Deconstucting The Grand Narrative Of American Individualism: A Cultural Reading Of The Human Stain

This M.A. thesis analyzes the disillusionment of American individualism in Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain.My Introduction first discusses the significance of this topic. The disillusionment of American individualism in Roth's novel versus a lack of critical attention to it impels me to explore such an issue. Then, I investigate the theoretical definitions of "American Individualism". Finally the significance of my viewpoint, that is, to analyze Roth's novel from the perspective of American individualism, is pointed out: embodied in the lives and struggles of a few individuals in The Human Stain are the allurements, damages and disintegrations of the official grand narrative of individualism which remains a major theme in American literature.Chapter One gives a brief account of the individualism at the very core of American culture. I trace back the line of the individualist myth and concentrate on the theories of three individualism advocates: Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Rawls and George Kateb.Chapter Two analyzes the four main characters' disillusionment of individualism in The Human Stain. Coleman Silk and Delphine Roux are victims of the individualism in the "American-Dream" style. And Lester Farley shows the individualism incarnated in a common American veteran. Even the individualism in "self-abhorrence" style, illustrated by Faunia Farley, cannot escape the tragedy of disillusionment.Chapter Three claims that minor characters in The Human Stain also suffer the disillusionment of individualism. Then I analyze the background setting of the whole novel, for example, ex-president Bill Clinton's sex scandal with Lewinsky; the Athena College in which the story takes place is the microcosm of America.The thesis concludes with a panorama of American individualism in American literature, to seek a literary tradition for American individualism and to further emphasize the significance of American individualism in American literature and even American culture, that is, the allurements and disillusionment of American individualism.