On Place Identity In Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America

In his novel The Plot Against America,Philip Roth（1933-2018）,a well-known contemporary Jewish writer and critic in America,imagines that Lindbergh becomes the President of the United States from 1940 to 1942,and that his anti-Semitic policies cause social unrest across the country,leaving American Jews a strong sense of alienation.The Jewish community is experiencing a crisis of transformation and disintegration as a result of the United States’ aggressive assimilation strategy,which is accompanied by changes in human-place connections and the possibility of the collapse of American Jewish place identity.The word “place” is not only the backdrop to events and activities,but it also serves as the foundation for people’s identities and spiritual sustenance.It has not only geographical meaning,but also humanistic and social psychological connotation.This thesis,through close reading of the novel,aims to demonstrate that Jewish Americans’ place identity is a part of their self-identity and the two are inseparable.The present thesis consists of five parts.After the introduction,the first chapter analyzes the reasons that cause Jewish American’s placelessness in The Plot Against America.The central authority and economy results in Jews leaving their community and changing their relationship with the place.They lose their sense of belonging and attachment.Anti-Semitism intensifies the characters’ sense of placelessness and alienation.With the gradual loss of their original sense of place and the dissolution of their place identity,the Jewish American face the identity crisis.The second chapter points out that different place experiences can influence the formation of place identity.Place and identity are interacted.This chapter gives a detailed analysis of characters’ place experiences and their corresponding adjustment of place identity,and their place identity shows instability and differentiation.Positive place experiences may enhance a character’s sense of attachment to the place,while negative experience will cause him an uncomfortable sense of place.The third chapter explores the characters’ reconstruction of place identity in three places — country,community,and family.With the support of American Creed,Jewish characters reconstruct their identification with America,which is,in fact,based on the love of the place.The ethnic identity of Jewish Americans is preserved through group settlement,so the reconstruction of place identification with the community depends upon rootedness.Besides,in the novel,some young people,after experiencing identity crisis and self-reflection,reconstruct their place identity in home,which becomes a refuge from crisis.Finally,this thesis comes to the conclusion that in the plot against america,through describing the Philips’ emotional changes to the United States,Jewish community and family,Ross expresses his own thoughts on Jewish immigrants’ construction of place identity in the new era.The construction of identity is closely related to a place and the sense of place,which contributes to the psychological significance of place.In this multicultural world,ethnic reconciliation brought by place-based identity construction has newer significance.