Return Of The Protagonist’s Identity

The Human Stain was written in 2000, which was Philip Roth’s anothergreat works. No sooner had the novel been published than it was listed amongthe American top 10 best books of that year by The New York Times BookReview. The second year after its publication, the book was conferredPEN/Faulkner Award as well as PEN/Nabokov Award in 2006. He won theseawards because he created a series of works in the nature of permanentoriginality and perfect skills.The novel is set in America in the 1990s. Because of a paradoxical wordused in class，Professor Coleman, about 70, is charged as a racist. After thefollowing forced resignation and the death of his wife, maligned Coleman isexposed having a love affair with a young janitor, Faunia Farley. A series ofevents have Coleman suffer from all kinds of hatre, including from Faunia’sex-husband, a Vietnam wounded veteran. As a result, Coleman is driven intoimpasse by rumor, an anonymous letter and a spoorer. There are conflicts andcollisions of all kinds of elements permeating in the novel, like race, identity,individual and era, chance and fate. With Coleman’s continuous degeneration,the fragments intertwined with the principal line indicate that Coleman is not aJew as he declares but a black“of a light yellowish skin”. Moreover, Faunia isnot an illiterate, etc. The conflicts and the collisions make the plot of the novelmore confusing. The novel represents the whole life of Coleman Silk and the lifeof his grandeur from rise to fall till death. The novel leads to the profound themeof morals and existence, and deeply probes into and discloses the diasporas’existence situation in western societies through the application and sublimationof Jewish elements. The existence confrontation of the diasporas is actually thereal portrayal of the existence tragedy in the western society.Developing in the background of economic globalization in the 1990s,diaspora criticism is an interdisciplinary theory that studies social, economic andcultural phenomena of the diasporas. At present, the fields of study on diaspora criticism mainly involve three aspects—the confirmation of diaspora identity,transnational culture flows caused by the diasporas and diaspora issues in thecontext of globalization. Issues on cultural identity and pursuit of identity are thecore used for studying diaspora criticism. Comparing with the history and thedistinctiveness of Jews and combining with the protagonist’s consciousness andcharacters in aspects of appearance, behaviors and religious beliefs, this thesistries to confirm the protagonist’s identity, and analyze the reasons, the outcomeand the significance of the protagonist’s pursuit of his identity by revolving twokey words―cultural identity and pursuit of identity in view of DiasporaCriticism. To be exactly, the protagonist, Coleman wishes to be identified byAmerican society and achieves oneness, stability and continuity as people in themainstream. The problem of identity and pursuit of identity of Jews or Blacks isnot the cultural dysphoria of the local nation, but the attitude of White Societytowards“Others”, which is universal. Therefore, the study of this thesis has aguiding effect on these series of problems.