An Analysis Of The Human Stain From The Perspective Of New Historicism

Philip Roth is one of the most influential contemporary Jewish American writers. He is regarded as a living literary legend in America. The Human Stain published in 2000 is the last book of his famous “American Trilogy”. In the next year, Roth was awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award for the novel. This novel involves the real historical phenomena such as race discrimination, Lewinsky-Clinton scandal, Vietnam War and relates to a series of social subjects such as race, war, gender and moral, etc. The multiple themes embodied in the novel and complex writing technique used in the novel have aroused scholars’ discussion from various perspectives, including historical representation. But most of the studies concerned with history just have a little mention of The Human Stain among Roth’s several historical novels. Few scholars analyze the novel from New Historicism systematically.New Historicism emphasizes the interaction between history and text. In Montrose’s words,that is textuality of history and historicity of texts. Textuality of history means that only with the selected and subjective texts can people access historical facts and only with the texts permeated with subjective conscious of writers can historical facts be represented. Historicity of texts means that all forms of texts are not autonomous aesthetic entities but products of certain historical contexts. Besides, the existence of text is a historical event. This thesis tries to interpret The Human Stain from the perspective of New Historicism hoping to reflect the insightful themes of the novel and Roth’s historical consciousness.By examining the historical phenomena mentioned in the novel such as political correctness,persecuting spirits and Vietnam War, this thesis expounds the great influence of these complicated political and cultural phenomena upon the characters’ fates in The Human Stain and points out the characters are the sacrificial lamb to history. Meanwhile, this thesis explains the historicity of the novel. In addition, by analyzing the experiences of the marginalized characters,this thesis points out that racial discrimination is the root of Coleman’s race passing and patriarchy is the crucial reason that drives Faunia to choose to be independent prematurely and live a rebellious life. This thesis expounds that both of the characters’ choices are actually their subversion to authority but both their subversive activities are contained by the dominant discourse and end up with failure. Thus, this thesis believes by describing the histories of marginalized characters’, The Human Stain reflects textuality of history.This thesis consists five parts. Chapter one is introduction including the life experience of Roth and his literary position in America, the plot of The Human Stain, the purpose, significance and framework of the thesis. Studies on The Human Stain are presented and the perspective of this thesis is put forward as well. Chapter two explains the theory of New Historicism. Chapterthree explores Roth’s insightful understanding upon the historical phenomena involved in The Human Stain according to the assumption of historicity of texts. Chapter four from the perspective of textuality of history, this thesis analyzes the histories of Coleman and Faunia,expounds the description of the histories aims at exposing the historical truth to readers, and criticize the injustice of the society. Chapter five is conclusion. From the analysis above this thesis hopes to provoke some deep thinking upon the human nature and the complexity and hypocrisy of American society among readers.