On David Kepesh’s Alienation In The Professor Of Desire

As one of the most prominent writers in American literature, Philip Roth focuses his much attention on characters’ inner world. As a Jewish writer, he does well in describing how Jewish people in his works try to integrate into American culture. Roth’s novel The Professor of Desire(1977) is about the growing-up journey of David Kepesh who is a Jew born in America. The author of this thesis divides Kepesh’s alienation into three parts: the confusion he faces living between two different cultures, Kepesh’s pursuit of sex when he is a youth and the hesitation he feels when he decides to return to Jewish tradition. As a son of first Jewish immigrants, Kepesh’s growing up is always accompanied with the feeling of alienation from himself and others.Based on close reading the novel, Roth’s The Professor of Desire and Freud’s pleasure principle and reality principle, this thesis is going to focus on the detailed analysis of Kepesh’s alienation at different stages. By doing that, the thesis tries to state that alienation from the Jewish tradition is a common phenomenon among the second-generation Jewish Americans.