aids Duddy with his lies, "If you’re going to see Seigal now about his boy’s bar-mitzvah you have my permission to say you’re making one for me. Tell him I’m paying you $2000" (125). Allowing Duddy to make a sideshow out of his son’s bar-mitzvah, Cohen not only accepts mediocrity from Duddy and Friar, but he continues to make deals with the boy – such as the scrap deal with Calder – and to patronize Duddy, "Some kid. Some operator you are"(202). Having nearly gone to jail himself once, Cohen further encourages the young entrepreneur to conduct business without remorse, " ‘My attitude even to my oldest and dearest customer is this,’ he said, making a throat-cutting gesture. ‘ If I thought he’d be good for half a cent more a ton I’d squeeze it out of him. A plaque on all the goyim, that’s my motto. The more money I make the better I take care of my own…’ "(267). Duddy obviously takes heed of this advice and forges Virgil’s cheque, so that he may buy land for his zeyda.

Mr. Calder, too, is an egocentric individual whom Duddy meets during his apprenticeship. Material wealth is important to Calder, and he lives in a "Yankee Stadium" (196). Calder does not care that his daughter had an abortion, but he is interested in how Duddy got into the film business at the age of nineteen. Duddy then must earn his apprenticeship from men such as Calder, who merely likes Duddy as an amusing companion. Jerry Dingleman, the Boy Wonder, is also a man Duddy looks up to. Max’s tales about Dingleman rising from selling bus transfers to owning a chain of nightclubs and Simcha’s declaration that "a man without land is nobody" urge Duddy to pattern his life after his hero, the Boy Wonder. Dingleman is but a heroin smuggler who uses Duddy for trafficking drugs. He takes the boy to see a corrupt play and he does not lend Duddy money when he begs him for it. Ruthless like Duddy’s other business contacts, Dingleman too uses Duddy for his own amusement, for he feels that the boy’s business ideas are outrageous. When Duddy first visits the Boy Wonder, he sees that the latter intimidates others. Whether or not the boy realizes it, he masters Dingleman’s callousness in the treatment of his employees. Heading towards bankruptcy, Duddy fires many secretaries and acts rudely towards his clients. He is sarcastic towards his former friend, Cuckoo Kaplan, and he ignores his creditors. Unthinkingly, Duddy successfully mimics those who are crippled emotionally and psychologically.

Max Kravitz does not think much of himself or of his youngest son; he introduces Duddy to his friends, "Duddy’s a dope like me" (23). As a father, he seems ignorant to the perils his son faces though he acknowledges that Duddy’s a "BTO" and "a real trouble maker" (27). In fact, he’s proud of Duddy’s big dreams, and he loves to repeat the adventures of the rich Boy Wonder to others and exaggerate his closeness to the legendary character of St. Urbaine. When Duddy buys all the land he wants, Max relays the tale of his son parallel to that of the Boy Wonder’s, although he knows that what Duddy has done does not make the zeyda happy. Max seems to be satisfied with mediocrity and he even endorses it: at Duddy’s graduation, Max says proudly "atta boy, Duddy, atta boy" (66) even though his son graduates third class with failures in History and Algebra II. Furthermore, Max is not nurturing as a father at all. He does not write to Duddy when his youngest son went to work in the Laurentian mountains, but wrote to Lennie every week when the latter worked as a camp counsellor. Max never corrects Duddy’s mistakes but simple tells his son that he’s afraid Duddy will embarrass him or that when he loses his temper, he loses his temper. At other times, Max even nourishes Duddy’s sex-crazed personality – when Duddy lies about his nightmare and says he dreams of "screwing this broad," Max says "That’s my boy" (127). Emotionally and psychologically immature, Max is unable to contribute positively to Duddy’s apprenticeship although he is Duddy’s father.

Lennie, Duddy’s older brother whom Duddy is proud of, is no good role model. He wins scholarships but later begins to deteriorate in his studies and in his personal relationships. Lennie become an "assimilationist" (167) and "Jewish boys and girls aren’t good enough for him" (168). Casting his roots aside, Lennie hangs out with Sandra Calder, an "Outremont whore" who is the "daughter of a war-profiteer" (169). The rich higher-class crowd lures Lennie, and he is also tempted by Irwin, who promises him a summer holiday in Maine. Lennie insults his girlfriend Riva and other Jews, thereby renounces his Jewish faith. By this time, he is an emotional wreck. With no strong foundation in his culture or faith, Lennie performs an illegal abortion on Sandra, risking his medical degree – something that he has devoted his life to. Knowing that he will disappoint his Uncle Benjy who foots all his education bills, Lennie blames his failures on his uncle and calls the latter a "boozer"(175). Not only is Lennie ungrateful to the one who has helped him the most, but he criticizes him as well. Older siblings leave impression on their younger siblings. Duddy, who admires Lennie, unwittingly absorbs some of his brother’s ungrateful behaviour.

Uncle Benjy is not truly a cripple, yet he does not have time for Duddy. Duddy may be right in seeing his uncle’s non-presence in his apprenticeship to life, "You lousy, intelligent people! Writing and reading books that make fun of people like me. Guys who want to get somewhere. If you’re so concerned, how come in real life you never have time for me? …You never take your hand out of your pockets to a guy like me except when it’s got a knife in it"(244). Benjy does not like seeing his past life in Duddy’s, for he remembers well when he had to chase after every penny. However, in order to distance himself from Duddy’s financial exploits, Benjy does not care for anything that Duddy says and Duddy, when his uncle’s nearing his death, spills out his feelings, "I wanted you to like me. You treated me like dirt"(245). In the end, Duddy does not heed his uncle’s words either – he allows his "brute inside" to overpower him and forgets all about becoming a gentleman, a mensh. Simcha is not a cripple either, but he is entrapped in poverty. He know no other life than to toil under harsh conditions and, by telling Duddy that "a man without land is nobody," and not explaining fully to the boy what he means, Simcha fires the boy’s imagination and lust for land.

Surrounded by emotional and psychological cripples, Duddy mistakens his goals in his apprenticeship and does not complete what he should do in order to become a complete person. Duddy’s peers, business associates, and family members all have distorted views of how to approach life, therefore they are unsuitable to preside as Duddy’s masters in Duddy’s apprenticeship in the field of life.