Absurdity And Free Choice:An Existentialist Interpretation Of The Human Stain

As one of the most distinguished contemporary American writers, Philip Roth,through his works, probed profoundly into American society and humanity and explored the ultimate questions about this society and hence the entire human beings.The Human Stain is one of his latest and best works. It won Philip Roth numerous awards since its publication, including the National Jewish Book Award and Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2001. As the last book of Roth’s American Trilogy, The Human Stain reflects the social conflicts of American society from several aspects and introspects the origin of the absurdity of human society.This thesis interprets Philip Roth’s classic work The Human Stain from the perspective of Sartre’s Existentialism and tries to take a glance of the darker side of human nature.Roth is a novelist known forhis philosophical thinking in his works and this fiction echoes with Sartre’s existentialist ideas in all dimensions like character,plot, narration and diction. This thesis will interpretthe absurdity and agony of human society depicted in this fiction and character’s choices in such social condition to comprehend Roth’s thinking about human society and human nature.This thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter briefly introducesPhilip Roth and the fiction. And Sartre’s Existentialist ideas used in this thesis are briefly demonstrated in this part.The second and third chapters are the body part of this thesis. By close reading and analyzing, the text is interpreted with Sartre’s Existentialism. The second chapterstates the absurdity and agony of modern American society which were projected in this fiction. According to Sartre’s view, each individual is absolutely free to choose,which results in the competition among the individuals. Also, because of the incapacity of communication and understanding, each individual is conflicted with each other and is alienated from each other, which makes the world full of absurdity and agony.The third chapter explores the common feature of the character’s free choices:self-denial. The characters always made choices that denied the past of themselves.Consequently their lives are always oriented to the future, which made them trapped into nihility.The fourth chapter is the conclusion of the thesis. The human stain is blended into humanity. As long as one individual exists, or, makes choice in human society, he can not be free from the human stain.