Manischevitz Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs

From the beginning Manischevitz is presented as a character who has lost his self-identity and has morphed into a hopeless human being after his entire world has collapsed. Manischevitz’s life crumbled and disintegrated after the tragic closure of his business, the unexpected lost of his son and daughter, and the deterioration of his wife’s, Fanny, and his own health. Abraham Maslow, psychologist, created a psychological theory, known as “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” in which describes the stages of growth of a human being and how human motivation generally moves. As the reader discovers more about the character Manischevitz it is discovered that his Maslow’s hierarchy has tore down in its entirety. His self-confidence, faith, and sense of who he is vanishes as …show more content…
Bernard Malamud, the author, presents his readers with several minor characters, each contributes, in some form, towards Manischevitz’s self-discovery and help him gain a better understanding of what it entails to be Jewish. The first character that Malamud introduces into the story, other than Manischevitz, who serves as a guide to the main character’s understanding and exploration of his self-identity, is the angel, Alexander Levine. Levine is rather an unconventional character; he is presented as a “black” angel and claims to have been “willingly” Jewish, which implies that he has either switched religion or is dead and “disincarnated into an angel” (Malamud 46). Nevertheless, it is never confirmed either possibility whether Levine is actually Jewish or dead. Although, when Manischevitz questions Levine’s race, he challenges Levine by saying, “If you are a Jew, say the blessing for bread.” In effect the angel, “recited it in sonorous Hebrew” (Malamud 47), which makes it as the clearest confirmation that identifies Levine as Jewish. Regardless of Alexander Levine’s race, he has arrived to