Z. Goldstein - Crit. Response #5

The Model by Bernard Malamud

This story plays on notions of control within the context of inter-personal events. In the beginning the old artist (or so we are led to believe) displays levels of control as an employer to his employees often does. He is paying for the privilege of painting a beautiful nude female form. The model will be paid in kind and thus, it is a typical power-exchange relationship defined by a transaction for goods or services rendered. The model lends her body to the old man for purposes (supposedly) of artistic expression.
The model is a keen observer in this tale and soon she figures out that the old man calling himself “artist” may be disingenuously promoting the façade of his painting simply in order to feast his eyes on the nubile young flesh of an innocent maiden. The author leaves it rather ambiguous as to whether her suspicions are entirely correct or valid but nonetheless we know that the old man is not a ‘real’ professional artist and thus he may have ulterior motives bordering on sexual perversion.
Control is exchanged when the model calls him out, exposing him and questioning his true reasons for gazing upon her naked body. Now she has the power and the ‘artist’ is on the defensive. It is a very realistic and believable portrayal of a power exchange scenario, taking a simple premise built upon human conceptions of sexual need, desperation, fruitless desire for companionship, and fear of death in solitude. It makes one contemplate what the old man is going through and perhaps garner a bit of sympathy for his situation. However, it is understandable why the model reacted as she did.