The Bottom of the Barrel

One would think that the idea of a matchmaker for a young Jewish Rabbi might sound absurd to our generation. But know it is quite common these days for young adults to register themselves online in order to find a suitable spouse.

I was recently informed that there are specific matchmaking sites for every different ethnicity or religion, for example J-Date. Think match.com or e-harmony, but specifically for Jews. It is crazy what people will go through in order to find a spouse.

Bernard Malamud’s cute tale entitled The Magic Barrel has many creative nuances for the reader to pick up on. For example the character of Salzman, who plays the matchmaker. He almost reminds the reader of a used car salesman. This must be why Malamud names the character Salzman, because it sounds almost like salesman.

One also has to wonder why Malamud chose to entitle his story The Magic Barrel. There is no mention of any type of barrel anywhere in the entire story. To me the meaning of the barrel might refer to the expression “the bottom of the barrel.” This is what people usually say when they are referring to something as someone else’s leftovers. This might be used to describe Salzman’s daughter in the story. She is a woman who is not as innocent as women were supposed to be at this period in time. She might be considered one man’s leftovers and Finkle chose her from the bottom of the barrel.