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"The Assistant" Malamud (End Of 3Rd Chapter)

"THE ASSISTANT" MALAMUD (end of 3rd chapter)

The scene that we are going to study appears at the end of the third chapter: after having had an argument with
Ward Minogue, Frank Alpin comes back to the grocery. Here he look secretly at Helen in the bathroom and manages
to see her naked. Earlier in the same chapter the readers learnt that the sympathetic Frank Alpine who helps
Morris Bober is also a thief and responsible for the robbery of Morris at the beginning of the novel.
Frank Alpine is almost the main character of the novel, as he is "the assistant", and the conflict of his changing mind
is among the main conflicts of the novel.
How does this passage gives the readers the whole complexity of Frank Alpine's personality?
To begin we'll see to what extent is Frank Alpine a complex and tortured character, then, in a second part, we'll
see how did Malamud manage to make Frank Alpine sympathetic to the readers.

Throughout the novel Frank Alpine is torn between the man he would like to be and the one he is when he does bad deeds.
This aspect of his complex personality is quite obvious in this excerpt of the novel. Before managing to look at Helen's naked
body, as he attempt to get a view of the bathroom, we can see that Frank experiences several different feelings.
At the beginning of the excerpt, his weakness clearly appears: "Frank struggled against himself but not for long".
Here the reader is not sure yet about what is going to happen, but the fact that Frank struggles against him appear as
a clue as to what Frank attempt to do. We can guess that it will go against the new way of life that Frank would like
to follow, having Morris Bober as an example. Another clue about his weakness also appears at this moment: "His heart shook
him with its beating". Here we can see that he is really
affected emotionally, and his emotions seem to be stronger than his nous,
he knows that he shouldn't attempt to look secretly at Helen in the bathroom but...