earticle

영어

This paper explores Philip Roth’s unique interweaving of personal and historical narratives in his later fiction, particularly focusing on his autobiographical information couched in his “American Trilogy” (American Pastoral, I Married a Communist, The Human Stain). Foregrounding the Vietnamese War, the Cold War, and racism and feminism deeply saturated into personal daily lives in contemporary America, Roth crisscrosses the grains of contemporary American history. His singular way of representing the shattered lives of middle-class Jewish families in connection with grand historical narratives is often explained as a postmodern narrative strategy by critics as well as readers. With this understanding, however, this paper tries to critically distance away from Roth’s utilizing of his own autobiographical indignation toward certain events and people in his apparently fictional representation of individual lives fragmented by grand historical events. Particularly, his anger against his ex-wife and her exposé of their broken marriage might be understood as a direct narrative desire propelling the main storylines of I Married a Communist and The Human Stain. Though this privatization of history for personal outburst of private indignation might be explained away as a narrative strategy, Roth’s staunch conservatism and anti-feminism cannot be explained.