The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

A taxi driver and occasional pimp, Max has raised his two sons alone after his wife, Minnie, passed away in the boys’ childhood. Max makes no pretense of playing favorites. Lennie is the repository of all of Max’s hopes and dreams. It is unclear if Lennie ever really wanted to become a doctor or if Max chose that path for him. Max holds very little hope for Duddy, who he believes is unintelligent and unruly. Though Duddy does in fact try to win Max’s respect and love, Max is blind to this. Even toward the end of the novel, when Max gives Duddy some desperately needed money for his land purchase, he does this because Lennie has asked him to, and Max opines that he’s probably just throwing money away by investing in Duddy.

Duddy’s older brother is the antithesis of Duddy. Whereas Duddy is freewheeling and individualistic to a fault, Lennie is weighed down by feelings of guilt and responsibility to his family. He works earnestly and to the best of his ability at school, desperate to achieve the dream that his father has selected for him, of becoming a physician. Lennie is desperate to please his peers, too, as evidenced by how quickly the popular Gentile students manipulate him into performing an illegal abortion. After making this mistake, he runs away rather than face those he has disappointed. 

The sad tale of Duddy’s history teacher is featured as the opening segment of the novel. MacPherson began his career full of optimism, ready to inspire and change young lives. Students like Duddy take the passion out of his job, though, and transform him into someone he never wanted to be, the kind of teacher who would hit a student. MacPherson begins drinking after the death of his wife, an event Duddy contributed to when his prank call drug MacPherson’s seriously ill wife out of bed and prompted her to collapse in a coronary. MacPherson bears many resemblances to the character of Virgil, Duddy’s loyal friend who is important at the end of the book. Both are noble minded and devoted to doing the right thing and doing right by others. Both are also scammed and manipulated in profound ways by Duddy.

Duddy’s uncle is a successful businessman, the good son of Simcha, in contrast to Max, the pimp and taxi driver. Benjy has spent the majority of his life trying to please his stoic immigrant father. He has made careful financial decisions and lived an honest and upright life. Benjy’s greatest challenge and disappointment is that he and his wife were not able to have children. Benjy tells the world it is because he is impotent, but his wife, Ida, has a different story—that it is really she who is barren and that Benjy is indifferent because he is more focused on being an obedient child to his father than fathering a child himself. Benjy is devoted to Lennie, who he sees as a sort of surrogate son and in whom he takes great pride. Benjy has a tense relationship with Duddy, who he views as a money grubber and backstabber. In a posthumous note, Benjy encourages Duddy to be his best self, to extinguish the smallness and greediness in himself and live an honest life. Unfortunately, Duddy is deaf to this advice.

The serially-unfaithful wife of Benjy, Ida is a secondary character who functions mostly to provide a different view of Benjy and the Kravitz family. According to Ida, who likes to play psychologist, the whole family engages in extreme emotional manipulations. Benjy, she says, has manipulated her, refusing to divorce her and have children with someone else. Simcha manipulates the rest of the family because, though they all seek his praise and love, he remains stoic and unresponsive. When Benjy is diagnosed with cancer, Duddy goes to find Ida, who has taken off with a much younger man. Duddy is able to bring her back home, though Ida remains convinced Benjy got cancer on purpose to make her feel guilty.

Irwin is a fellow waiter at the hotel where Duddy works over the summer. Irwin is affluent and a college student, like most of the other waiters. He is constantly trying to knock Duddy down a few pegs and make him feel blue collar and insignificant. He succeeds in this to a point. He thoroughly humiliates Duddy at a rigged roulette game and later manages to win over Duddy’s brother, Lennie, which further enrages Duddy. But when Duddy’s land purchase is made official, Irwin is on the scene, and Duddy chases him off for trespassing.

Linda is the daughter of the owner of the hotel where Duddy works over the summer. She is of a different social class and world than Duddy, and her friends include artists and intellectuals. She goes out on a date with Duddy but leaves with another man during the middle of it. Her friends laugh at Duddy’s crassness, and later she participates in humiliating Duddy at a roulette game hosted by Irwin.

Though Duddy simply thinks of Yvette as his Girl Friday, Yvette is devoted to Duddy. On a date with her, Duddy first visits the site that he becomes obsessed with purchasing. Yvette helps him work out the practical details and negotiate the purchases. She supports him in each step of his film-making ventures, even when she believes he is making a miscalculation. She plays wife to him as well as secretary and maid. Her labor is invisible, though, despite the fact that Peter Friar, Duddy’s business partner in his filmmaking endeavors, and Virgil, Duddy’s loyal friend and employee, both admire her enough to pen poems to her. Duddy’s mistreatment of Virgil—when Duddy gives Virgil, who suffers from epilepsy, a job too dangerous for him and later when Duddy steals from Virgil—becomes the final straw, ending their relationship.

Jerry Dingleman is a legend in Duddy’s neighborhood, the boy who made good, the Boy Wonder. Max brags about knowing Dingleman personally and offers to introduce Duddy. Dingleman is uninterested in helping Duddy and sends him away at first. After realizing how naïve and desperate Duddy is, Dingleman uses him as a drug runner, asking Duddy to cross the US-Canada border with a suitcase of his. Duddy doesn’t ask what’s inside because he is too interested in his financial compensation to pose any questions.

When Duddy decides to become a more cultured person in order to meet more affluent members of society, he comes into contact with Friar, a washed-up filmmaker who still has a considerable ego and dreams of grandeur. Because of his eccentric personality and his drinking habit, Friar is unable to get work anywhere else. Duddy cedes all artistic control of their movies to Friar and is able to get Friar to produce many productive numbers before Friar eventually disappears, taking some money and cameras with him. Before he leaves, Friar professes his love to Yvette and asks her to marry him, which makes Duddy laugh rather than inciting his jealousy.

Calder is an unlikely contact for Duddy, one firmly outside his usual social circle. Duddy meets Calder when he goes to ask Calder to keep secret Lennie’s performance of an illegal abortion on Calder’s daughter, Sandra. Calder is not inclined to listen at first but ends up feeling begrudging respect and even amusement toward Duddy. He takes a fatherly interest in Duddy, offering financial backing but wanting to also hear what Duddy is up to and offer advice. Ultimately, Duddy only wants the money and ends up burning bridges with Calder when he refuses to play along and participate in the surrogate son relationship Calder desires.