The Interpretation Of Roth’s Subversive Writing In The Collection Goodbye, Columbus From Hall’s Cultural Identity Concept

Philip Roth is one of the most famous contemporary American writers. He is also a Jewish literature giant following Malamud, Singer and Bellow. It has been more than 60 years since Roth published his first novella Goodbye, Columbus in 1959. He has established his significant status in American literature by lots of popular books.In the collection Goodbye, Columbus, Roth uses subversive writing to depict Jewish characters’ rebellion from different aspects, and expresses his sarcasm to the dark and pedantic factors in Jewish tradition. This thesis takes Roth’s early masterpiece the collection Goodbye, Columbus as an example, and analyzes Roth’s subversive writing to the characters, and then explores the causes of Roth’s subversive writing.Chapter One is the introduction which summarizes the content of Goodbye, Columbus and the studies of Roth’s works which are conducted by the domestic and foreign scholars.Chapter Two introduces the concept of the cultural identity in Stuart Hall’s diaspora theory, and discusses the diaspora’ identity confusion which is brought by the "oneness" and the "difference". Meanwhile, it analyzes the application of Hall’s fluid concept of the cultural identity to the literature. The application is to solve the problems of "how we have been represented" and "how we might represent ourselves". Chapter Three analyzes the specific representation of Roth’s subversive writing in the stories. By showing the characters’ rebellion against the traditional Jewishness, Roth describes the collisions between the traditional Jewish culture and the heterogeneous culture, and expresses his reflection of the Jewish cultural identity. Chapter Four explores the causes of Roth’s subversive writing from the following four aspects, the influence of writer’s experiences, the intrinsic defects of Jewry, the external pressure from the gentile world and the exploration to enhance Jewish identity.By subversive writing, Roth tries to represent the real images of Jewish people. Meanwhile, Roth shows his desire to improve Jewish self-consciousness.However, Roth’s characters usually behave their extreme rebellion against the Jewish tradition, hence they cannot be considered as the representatives of all the Jewish immigrants in American society completely. It also shows some limitations of Roth’s works to some extent.By the analysis of Goodbye, Columbus, it could be found that Roth tries to use the method of subversive writing to remove the resignation in Jewish spirit and to prevent the Jews from the gentiles’ persecution and discrimination. Although there are some limitations in Roth’s works, Goodbye, Columbus is a kind of literary representation which explores for the Jewish cultural identity of his nation and himself in diaspora context in the early stage of the Roth’s creation.