The Short Stories of Albert Maltz
Classic Examples of American Protest Literature
The short stories of Albert Maltz are representative of the finest social protest literature the US has produced. As a Jew Maltz was sensitive to minority issues, but his Jewishness did not play any significant role in his fiction. As a short story writer, Maltz was concerned with the human condition generally rather than with the Jewish-American condition. Nor was his political commitment obtrusive. Several of his short stories are classic examples of protest or proletariat literature.
The Happiest Man on Earth
“The Happiest Man on Earth,” which won the O. Henry Award, has the existential theme of a man creating a purpose out of an absurd situation. Jesse, who has been out of work for six years, begs his brother-in-law Tom to hire him to drive a truck carrying nitro-glycerin to the oil fields. Nitro is highly volatile, and the slightest bump in the road might reduce the driver and everything in the truck to ashes.
This has just happened, which is why Tom has a vacancy on his driving staff. Jesse chooses to test death’s patience rather than allow his family and himself to face further hunger and humiliation. Tom will not hear of this at first but finally capitulates as Jesse persists. Given the job, Jesse whispers to himself: “I’m the happiest man on the whole earth.” That is something a man should say when his proposal of marriage is accepted, not when his wife’s brother reluctantly grants him the chance to blow himself up.
Man on a Road
In “Man On a Road,” the unnamed narrator gives a ride to Jack Pickett, a miner who “was like a man in a deep sleep” and turns out to be dying from silicosis. At the end, the semi-literate Pickett asks the narrator to rewrite a letter to his wife. In the letter, Pickett tells his wife that he left because he was dying from lung disease and did not want to be a burden on her. He says that he will continue to work and send her money until he “caint work no mohr.”Again a man asks another man for a favour he shouldn’t have to want.
“In me” says the narrator, “there was only mute emotion – pity and love for him, and a cold, deep hatred for what had killed him.” It is easy to see the theme of social protest in “Man On a Road” or perceive it as an example of proletarian literature, for it is unsafe working conditions within the heartless capitalist system that have “killed” Pickett.
Afternoon in the Jungle
In “Afternoon in the Jungle,” a fully grown man fights a boy over a half dollar and sheds tears when he loses. A fifty-cent piece has dropped out of a subway passenger’s pocket and rolled through a grille. Thirteen-year-old Charlie is trying to retrieve the coin with a string and a piece of gum when a homeless man with more experience and skill at such tasks offers to get it and split the fifty cents with the boy. Charlie adamantly refuses. He was the first to notice the coin, and it is his booty.
The drifter begs him to share with him because he “ain’t found a thing” that day. Once again, a character who shouldn’t have to do so is asking for a favour. Making no impression on the boy, the man gives up and leaves, saying “If you was ten years older you’d understand. If you was ten years older I could talk to you.” Charlie stands puffed up with victory -- an empty victory, for it has grown dark and he can no longer see the fifty-cent piece.
Protest on the Screen
Maltz’s protest literature reveals itself, if not very explicitly, in several of his screen plays. One of them is Pride of the Marines, released in 1945 to become one of the most successful films of the 1940s. The script for Pride of the Marines told the essentially true story of Al Schmid, a marine who had been blinded at Guadalcanal in 1942.
In the film, the Schmid character is reintegrated in civilian society through the love of a woman. Maltz’s liberal-radical sensibility glimmers in a hospital scene where Schmid, played by John Garfield, listens to a GI saying: “Now that I am going home, I’m scared. I wasn’t half as scared on Guadalcanal as I am now. If a man came along --anybody -- and told me I’d have a decent job for the rest of my life, I’d get down on my knees and wash his feet.”
Sources:
Dick, Bernard F. Radical Ten: A Critical Study of The Hollywood Ten. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1989.
Maltz, Albert. Afternoon in the Jungle: the selected short stories of Albert Maltz. New York, Liveright, 1970.
Salzman, Jack. Albert Maltz. Boston: Twayne, 1978.
Albert Maltz
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