In the book The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler, Duddy Kravitz is the
apprentice to life in order to find out the truth about himself. Different characters
come in and out of Duddy's life and act as masters towards him. These people all have
specific lessons to teach him, and it's up to him to either act upon what he's learned or
ignore it.
Duddy Kravitz is a young man whom we can say is being an apprentice to life. What he
needs to do is to discover the truth about himself and how to apply it to his life. His
quest through his apprenticeship is to find his true identity and to succeed in the goals
that he sets for himself. By being an apprentice to life, Duddy is learning about how to
be different types of people by imitating their personalities. When he comes out of
apprenticeship and becomes a man, Duddy has to decide on one type of person to be for the
rest of his life. Duddy's Uncle Benjy tried to explain this and make it clear to Duddy in
his letter by saying, "A boy can be two, three, four potential people, but a man is only
one. He murders the others." (p.279) I think that this was the best advice he ever got,
but he didn't need it; in the end he allows himself to become the con-artist, the sly
scammer person without even realising that he had a decision in the matter.
Simcha, Duddy's grandfather, was the person whom Duddy looked up to and wanted to please
because he was the only one who truly respected and loved Duddy. It was also Simcha who
planted the dream for land into Duddy's head when he said to him, "A man without land is
nobody." (p.101) In Duddy's apprenticeship, Simcha is one of his masters who teaches
Duddy about striving for something and having the determination and perserverence to
achieve in life. What Duddy failed to hear or understand was that the achievement of a
dream would mean nothing if it wasn't achieved honestly and fairly, respecting the rights
of others.
By being an apprentice, Duddy is allowed to make mistakes because he is just learning.
One of his first mistakes was only listening to half of what Simcha was saying and
becoming obsessed with his dream. His single-minded pursuit of his dream caused him to
destroy and trample on people like dirt and without thinking in order to get what he
wanted.
A good example of this is what Duddy did to Virgil. "Duddy took a quick look at Virgil's
bank balance, whistled, noted his account number and ripped out two cheques. He forged
the signature by holding the cheque and a letter Virgil had signed up to the window and
tracing slowly...Duddy's heart began to bang as soon as he entered the bank, but nobody
questioned the signature on the cheque, and so he rushed down to his own bank with it and
deposited it there. Rushing into the house, he announced, "I've got the money.' "
(p.304)
Yvette, Duddy's girlfriend, who greatly aided Duddy in his pursuit of the dream, tries to
help Duddy understand relationships. Yvette is Duddy's first serious girlfriend and, in
my opinion, is very tolerant and forgiving of Duddy. She puts up with all of his faults,
the way that he uses her and even helps him by going out of her way to do him favors like
driving to and from Ste-Agathe constantly. In her head, she drew a line, and Duddy was
finished when he crossed it. He came close many times even right at the very beginning
when he tries to bribe her with money by saying, "If you promise me that I'll give you
fifty dollars." (p.100) This shows that Duddy needs to learn a lot about his emotions; he
has a very materialistic viewpoint on life, thinking that money brings happiness and that
you can't go wrong if you're rich. So, he uses money to try and buy respect, forgiveness
or whatever it might be that he's trying to win back.
When Duddy finally crossed the line by such a huge margin by robbing Virgil, Yvette knows
that every value she's tried to instill in Duddy was mutated and deformed by his dream
which had became like a mind controlling disease, and she leaves him for goo. She tried
to teach him about relationships, love and also about responsibility when she said, "I
want you to know all the details. You're not going to get off easy...You knew it was
dangerous. I warned you...There's no getting around it. You're to blame. " (p. 246) She
knows that in order to love someone else, one must love oneself first, so she tries to
reflect back to Duddy and image of himself by telling him what he does to make her mad
and pointing out his mistakes like an instructor would. However, Duddy never learns from
his mistakes because he never sits down and thinks about what kind of person he is and
how he could change to become a better person. Yvette was a teacher on the subject of
love and relationships with Duddy as the student who unfortunately failed her class.
Dingleman is another one of Dudd'ys masters who teaches him about competition. The idea
of competition makes Duddy work and strive even harder than ever to achieve his goal. He
has to be first in making down payments and in order to be first he sacrifices the
importance of people. Duddy doesn't know when the competition is over and reality kicks
in. At the end of the book, Dingleman introduces reality to Duddy when he stated, "Alone,
you'll never raise the money you need. With my help we could turn this in a model resort
town in five years." (p.310) Duddy is so lost and confused with his ideas that he can't
deal with reality, so when Dingleman puts forth his proposition to become partners, Duddy
kicks him off of his land. With this action, the dream of his resort will continue to
flourish and prosper in Duddy's mind, but will stay trapped in there forever. We know
this because of how the book ends. Duddy is still proud of his land and thinks that it
will benefit him because of how he was treated in the coffee shop.
In the end, Duddy doesn't discover the truth about himself because his land still means
something to him. He comes out of apprenticeship by becoming one man who is corrupt and
selfish, but is the man he chose to become by not listening to his good or positive
masters. Duddy is ready to face the world because he is not longer an apprenticeship and
has achieved his goal even though he sacrificed his morals, the respect of others and his
conscience, to do so.
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