Existential Anxiety In Philip Roth's The Human Stain

Philip Roth is one of the most outstanding writers in America literature in the20^th century.As a Jewish writer,it is inevitable that his work involves in Jewishness,mainly exploring the living condition and challenges confronted with American Jewish in real life.Roth likes to represent the culture and moral in a critical way at first.His later work,The Human Stain,is not confined and limited to the problem of Jew but the living condition and dilemma of human beings in modern society in America.He made a deep representation of inner anxiety of characters.This anxiety is existential,not only the anxiety of Jewish,but also that of whole humankind,which is of great significance.Philip Roth finished the creation of American Trilogy in his twilight years.The Human Stain is the last one of American Trilogy in 2000 which completes his splendid trilogy that begins with American Pastoral?1997?and I Married a Communist?1998?.The novel is well accepted and is awarded PEN/Faulkner Award in 2001.It is an exquisite and profound novel,which tells the tragic story of a college professor Coleman Silk,a black man who pretends to be white so as to pursue a better life development,discussing various moral conditions and its impacts deeply,revealing the dilemma and suffering of modern people.It is the dilemma and suffering which leads to existential anxiety.This thesis aims to analyze the symptoms and reasons of existential anxiety of the main characters in this novel and try to find the solutions of the anxiety to provide a possible reference to modern people.The contents of the thesis are as follows.Introduction part introduces Philip Roth and the literature review on this work abroad and domestic briefly.Critics and scholars have studied The Human Stain from various perspectives,such as identity and tragedy theme analysis,cultural or moral and ethical criticism,intertextual study,and writing techniques in the perspective of narratology etc.Rollo May,as the father of existential psychology in America,his thoughts enlighten modern people deeply.His concept of existential analysis and existential theme involves with the common psychological problem of anxiety,which provides a theoretical framework for this thesis.Chapter One analyzes the symptoms of existential anxiety reflected on the main three characters in details.Professor Silk's generalized anxiety disorder reflected in the self-denial,which is the main anxiety in the novel;Social anxiety disorder on Faunia is obviously presented through her collapse of relationships and selective mutism;the Vietnam-war soldier Lester's specific phobia to war was revealed by means of his extreme emotion to specific environment.He cannot go out of the shadow of war and construct relationship with others.His indifferent attitudes towards his wife and children reflect his pessimistic and nihilistic attitudes to life.The dualism of Lester's existential anxiety is duality in psychological and physiological aspects.All these anxieties give rise to indelible influence on the characters and caused their tragic life.Chapter Two explores the etiological factors of the main characters from the perspectives of tragic realities and tragic illusions.Professor Silk's anxiety is closely related to the social realities.Racial discrimination influenced his pursuit of study and love,which lead to the self-denial of the professor;Faunia's anxiety originates from her miserable childhood experience.His step-fathers deformed sexual abuse and distrust of her mother caused her desperate attitudes toward the world.As for Lester who came back from battlefield,trauma of war has been normalcy to his life.It is doomed that he cannot live like an average person.Impact of war deepens the anxiety and he is unable to control himself.Consequently,he goes to the extreme and becomes a murder.The third chapter analyzes the character's behaviors and their efforts to eliminate the anxiety.May holds that there are two methods of dealing anxiety,including destructive way and constructive way.It is easy to find that the main characters adopt destructive way to deal with anxiety.Silk hid his real identity of black man as a Jewish to win success,but finally being accused of involving in racial discrimination.It is a ridiculous and tragic life.Faunia chose to escape from the past and hid her memories.It is in vain for the soldier to go to extreme in violent way,which he may get temporary quiet while it is impossible to get out of anxiety permanently.To some extent,he is also a victim either.Disguising and escaping are the ways they use as principal measures.While it is proved that these two ways cannot solve the problem of anxiety,instead cause a tragedy even worse.Finally,we get the conclusion:In The Human Stain,Roth expressed his concentration on the destiny of human beings.His thought on humanity not only reflected on revealing the evil and stain,but also analyzed the reasons of the stain.In a word,the development of society makes human beings have various anxieties,and these anxieties lead to the modern tragedy.