"Anti-American Conspiracy" "probable History" Writing Research

Philip Roth is one of the leading Jewish American writers.He experienced such historical events as the Long Island bombing,the Bay of Pigs incident and the My Lay massacre in Vietnam,to a certain extent,made him always question the official history of the United States,form his specific historical concepts,and create a unique historical writing form in his novels.The “alternative history” fiction The Plot Against America is the most subversive of official history among his many historical novels.In the book,Roth reversed the outcome of the 1940 U.S.presidential election,allowing the Nazi anti-Semitic pilot Lindbergh to defeat Roosevelt and become the33 rd president of the United States,turning the United States of 1940-42 into a Nazi state.Roth envisages an “alternative” past in which the United States became a Nazi state,showing the plight,betrayal and redemption of American Jewish characters living there.By reversing the outcome of the 1940 presidential election in the United States,the Nazi anti-Semitic pilot Lindbergh defeated Roosevelt to become the 33 rd President of the United States,turning the United States from 1940 to 1942 into a Nazi state.In this extreme political context,Philip Roth explores the psychological problems of American Jews,such as identity disfigurement and war trauma,and shows his consideration and concern for the spiritual problems and future destiny of American Jews in the “post-Holocaust era”.This paper begins with an account of Philip Roth's view of history and the development of the American “alternative history” novel,followed by a detailed reading of the text to analyze the narrative content and artistic techniques of The Plot Against America's “alternative history”,from “Psychological-the lingering shadow of the Holocaust”,“Ethnic-the Jewish internal chaos”,“Social-the racism of American society” three perspectives,provides a comprehensive analysis of the real situation and dilemma of Jews in American society.At the same time,it is pointed out that while introducing post-modern fictional techniques,Roth also persists in traditional realism,such as the iceberg principle,which gives The Plot Against America not only a fictional atmosphere of “alternative history”,but also a core of realism and post-modernist aesthetics.The Plot Against America is an artistic result of Philip Roth's unique historical view.Although written after World War II,the novel simulates the lasting psychological and spiritual trauma inflicted on American Jews by the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.The struggle and loss of the Jewish ethnic group in the book still has a strong reference significance to the current ethnic issues in the world.In the last chapter,the author points out the practical significance of the “alternative history” in The Plot Against America from three aspects of “psychology”,“ethnicity” and“society”,echoing the previous analysis.Through his reflection on family conflicts,Philip Roth reached a new height in his thinking on Jewishness and showed a reverse return to the traditional Jewish culture and thought.Through the real experiences of ethnic minorities under the “alternative history”,the historical and social roots of the“massacre” are further revealed.It also provides a reference for the new generation of Jewish writers to jump out of the narrow nationalist concept,to think about the disaster past from the perspective of universalization,and to make the Jewish historical novels from the edge to the center successfully.