An Interpretation Of Trauma In Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America

Philip Roth’s work The Plot Against America (2004), in which he depicts an alternate fate of American Jews that F. D. Roosevelt was defeated in presidential election by Lindbergh in1940attracts much attention. The author Roth imagines the history of America from June1940to October1942based on real historical events. In the novel, the history of America is combined with that of a Jewish family, so most existing literature at home and abroad analyzes the novel from the perspective of history. The novel reveals the impact of catastrophic anti-Semitism on Jews, Jewish family and American society through the narrator’s memories; in this respect, trauma becomes one of the most important themes of this novel. This thesis attempts to focus on the trauma in this novel from traumatic images, trauma symptoms and traumatic theme.This thesis is composed of three parts:introduction, body and conclusion. The first part provides a brief introduction to Philip Roth and his major works and studies of The Plot Against America at home and abroad and clarifies the relationship among trauma, memory and this novel to analyze traumatic essence hidden in the novel.The body part consists of three Chapters. Chapter Two states the traumatic images in The Plot Against America which are demonstrated by the figure of speech of metaphor. Firstly, images of stump and ghosts in the cellar can be seen as the epitome of universal Jews’sufferings. Secondly, metaphoric codes of the social public are embodied by Philip’s stamp album and Lindbergh’s America. The former is associated with American value and the latter is related to the shadow of fascism in Germany in post-WWI era and contemporary America.Chapter Three illustrates the trauma symptoms of the narrator presented via multiple narrative strategies of textual form to further present traumatic psychology and create atmosphere of trauma in this novel. Intransitive writing simultaneously demonstrates the narrator’s desire to express his traumas and his traumatic emotions; the superposition of narrative time implies the compulsive repetition of traumatic memories; the focalization of a child defamiliarizes what the narrator witnesses and experiences to obtain approval of traumatic experience from readers; the application of free direct speech presents original psychology and utterance of characters to imply traumas awaiting them.Chapter Four analyzes the traumatic theme of The Plot Against America. It includes three aspects: individual trauma, familial trauma and social trauma. Firstly, combined with psychoanalysis and trauma theory, individual trauma is directly embodied in how Philip and Alvin face their traumas and deal with them; secondly, familial trauma is demonstrated through the fall of a Jewish father’s authority and how a Jewish family ruptures under political persecution via the concept of "triangle" from family system theory; thirdly, social trauma is firstly presented via Jews’ identity as Other, which indirectly accelerates the progress of anti-Semitism. Emotional disturbance from Lindbergh, which reveals the weakness of the loss of sanity and blind worship, evolves into social riots leading to traumatic calamity of society. Either Jews or non-Jews become victims of Lindbergh’s anti-Semitist policy.The last part is the conclusion. Based on the analysis above, this thesis interprets and reveals Roth’s awareness of history and contemporary international situation through the interpretation of trauma in The Plot Against America. Through the depiction of Lindbergh’s America in his writing, Roth mirrors hegemonism and power politics of contemporary America and suspects its decision-making around21st century with the practice of representation of Jewish potential trauma in the past. With the trauma reaching to the aspect of society from that of individuals, Philip Roth’s spontaneous sense of responsibility, morality and crisis both as a Jew and an American intellectual is also presented. Therefore, the trauma in the novel is beyond the level of Jewish trauma. Roth’s introspection of weakness in human nature on the level of social trauma provides the possibility of exploring universal situation of human. In a sense, the writing of traumatic memory can be exactly viewed as that of human experience.