Which of these excerpts from "The First Seven Years" by Bernard Malamud best exemplifies the desire to improve one's socioeconomic status? He couldn't exactly recall when the thought had occurred to h

Which of these excerpts from "The First Seven Years" by Bernard Malamud best exemplifies the desire to improve one's socioeconomic status? He couldn't exactly recall when the thought had occurred to him, because it was clear he had more than once considered suggesting to the boy that he go out with Miriam. Max inquired about the price, and the shoemaker cleared his throat and asked the boy, above Sobel's insistent hammering, would he please step through the side door there into the hall. "Ever since you went to high school," he said, in the dimly-lit hallway, "I watched you in the morning go to the subway to school, and I said always to myself, this is a fine boy that he wants so much an education." He was a stocky man, poorly dressed, with a bald head that had once been blond, a severely plain face and soft blue eyes prone to tears over the sad books he read, a young man but old—no one would have guessed thirty.