The impact of Duddy's family on his apprenticeship. ("The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravit" by Mordecai Richler)

The impact of Duddy's family on his apprenticeship

The world we live in is far from being perfect, and there are many things in our lives that we can never change, no matter how hard we try. The division of the people into the higher and the lower class existed at any point of the human history, whether it is the Egyptian Pharaohs versus the ordinary farmers in the ancient Egypt, or the rich and successful businessmen versus poor workers today. And one is wrong when he thinks that he can easily move form the lower class to another.

In "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz", Duddy, the protagonist of the novel is a part of the lower class, he is only a high school graduate. But Duddy doesn't need any higher education to quickly understand that money is one of the biggest differences between the lower and higher classes of society.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (novel)

Sammy Duddy

English: Fuddy Duddy

Throughout the whole novel, he tries to jump from the lower class, leaving his family behind, into the higher class. Finding money for buying land becomes his main quest. He wants to become rich and powerful and refuses to believe that his fate was decided even before he was born. Max's anecdotes about Jerry Dingleman, the local gangster, who starts with twenty-five cents in his pocket and becomes rich within a month, highly influence Duddy's behaviour.

Max doesn't think much about Duddy and believes that Duddy has no other future but becoming a taxi driver, just like himself. "Duddy's a dope like me" (23), Max says, while introducing his younger son to his friends, and then adds that Duddy is "a real trouble maker"(27). And it seems that Max doesn't really care about Duddy's education: at Duddy's graduation, Max proudly says "atta boy, Duddy, atta boy" (66),