In Bernard Malamud's The Assistant, Frank Alpine is a man plagued by a disparity between his internal desires or ideals and his actions. He struggles with his tendency to steal and his inability to control his physical desires. Although he idolizes moral or holy men such as Saint Francis or the generous and self-sacrificing Morris (the grocery store owner for whom he is the assistant named in the title), his harsh early life and self-defeating habits prevent him from being the man he dreams of himself as. This conflict is the moving force of the novel, and it is only when the internal conflict is turned public that he can move to be the man he strives to be.

Frank is introduced to us as a man with a bad past who is on the move upward. The first signs of his fatal flaw show themselves when Frank...