The Plot Against America From The Perspective Of New Historicism

As a living literary legend, Roth is a prolific writer and almost wins all the literary awards. His work, The Plot Against America published in2004, when the American presidential election campaign is progressing and the impact of9/11attacks still lingers in America, arouses great attention and endless associations among people. The novel is named as one of the ten best books of2004by New York Times. This thesis will attempt to analyze The Plot Against America from the perspective of New Historicism.Chapter one is an introduction which introduces Roth study and literary reviews about The Plot Against America at home and abroad and points out that domestic studies on his works begin to focus more on social and cultural significance of the novel. On the other hand, studies on Roth and his works are still the hotspot in the foreign academia.Chapter two analyzes Roth’s historical perception through two main aspects. Firstly, it gives an introduction to his three historical novels which are also called "American Trilogy", and indicates the revelations of Roth’s historical perception in these novels. Then, analyzing the application of New Historicism to interpret the novel is feasible from three aspects. Firstly, the different historical perceptions between Old Historicism and New Historicism are briefly stated. Secondly, The Plot Against America as a fictionalized historical text is discussed. Lastly, The Plot Against America is the fruition of Roth as a practitioner of New Historicism. The above analysis leads to the finding that there are similarities between Roth’s historical perception and that of New Historicism.Chapter three explores The Plot Against America with the application of New Historicism. Firstly, the theoretical origins, characteristics and five assumptions of the theory are briefly stated. Then, analyzing the novel in detail with the "textuality of history" and the "historicity of texts" put forward by Montrose is presented. With the application of the textuality of history, Roth’s histories and the historical framework of the novel are constructed through the analysis of main characters including Philip, Herman, Sandy, Rabbi Bengelsdorf and Evelyn. With the application of the historicity of texts, the combination of social and political background in which Roth writes his novel and his fictional creation is shown. It is evident that contemporary social and political atmosphere, including racism in the American society, the act and actions of Bush’s administration after the9/11attacks as well as the demolition of human rights, exerts a great influence on the creation of the novel.Chapter four discusses the rhetoric devices of The Plot Against America from the perspective of New Historicism. At the beginning, replacing "New Historicism" with "Cultural Poetics" is to put emphasis on the linguistic analysis, which naturally leads to the exploration of two prominent rhetoric devices, i.e. metaphor and irony.Chapter five is a conclusion which stresses Roth’s important literary status once again and illustrates the specific position of the novel in his writing stage and finally points out the realistic significance of The Plot Against America.