Malamud ' s The Fixer is a novel which was written in a time of extreme prejudice
             and inequality. Malamud fought this struggle in a very powerful way - through writing.
             Perhaps the strongest styles he used to fight against the Jewish oppression are irony, and
             the use of dreams and hallucinations.
             Irony is an overpowering force in Bernard Malamud's The Fixer. The sequence of
             events which Yakov Bok goes through makes the entire novel ironic. The chief irony of
             the novel lies in the fact that what Bok is attempting to escape, he cannot escape. To
             understand the irony in the novel, it is necessary to examine two major events in the
             circular life of Yakov Bok. Bok is attempting the escape his life in the shetl. He is wrongly
             persecuted for a ritual murder and attempts to escape his physical and mental torture. In
             each case, Bok is attempting to escape his Jewishness. The novel has an overall ironic
             Bok leaves the shetl in which he has lived the majority of his life to go to Kiev. In
             Kiev Bok hopes to find opportunities for work and education. Mainly, though, Bok seeks
             relief from his earlier shame of being cheated on by his wife. While in the shetl Bok sees
             himself as a victim of his wife's barrenness. The irony lies in the fact that that even after
             escaping the shetl and being in a different kind of hell, prison, Bok's life in the shetl comes
             back to haunt him. Bok learns of a child that Raisl has had with her lover and gives his
             bitter sentence of "a black cholera upon her" ( Malamud 254 ). The one thing that might
             have given him happiness in his life before has now gone to someone else. This event
             brings Yakov shame that he could not father a child with Raisl while another man could.
             Thus, the problems of the shetl which Bok has tried so desperately to escape have come
             back to haunt him once again. Bok's life is very circular.
             Later in the novel, Raisl visits Yakov in prison in an attem...