A Portrait of Women in Philip Roths American Trilogy

Christy Irosemito Universiteit van Amsterdam Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen Engelse Taal en Cultuur 30 juni 2008 Dr. R. Eaton (begeleider)

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Table of contents
Abstract ..........................................................................................................................3 Introduction....................................................................................................................5 Chapter One: Feminism vs. The Feminine Ideal .........................................................11 Chapter Two: Girl Power Gone Sour...........................................................................22 Chapter Three: Female Sexuality in Relation to Male Desire and Love .....................31 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................38 Works cited ..................................................................................................................39

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Abstract
At the turn of the century, Philip Roth published three critically acclaimed novels exploring America as an idea, America as a promised land, America as a refuge within the historical context of Post-WWII America (Royal 186). In his own words Roth has said about this collection: I think of it as a thematic trilogy, dealing with the historical moments in postwar American life that have had the greatest impact on my generation (McGrath). Hence, these novels are also dubbed Roths American Trilogy, and it is comprised of the novels American Pastoral (AP), I Married a Communist (IMaC) and The Human Stain (HS). A familiar figure in Roths fiction returns as the narrator. It is Nathan Zuckerman, protagonist of the Zuckerman Bound trilogy and epilogue and the stand-alone novel The Counterlife, who acts as a mediating consciousness (McGrath) evoking in near mythic terms the rise and demise of his high-school idol Seymour the Swede Levov, his Communist mentor Ira Ringgold, and his neighbour and friend Coleman Silk. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, 1950s McCarthyism, and Bill Clintons impeachment, the tragedies of these main characters unfold. Seymours idyllic life becomes a shambles when his daughter develops into a radical anti-Vietnam War revolutionary known as the Rimrock Bomber. Iras wife Eve Frame frames him by exposing him as a Communist during McCarthys heydays. And Coleman ends his successful career in disgrace when spurious charges of racism and abuse raised against him escalate. spurned on by Delphine Roux, his young female successor as dean of faculty. It is clear that women play an important role in the downfall of the male protagonists. In a quest to discover who these women are and what point Roth is trying to make with them, this project is divided into three chapters. The first chapter focuses on feminism and the feminine ideal. The second chapter is about the

Irosemito 4 combination of girlhood and power, and the third and final chapter discusses female sexuality in relation to male desire and love. All three chapters combined make up a portrait of women in Philip Roths American Trilogy.

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Introduction
Saying what people dont necessarily want to know about in serious writing, has become, for better or worse, a trademark of Philip Roths fiction. In Writing about Jews he says that fiction is not written to affirm the principles and beliefs that everybody seems to hold, nor does it seek to guarantee us of the appropriateness of our feelings (446). Any political correct cause is therefore treated as a casualty of war against, to use a phrase from The Human Stain, the fantasy of purity (242). Roths unwavering dedication to the human comedy and all of its delights, excesses and mishaps has won him critical acclaim--Roth has won more than 20 awards including a Pulitzer Prize and a National Medal for Arts--but also vehement criticism. From within the Jewish community he has been accused of being a self-hating Jew. The renowned literary and social critic Irving Howe crushed Portnoys Complaint by saying that the cruelest thing anyone can do with Portnoys Complaint is to read it twice (74). Nevertheless Portnoys Complaint catapulted Roth into literary superstardom. It is the ultimate exercise of male erotic energy gone haywire and it offered Roth a tremendous sense of artistic liberation. Ever since, Roths focus on the male psyche and mans sexual appetite has resulted in a body of work that has made Roth one of Americas most distinguished novelist of all time. By unapologetically prioritizing male desire, Roths female characters have primarily been assigned inconsequential parts as (potential) sexual partners. In the article Breast Man Linda Grant complains about this recurring pattern in Roths oeuvre when she says: For Roth, women are always the art, never the artist; always to use a term from the feminist 1970s the sexual object rather than the sexual self. Grant refers to mainstream feminist theory where sexual objectification of women is said to be degrading, and promoting inequality between the sexes. As a matter of fact,

Irosemito 6 feminists have been among Roths most fervent opponents during his career. They have repeatedly accused Roth of misogyny, and even an admirer of Roths fiction like Stephen Amidon has branded his work as phallocentric. Alix Kates Shulman, early radical feminist activist and writer of fiction, essays and memoirs, argued that Roths When She Was Good (1967) is a male-oriented novel that neglects the female point of view (qtd. in Lee 78). Observations like Shulmans must have been particularly scathing because When She Was Good stars Roths only female protagonist to date. In a more recent review by Linda Grant, The Wrath of Roth, she says that if ever there was a misogynist, Roth is one. Apparently, she doesnt know anyone who understands more about men than Philip Roth, or less about women, thus calling into question the verisimilitude of his female characters. This point of view is shared by Amidon, who says that it is true that his (Roths, mine) female characters can often appear rather less than human. Grant emphasises her complaint when she argues that women, as usual, are either loyal helpmeets or uppity shrews. At the same time, she finds it hard to criticise Roths approach to women as she argues that: To come to Roth with the weapons of feminist criticism to read him as Kate Millet might have done in her groundbreaking analysis of D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller in Sexual Politics (1969) seems churlish, brutal and reductive. Male desire is, after all, the point. Yet Grant is adamant. There is in him a dark distaste for women, she says, a repugnance that can only be described by the word misogyny. Roth has always rejected his portrayal as a woman-hater. For example, when Sara Davidson asked Roth in 1977 how he felt about the media accusing him of misogyny, he sarcastically replied:

Irosemito 7 A misogynist? The rabbis used to tell me I was an anti-Semite, and an old-line American patriot from Manhattans West Side has suggested in print that I am really anti-American, and recently a letter about The Professor of Desire from a homosexual accused me of fag-baiting and of writing heterosexual trash. I guess you cant fool all of the people all of the time. Someone cagey out there is always going to see through what kind of son of a bitch you really are. (3) Clearly his sarcasm here demonstrates that Roth wholly disagrees with the accusation, and in his fiction he has retaliated by subjecting his most fanatical feminist critics to point-blank satire. For example, in the guise of narrator Nathan Zuckerman, he says: From what hed read of reviews in the feminist press, he could expect a picture of himself up in the post office, alongside the mug shot of the Marquis de Sade, once the militants took Washington and began guillotining the thousand top misogynists in the arts. He came off no better there than with the disapproving Jews. Worse. () Those girls meant business wanted blood. (Zuckerman Bound 372) By associating the feminist press with the kind of bloodthirsty barbarism connected with the guillotine, Roth laughs his feminist opponents off the stage. Roths provocative attitude towards feminists has undoubtedly influenced Richard Canning and Lorrie Moore to treat the main female characters in this trilogy as negative outpours of his alleged misogyny. For example, in Woman Trouble Canning has said that Merry Levovs portrayal could have emerged from the acrid pen of a Daily Mail staffer. She is an embarrassing clich () anti-war feminist, hates washing, etc. (48). He goes on as far as to say that a procession of unreliable, selfish or simply demonic women surround the male protagonist, and that therefore

Irosemito 8 American Pastoral defiantly celebrates its heros strength in the face of the castrating of the virtues he embraces (48). About I Married a Communist, Moore argues that the leading male characters all join forces to heap their disgust upon the female characters just a tad too soon. Here she suggests unfair treatment of the women by the male protagonists. She also claims that Delphines interior monologue is one of the weakest parts of The Human Stain and hatefully rendered. Canning and Moore have a point in thinking that some of the women are negative characters. After all, Merrys bomb kills an innocent man, Eve Frame writes a grotesque expos about her husband as a Communist traitor, and Delphine Roux successfully leads a sanctimonious crusade against Coleman to have him disgraced as a racist and a woman abuser. However, to conflate Roth and his literary characters in order to claim foul play by the author is something that Philip Roth would immediately retort with a quote from his novel Deception: "I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't" (190). In contrast to Canning, Marshall Bruce Gentry believes that American Pastorals real heroes are the women. Whereas Canning sees American Pastoral as a parable told against women, in Newark Maid Feminism Gentry maintains that American Pastoral contains a feminist subversion of its dominant male voices. He argues that the Swede accepts the injustices of capitalism, he doesnt genuinely love women, and he does not think for himself. Firstly, Swedes glove factories in New Jersey, the Phillipines and Puerto Rico are representative of the exploitation of underprivileged black, Asian and Puerto Rican labourers. Secondly, the name of the factory Newark Maid symbolises how Seymour likes to confine Dawn and Merry to the consensus ideology for women. Roths women do not want to be shaped to the

Irosemito 9 leather cutters pattern, artistic or not, Gentry says. Last but not least the glove making business that Swede loves, is also a metaphor for his obsession with skin. Ectoderm. Surface (AP 137). Swede Levov is a true believer of and the fulfilment of the American Dream. He is a champion athlete, ex-marine and the dutiful son who leads his fathers glove factory to new heights. So confident about his good fortune, Swede cannot see the demonic reality past the benign faade of America. Pitted against Merrys radical beliefs, Seymour Levov is forced to confront the falsity of his idealised view of America. In a similar fashion the other women from this trilogy challenge the male hegemony that dominates Roths fiction. By their actions, theyve pointed out the blemishes on the otherwise shining armours of the male protagonists. In I Married a Communist, Iras infidelity fore grounded his wifes betrayal. What Eve demonstrates is that Rothian heroes can no longer go on the prowl like they usually do, without expecting serious retribution by the lovers that they hurt on the way. In the case of Coleman Silk, his perceived faults stand in no relation to the secret that he has kept hidden from his family for 50 years. The reader knows that Delphines personal vendetta against Coleman bears no validity, but at the same time she confronts Coleman with the fact that his passing a Jew can have dire consequences. Not just for his career; however, but for all the people that are closest to him. The fact that his children dont bear the mark of his African-American roots he regards as a superior feat. His carefully selecting his Jewish wife for her head of wiry hair so that his childrens dark kinky hair could be attributed to her, he feels is a master stroke. However, Colemans act of hubris to cheat fate looms like a dark shadow over his childrens children. What if they will show the stain of Colemans racial inheritance?

Irosemito 10 Evidently, Roth has paid considerable attention to his female characters as they are not primarily passive objects of male desire like in most of his work, but active agents in the main plots. Extensive dialogue and interior monologues allow these women to voice opinions that define who they are, which is unprecedented since When She Was Good. I would argue that a closer examination of who they are and how they stand in relation to each other, the women reveal a profound social commentary on feminism, idealised female beauty, girlhood and female sexuality. Thus--irrespective of how much the women can be blamed for the male protagonists demise--Roth addresses friend and foe once and for all about his alleged misogyny.

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Chapter One: Feminism vs. The Feminine Ideal

The year 1968 is a pivotal year in American Pastoral. It is when Merry Levov detonates the bomb that destroys Seymour Levovs idyllic life. This is not coincidental, because 1968 is when the New York Radical Women (NYRM) mounted their first protest against the Miss America Pageant. It reached headlines worldwide, triggering new discussions on perceived attractiveness and gender roles. What is more, the NYRM wished to extend the critique of other radical movements (Civil Rights, antiwar, and the New Left) to include an analysis of womens oppression (Dow 130). They sought to end the Miss America Pageant, because they considered it to be the embodiment of female exploitation and a symbol of racism, capitalism and militarism as Miss Americas were always Caucasian women endorsing sponsored products and visiting American troops abroad (Kantrowitz 58). In the months leading up to the bombing, Merry and her parents have conversation after conversation about New York when she verbally abuses her parents about the injustices of patriarchy, capitalism and militarism that she feels are rife in her family. Much to her parents dismay, she also renounces all forms of physical health and hygiene in order to pledge allegiance to her newfound radical feminist beliefs. Encapsulating the conflict between the Miss America Pageant and the NYRM in private family drama, Roth examines the two opposing ideologies about femininity that each party represents. During the picketing of the Miss America Pageant in 1968, bras, fake eyelashes, girdles and other items of womens apparel were put into a so called freedom trash can to be burned, but local authorities did not issue a fire permit for the actual burning to take place. However, the pejorative term bra burning took form in the media to refer to the desperate bid for attention by neurotic, unattractive women who could not garner it through more acceptable routes (Dow 129). A new

Irosemito 12 stereotype was born that, according to Canning, served as the mould for the unsavoury portrayal of Merry Levov as an embarrassing clich. However, what Roth has done is to take the predetermined tale of the bra burner out of myth into the bitter reality for women like Merry who was the ugliest daughter ever born out of two attractive parents (AP 234). Despite her ungainly physique, Merry was expected to uphold the consensus ideology for the daughter of a beauty queen. Dawn monitored her clothes, her hair, her eating habits, and twice a week she went to ballet class. According to Parrish, Dawns obsession for the blandishments of a conventionally idealized American womanhood took over her daughters sense of self (92). To escape from the high expectations that Dawn placed on Merry, she invented a speech impediment. If I dont stutter, then my mother is really going to read me the riot act, then shes going to find out my real secrets, Merry confessed (AP 97). For the longest time, Merry tried her hardest to be pretty, charming and cute in the image of Audrey Hepburn instead of herself (AP 94). What Roth suggests is that odd sized Merry never really had a chance to be who she was. She was up against her mother and Audrey Hepburn, who symbolise an idealised femininity that is the breeding ground for bodily self-hatred. Therefore, it is no wonder that she could only be liberated by becoming the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the counterpastoral (AP 86). Merrys portrait showcases Roths sympathy for the radical feminists who opposed the Miss America Pageant. On the other hand, the 1968 demonstrations against the Miss America Pageant has also given Roth a platform to put his quarrel with hard-line feminists on the literary agenda. Feminist theory is founded upon the principle that women are being exploited and subjugated by a male dominated society. Roth challenges this tenet by suggesting that matriarchy can be equally if not more oppressive. This is

Irosemito 13 demonstrated by the troubled relationship between Dawn and Merry, and it is a theme that continues in the next book. Sylphid Pennington, like Merry, feels equally stifled by her mothers incessant emphasis on keeping up the appearances. Watching a movie with other Hollywood kids also required Sylphid to be dressed to the nines (IMaC 116). What was especially terrifying to young Sylphid however, was her mothers beauty regime. She told Ira: about all the girdles and the bras and the corsets and the waist cinchers and the stockings and the impossible shoes all that stuff they wore in those days. Sylphid thought how could she possibly ever pull it off. Not in a million years. The hairdos. The slips. The heavy perfume. She remembered wondering how this was all going to happen to her. (IMaC 116) The clothing items that are listed in this quote are typically the kind of things that the radical feminists discharged in the freedom trash cans at the picketing of the 1968 Miss America Pageant. For them as for Sylphid, womens apparel represented restriction, and confinement. Eve Frame who represented everything that is associated with Hollywood glamour to her audience, was young Sylphids walking nightmare. Roth has toyed with the idea of the natural competition between mother and daughter (AP 96) as early as Goodbye Columbus. Teenage Brenda Patimkim ostentatiously leaves her diaphragm lying around just to spite her mother. In American Pastoral however, the Levovs personal drama becomes political. Merry uses her lifelong frustration with her mother to launch herself into the indigenous American berserk of 1960s radicalism, just to be as far removed from her mother as possible. What Roth is trying to say is that matriarchy can be held accountable for all forms of female dissent, including feminism. To legitimise his claim, Roth returns to

Irosemito 14 Freudian psychoanalysis as he had before in Portnoys Complaint. Simply put, the theory of the feminine Oedipal attitude describes a daughters libidinal attachment to her father which leads to resentment towards the mother (Chodorow). At the age of twelve Merry appears to be inflicted with this complex as she managed to seduce Swede into giving her one incestuous kiss. Eventually, her crush on her father subsides, but the animosity towards Dawn solidifies until all feeling has turned to stone. Coldly Merry tells her father that she does not want to talk about her mother, but has no qualms confessing to her father the crimes that she committed, the lives that she took and the sexual abuse that she suffered during her years in hiding. In I Married a Communist Roth reiterates how mothers can be held accountable for all kinds of female rebellion as the mother-daughter relationship between Eve and Sylphid takes on self-destructive proportions. It all began when Eve Frame gave into her movie studios pressure to marry Carlton Pennington: fellow silent screen actor, notorious anti-Semite and homosexual. Eve however, chose to see only the rich, polo-playing, upper-class genuine aristocrat (158), modelled herself after his image, and even adopted his exaggerated aristocratic behaviour and his antiSemitic beliefs. As it turns out Eves rigorous restyling is inspired by an allconsuming self-hatred. Once known as the daughter of Jewish immigrants called Chava Fromkin, Eve Frame transformed herself into the great-granddaughter of English sailors from Bedford, Massachusetts. Her faade of English Genteel hardened into a form like layers of wax only burning right in the middle was the wick, this flaming wick that wasnt very genteel at all (IMaC 53). Her crime however, is not the delusional mock aristocratic Gentile persona Eve Frame, but her incapacity to stand up to the movie bosses, Pennington and later to her daughter Sylphid. According to Iras brother Murray Ringold, In America () you can allow

Irosemito 15 yourself every freedom but that one (IMaC 158). On the outside Eve is the realisation of America as the land of the free, but on the inside shes imprisoned by the same liberty she took to become Eve Frame. As a consequence, she is the laughing stock of the novel whose punishment it is to forever be the terrorised by her overweening, unweaned child Sylphid (IMaC 86). Eve Frame, and Dawn Levov are both different representatives of a consensus feminine ideal that Roth interrogates from without--by Merry and Sylphid--and from within. Eves story demonstrates that in Hollywood not all that glitters is gold. As for the former Miss America contestant Dawn, her tale is about what happens after the lights go out in Atlantic City. Her reasoning for entering the Miss America competition was to get the scholarship so that she could help out at home (AP 178). In other words, she wanted to compete in the pageant out of filial duty. As she would have it, the sacrifice and the suffering afterwards stand in no relation to the chance she took to win that scholarship. During a mental breakdown after Merrys disappearance, she lists her complaints as follows: she hated when people said that she should do things because of the way she looked, Swede put her up in a doll-like existence by making her into a princess; and the Miss America Pageant put her off her ambitions to become a high school music teacher (AP 178-179). She feels that she gave up her future by competing in the pageant, because at the time Miss America contestants were not expected to have ambitions beyond being a good housewife. Dawn breaks with that tradition by running her own cow rearing business, but despite her efforts she is still primarily judged by her daughter, her husband and her peers as the former beauty queen. This brings us back to the 1968 protests against the Miss America Pageant as Dawn seems to support the NYRWs cause.

Irosemito 16 There are, however, a few problems regarding Dawns rejection of the Miss America Pageant. Her credibility and character is challenged by several characters in American Pastoral. For instance, before Zuckerman began writing his version of the Levovs history, Jerry told him that Dawn was the first superbly selfish Mrs. Levov (AP 70). The Swede recalls how she delighted in competing for the title of Miss America. Even though she was devastated when it did not go to her, she couldnt stop reminiscing about how exciting it all was for months after the competition. Her troubled relationship with Merry also confirms that Dawn might put more value on decorum than anything else. Rita Cohen, Merrys revolutionary emissary, says that Lady Dawn of the Manor hated Merry for not being beautiful and petite like her. According to Rita, Dawn was so ashamed of her class origins she has to make her daughter into a debutante (AP 135). Moreover, Dawn went into the cow rearing business to get away from her beauty (AP 195); unfortunately the fact that the business was a total failure reaffirms common assumption that only averagely talented women compete in the pageant. Perhaps Dawn realised that she only has her looks to depend upon, which might be the underlying reason why she opted for a face-lift at the age of forty-five. Even her mental state of depression might be interpreted as evidence that Dawn is incapable of making any sound judgments. Whether or not one should believe Dawn or her critics is the result of Roths unorthodox fictional strategy of getting it wrong. Its up for grabs, Zuckerman says, as to whose guess is more rigorous than whose (AP 77). Adding to the confusion, the positions of all of Dawns critics are undermined. Jerry is painted as the lecherous surgeon, who overcompensated his unpopularity in high school with a surplus of much younger wives recruited from his staff. His understanding of women is therefore questionable. Swede is accused of loving Dawn as a thing (AP 274),

Irosemito 17 which supports Dawns complaint against her husband. Merry denies knowing Rita Cohen, so Ritas contempt for Dawn is unsupported. Even Merry herself cannot be trusted because of her extremist views first as an anti-war revolutionary, and later as a Jain. The effect of this strategy is that it is irrelevant who wins the argument, but that all sides of the argument are heard in the hopes of opening up new insights into the personalities of Roths literary characters. Roths deliberately declaring no winner in the case of Dawn Levov, reflects the ongoing debate about the nature of the Miss America Pageant. Under continued pressure of feminism, the organisation of Miss America stress the fact that it is no longer simply a beauty contest, but a scholarship pageant as it asks the audience to support the worlds largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women (Miss America). The official website of the Miss America Pageant states: Some people call her a beauty queen, we call her a scholar. What used to be the target of feminist protesters has become a symbol of the success of feminism according to Dow (142). Indeed, the pageant has become accessible to women of all creed and colour, and the controversial Swimsuit competition only makes up 15% of the total score as opposed to the 35% for the Talent component. Whats more, the women participating in this challenge are grateful to the pageant organizers for providing women in general a stage to showcase their beauty, talent and strength. Being a feminist and being Miss America is not mutually exclusive. On the other hand, the NYRWs objective to abolish the Miss America Pageant has never been obtained. This brings us to the last edition of this trilogy. Through Delphine Roths commentary of feminism reaches the 1990s. The various characteristics that made up Merry, Sylphid, Dawn and Eve converge into Delphine Roux. She is physically very attractive, she shares Merrys high IQ, and she has a passion for literature just like

Irosemito 18 Eve Frame. Her name is perhaps derived from Delphine, the title of a French novel published in 1802. It is about the limits of womens freedom in an aristocratic society, written by a French female author of noble birth. Just like her 19th century counterpart and her predecessors in American Pastoral and I Married a Communist, Delphine Roux experiences her privileged background as a burden. Her mothers and her familys prestigious achievements are especially hard to live up to, so Delphine emigrates to America to escape from the shadow of the Walincourts (HS 274). She considers herself to be a modern champion of feminism because she is highly educated, sexually liberated and emancipated because she daringly left France to make it on her own (HS 270). From the outside, Delphine seems to have benefited from all the new possibilities that the second wave feminists of the sixties have fought for: education, career opportunities and the freedom to find happiness wherever they please. However, Delphine Rouxs personal struggles lay bare the dark side of the feminist legacy of the sixties. According to Douglas J. Huffman and Susan Archer Mann, feminism is not innocent of dominating, exclusive and restrictive tendencies (56) that the NYRW sought to overthrow by picketing the Miss America competition. They argue that the second wave of American feminism was often blind to the ways its theories and praxis failed to adequately address the everyday concerns of women of color and ethnicity in the United States (87). This is exemplified by the hostility between Delphine and her American colleagues, which mirrors the dichotomy between AngloAmerican feminism and French feminism: Anglo-American feminists would be invested in seeking a woman-centered perspective and in defining a woman identity they believe women have been denied. French feminists, on the other hand, would be indebted to Simone de

Irosemito 19 Beauvoir and would believe that woman does not have identity as such but that the feminine can be identified where difference and otherness are found. (Gambaudo 96-97) Delphine discovers that once in America she cannot escape her Frenchness. She considers herself to be a literature loving intellectual, who also happens to like wearing leather, silk and cashmere. Her French love for fashion is frowned upon by her female American peers who all too strenuously seemed to want to desexualize themselves according to Delphine (186). At Athena college there are three female professors who are continually ridiculing her, because in their opinion she is such a parody of Simone de Beauvoir, (269) a sell-out feminist who panders to powerful males (271). They also make fun of de Beauvoirs system of idioms that Delphine has also picked up as a French feminist academic: Well, ofcourse, its her intertextual charm thats gotten her her following. Its her relationship to phenomenology. Shes such a phenomenologist ha-ha-ha! (270-271). Delphine in her turn indulges herself by calling these women Les Trois Grasses or the Three Greaseballs (272). She laughs at their ridiculous clothing and suspects that they must be envious of her good looks. Nevertheless, the Othering of Delphine is a sarcastic play on phenomenologist Simone de Beauvoirs French existentialist work Le Deuxime Sexe or The Second Sex (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). She is regarded as the mother of second wave feminism, because the principal argument of The Second Sex is based around the idea that throughout history women are treated as inessential Others, whereas men are the absolute Subject. As a consequence the term male chauvinist pig was born to refer to men with power who consider themselves superior to women. In this novel however, Delphine is the exotic Other and the

Irosemito 20 established, middle-aged Athena feminists the female chauvinist pigs who represent the Absolute from which an aberrant female like Delphine is excluded. This internal debate within feminism, and the conflict between the Miss America Pageant and the NYRW appear to suggest that in Roths opinion, woman cannot be defined within one universal framework. This point of view is perhaps borrowed from third wave feminists, who accuse second wave feminists of overemphasizing the experiences of white, middle-class, heterosexual women in America. Hence, while essentialist we or sisterhood of the second wave was ostensibly meant to unify the womens movement, instead it proved to be a painful source of factionalization (Archer 59). Delphines confused and contradicting behaviour might be the result of the inner conflict within the womens movement. How to assert her beauty, her brains, her femininity and her feminist convictions is a constant struggle: If she presented herself as pretty, she would be associating herself with a vague catchall category of women, and yet if she described herself, straight out, as beautiful, () then anyone other than a megalomaniac might be too intimidated to approach her or refuse to take her seriously as an intellectual. (260) She wants to attract men, but fears that asserting her beauty might be misconstrued for shallowness. She wants to oppose men, but is dying for male companionship. In other words, she is a feminist who also wants to be admired like a beauty queen. Sadly for her, she fails horribly to combine both into one. Neither feminism, the Miss America Pageant or Hollywood provide the right role models for American women. Instead, Roth proposes a new feminine ideal that can be found in Americas literary tradition. That ideal womanhood is represented by Faunia Farley, an illiterate janitor who lives in a small room on a farm where she

Irosemito 21 milks the cows to pay for her rent. Her ancestry is from a wealthy New England family, but struck by tragedy Faunia has chosen a simple life close to nature. Thus she tries to keep the human stain at bay. Her name also signifies her relation to nature. Sticking to the bare necessities makes life bearable for Faunia, and as a consequence she discarded literacy as a luxury even though she does know how to read. The simplicity, self-reliance and relative solitude of her Walden-like existence makes Faunia Farley a woman after Roths literary heart. Thoreaus Walden is a constant theme in Roths Zuckerman novels. It first appeared in The Ghost Writer, where young Zuckerman visits his literary idol E.I. Lonoff in his Walden-like retreat. Swedes American pastoral is also reminiscent of Waldens rural theme, as is Iras ascetic shack in Zinc Town. Zuckermans own hermetic existence in this trilogy and in Exit Ghost, is another reminder of Waldens enduring appeal to Zuckerman. Faunia Farley makes a worthy role model because she accepts the human stain for what it is, without revulsion or contempt or condemnation (HS 242). She dethrones Ira and Swede who in his youth commanded his admiration. Ira had the communist desire to overturn capitalism, but hypocritically lived with his mock aristocratic wife in uptown New York. Swede refused to acknowledge Americas demonic reality of the Vietnam War, and his luxurious lifestyle runs contrary to Waldens anti-capitalistic appeal (AP 86). Faunia has no illusions of an idealised America, and only takes from life what is essential for her survival. She asks herself: What is the quest to purify, if not more impurity? (HS 242). Thus Faunia stands as a champion of humanity, making her not just a feminine ideal, but a human ideal.

Irosemito 22

There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very, very good, But when she was bad she was horrid. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Chapter Two: Girl Power Gone Sour

Longfellows nursery rhyme There was a little girl has obviously been Roths inspiration for the novel When She Was Good, which was published in 1967. It is about Lucy Nelson, a young woman whose disappointment with the men in her life results in extreme moral ambition to reform them. When she was still a little girl, she had her alcoholic father arrested and imprisoned. Her obsession with goodness however, becomes a malignant cancer that progressively destroys her. At the time it was published, the novel garnered very modest enthusiasm, and reviewers were especially critical of Roths imagining of the female kind. For example, in Pity the Poor Wasps Wilfred Sheed says that Lucy Nelson bursts on the scene a full-blown bitch. He maintains that Lucy is forever a-twitch with nameless grievances; eventually, these become as frustrating to us as they are to her, (), pushing well beyond Roth's Ptolemaic projections into the female psyche. It seems that since When She Was Good, Roth has stuck to what he knows best: unravelling what makes men tick. However, with the publication of American Pastoral, I Married a

Irosemito 23 Communist and The Human Stain three decades later, Roth has shown a renewed interest in the female in a leading role. Despite the relatively meagre success of When She Was Good and heavy criticism on the portrayal of a female heroine, Longfellows little girl that was the inspiration for Lucy makes a comeback in the person of Merry Levov, Sylphid Pennington, and Delphine Roux. Lorrie Moore in The Wrath of Athena observes that Merry and Sylphid, are schoolgirls, and Delphine sometimes dresses like one. This is indeed one of the factors that links them and these three novels together. Moore proceeds her argument by suggesting that Roths imagining of girlhood is informed by a kind of pedophobia, because Merry, Sylphid and Delphine are spoiled and oddly dangerous to middle-aged men. This conclusion seems gratuitous, and is as fruitful a departure for character building as is eating soup with a fork, even though she is right by saying that Merry, Sylphid and Delphine have the power to be harmful to men. It is a conscious decision, not an abstruse mental illness, that inspired their creation. A clue in the right direction is provided by Derek Parker Royal who argues that all three novels show how individual identity embodies national identity and how the forces of history American history, specifically threaten to overtake personal freedom and individual agency (189). The correlations between Merry, Sylphid and Delphine will demonstrate how the schoolgirl as a national identity is an effective vehicle for American history to manifest itself in private drama. It is already established that one of the similarities between Merry, Sylphid and Delphine is that they are young; however, they are related in more ways. Sylphid is in many respects Merrys parallel and foil. They are both two girls from privileged backgrounds, half Jewish and half goy, who unlike their parents are not stunningly beautiful. Instead, they are fat and graceless. Sylphids name means little sylph, a

Irosemito 24 kind of elfin fairytale creature. Ironically, Sylphids bulky frame has the semblance of a wrestler wrestling the harp when she plays her instrument (IMaC 138). Merrys name is equally ironic. At only sixteen, Merry adopts angry, left-wing radical ideology and all the contemptuous disregard for the established body politics that comes with it: Vehemently she renounced the appearance and allegiances of the good little girl who had tried so hard to be adorable and lovable like all the good little Rimrock girls renounced her meaningless manners, her petty social concerns, her familys bourgeois values. She had wasted enough time on the cause of herself. (101) Merry starts to binge-eat on fast-food and stopped all practices of elemental hygiene like brushing her teeth and combing her hair. She became large, a large, loping, slovenly sixteen-year-old, nearly six feet tall, nicknamed by her schoolmates Ho Chi Levov (AP 100). Sylphid, like Merry, uses her looks and eating habits as well to antagonise her mother and stepfather for no particular reason other than asserting her dominance over her mother: Sylphid would take the side of her index finger, you see, and shed run it around the edge of the empty plate so as to get all the gravy and leavings () shed do it again and again until her finger squeaked against the plate (IMaC 111). What Sylphid and Merry lack in physical beauty is compensated with an intelligent head. Sylphids cerebral gift is for satire and Merry is blessed with a logical mind and a high IQ and an adultlike sense of humor even about herself (AP 95). The wasteful abuse of her bright Jewish brain in service of the fantasy of purity, is a pain that can be acutely felt in Swedes relentless mourning for his lost little girl (HS 242).

Irosemito 25 Delphines character is by and large a composition of elements from Merry and Sylphids character. Moore has rightly observed that Delphine dressed in a schoolgirls uniform is a visual aid to encourage recollections of her predecessors (HS 185). Delphines connection to Merry and Sylphid is also based on her privileged background and her braininess. At the same time, Delphines beauty and the careful execution of her dress is a shrill departure from Merrys unwashed and unkempt fat physique and Sylphids extra-large measurements like one of those Japanese sumo wrestlers (IMaC 138). It is an added power to exert control over men, which, much to Colemans dismay, is very persuasive. When Delphine came into his office for her job interview, he knew that Delphine was unfit for the position at Athena College. Yet he hired her, because she was so goddamn enticing. So lovely. So alluring. And all the more so for looking so daughterly (190). Of course when she succeeded Coleman as dean of faculty, he learns just how powerful she could be. Their youth proves to be a primary requirement for American history to take hold in their private lives. In Merrys case, her age means that she is impressionable, demonstrated by the different fads that she went through: Merrys other great love that year, aside from her father, was Audrey Hepburn. Before Audrey Hepburn there had been astronomy and before astronomy, the 4-H Club, and along the way, a bit distressingly to her father, there was even a catholic phase (AP, 95). It is clear that Merry is suffering from an identity crisis, Roths signature subject according to Moore. Usually these crises are inflicted upon Roths male characters. His fictional portraits, Moore argues, tend to be of Jewish men fashioning for themselves independent ways of being Jewish. With regards to Merry, it is a girlchild who is trying to absorb other peoples idea of being a good girl. Each phase that

Irosemito 26 Merry went through, she did with her own brand of dogged persistence (AP, 95). By the time that Merry is playacting Audrey Hepburn, Merry is possessed with an improbable dream of purification (95). According to Jack Beatty, the source of evil in the world of Roths trilogy is the temptation to purify, to expunge the human stain, to repeal the banishment from Paradise. What has taken Merry hostage is the American Puritan ethic. Combined with her susceptibility to hypes, Americas old obsession manifests itself again as the destructive powers of 1960s radicalism, absorbing Merry entirely. The power of the persecuting spirit is so strong, that it can even affect those who are not native to America (HS 2). Delphine Roux is a young academic of French aristocratic origin. She looks like the epitome of French elegance and gamine, a darkhaired waif echoing Merrys self-deluding aspirations at being Audrey Hepburn. Whereas in Merry there is no room for contradiction, Delphine is awash with conflicting desires that are unresolved. She is: at once a little too grand about herself and, simultaneously, playing at self-importance like a child, an imperfectly self-governed child, quick to respond to the scent of disapproval, with a considerable talent for being wounded, and drawn on, as both child and woman, to achievement upon achievement, admirer upon admirer, conquest upon conquest, as much by uncertainty as by confidence. (HS 187) Therefore, Delphines young age is the sign of immaturity. She is incapable of making any sound judgement despite her fine education, and is therefore a sitting duck for Americas oldest communal passion, the desire for stainlessness, to take hold and take over (HS 2).

Irosemito 27 Sylphid however, is the exception that confirms the rule as she allows the human stain to reign free. Sylphid is a gifted, but sadistic satirist. She was a reckless, entertaining talker, a great hater with the talent of a chef for filleting, rolling, and roasting a hunk of meat, and I, Zuckerman surmises, was in awe of how she did nothing to rationalise, let alone hide, her amused contempt (IMaC 131). Sylphids mental compass for detecting human folly is very finely tuned. For example, at a dinner party for her mothers famous and distinguished guests, Sylphid amuses the awe-struck Zuckerman by pinpointing each and everyones special defect with complete irreverence. Zuckerman was invited there as Iras special guest, and when he panics over the pompous table arrangements, Sylphid comes to his aid by way of a sardonic quip: Dont worry too much about doing the right thing, Nathan. Youll look a lot less comical doing the wrong thing (IMaC 125). Relieved by Sylphids cynical and impertinent witticisms whenever Zuckerman felt intimidated, Zuckerman cannot help but admire her. I thought she was splendid, in her satire particularly, he says (IMaC 131). In her own sadistic way, Sylphid embraces the indelible imperfection that makes us human, making her surprisingly more mature than the adults in her life (AP 92). In Sylphid then there is an absent desire to do good whereas in Merry and Delphine, doing good has become an obsession. Nevertheless, Sylphids spoiledness acts as a conductor and transfers the persecuting spirit to her mother. She, carried away by her husbands infidelity and betrayal, used the red-baiting powers in office to destroy her husband. If it wasnt for Sylphid, Eve and Iras marriage might have stood a change. However, Sylphids development into adulthood was tragically arrested by privilege. She had always been surrounded by every possible luxury in Hollywood and all of her desires never met any resistance by her famous mother. Eve is obsessed

Irosemito 28 with aristocratic WASP decorum, an obsession that stems from her hatred for her impoverished Jewish ancestry, and for the Jewishness in her and her daughters face that she could not escape. Eve Frame was a pathologically embarrassed Jew. () Embarrassed that she looked like a Jew () embarrassed that her daughter looked like a Jew (IMaC, 152). Sylphids is aware of this and from it she develops a tyrannical hold over her mother in order to forever get what she wants. Nothing is clearer in that household than the reversal of authority. Sylphid is the one wielding the whip. Nothing is clearer than that the daughter bears a rankling grudge against the mother (IMaC 86). Whenever Sylphids reign over her mother was challenged in any form or way, Sylphids snotty childishness could become downright menacing. Ira was in her way, so she employed all her powers to put her mother up against Ira. For instance, when Eve was expecting Iras child, Sylphid threatened to strangle the baby in its crib. Thus, Sylphid provided the conditions that drove Ira and Eve apart. It is not a coincidence that empowered schoolgirls have made their entrance in Roths American trilogy. The novels were published at a time when the popularity of tv-series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Power Rangers caused a major cultural shift in the perception of girlhood, and helped to create a new American myth. In the latter series, a character named Delphine is the first female alien Ranger to lead the Power Rangers team in battle against monsters and villains out to destroy the planet. All Power Rangers possess the ability to morph into a superhero, but only to ward off evil and not for personal gain. The TV character Buffy Anne Summers is an attractive teenage girl who struggles with her high school responsibilities and her destiny to hold off vampires in order to live a normal life. What is more, in the early 2000s Buffy Studies has officially been recognised as a

Irosemito 29 new academic field within cultural studies, and with its own online journal dedicated to Buffy scholarship called Slayage (slayage.com). Delphine Rouxs enticing schoolgirl exterior supports the idea that she is partly inspired by these televised programs, because she too thinks that it is her duty to combat evils that she thinks are manifest in Coleman Silk. Sarah Hopkins in Girl Heroes explains that the success of the Girl Hero like Buffy is because girls no longer accept the submissive and bland/innocent social norms of girlhood (in Costi). Instead they look to strong fictional characters and successful pop stars for a role model. Girl Power!, a term popularised by another nineties hype The Spice Girls, stands for pro-active and empowered behavior and sexual awareness in young women. The expression became so widespread, that it was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in December 2003. These developments demonstrate how prevalent and pervasive the Girl Hero as an acceptable role model for young women has become. The lack of maturity suggested by the schoolgirl quality that Merry, Sylphid and Delphine possess and the childishness of the schoolgirl that governs Merrys impressionability, Sylphids extreme spoiledness and Delphines confusion reveals Roths concern with the myth of the Girl Hero as an export product of AngloAmerican culture. Fictional characters like Buffy are in Roths opinion unfit role models for young girls of today, because when girls are put into adult situations it can go terribly out of hand. The real life breakdown of another symbol of Girl Power! Britney Spears, is an all too vivid reminder. In 1999 she burst unto our television screens a full-blown virginal sex-bomb at the age of 17, the Lolita of pop culture, in a vamped up schoolgirls uniform. Her debut-single Baby one more time, skyrocketed to the top of the charts and she became an instant icon of global teenage adoration. Two failed marriages and two children later, Britney is now known as the fallen pop

Irosemito 30 princess who could not handle the pressures of celebrity life. A girl with power then becomes a contradiction within the phrase Girl Power! The schoolgirls Merry, Sylphid and Delphine are in this sense Britneys fictional counterparts. Together, they represent how Girl Power! goes sour in Roths American trilogy.

Irosemito 31

Chapter Three: Female Sexuality in Relation to Male Desire and Love

The novel that preceded Philip Roths American Trilogy must have been to Roth what Portnoys Complaint was to him in 1969. Sabbaths Theater published in 1995 is rife with the same unchecked, tragic-comic sexual energy for the sheer amusement that it can possibly offer to Roths loyal readers. Male desire again is this novels overarching theme, but this time the protagonist has a female accomplice. In most other books written by Roth, the male protagonist is always on the lookout for the next enactment of his erotic fantasies. By doing so, he is subjecting the women to marginal roles as the object of his desire. Sabbaths Theater also stands in this tradition, as far as only its protagonist is concerned. The novel is about Mickey Sabbath, a useless and decrepit puppeteer whose perverse sexual fantasies rival Portnoys, but are equalled by his mistress Drenka Balich. She has no qualms about granting Sabbath his crudest sexual pleasures and indulges in her own erotic escapades to boot: Husbands, after weekending at the inn with their wives and children, phoned Drenka secretly from their offices to tell her they had to see hermen began to understand that this shortish, less than startling looking middle aged woman corseted by all her smiling courtesy was powered by a carnality much like their own. Inside this woman was someone who thought like a man. And the man she thought like was Sabbath. (9)

Irosemito 32 It is undeniable that Drenka is the sexual object and the sexual self, thus challenging Linda Grants claim that in Roths fiction women are always the sexual object rather than the sexual self. Drenkas sexual outrageousness has paved the way for a new treatise on female sexuality in Roths American Pastoral. This novel contains a number of malefemale encounters by which Roth demonstrates how his women are aware and in control of their bodies. The golden mean against which all other forms of female sexuality are pitted is represented by the first sexual encounter in American Pastoral; the one between Nathan Zuckerman and his teenage love interest Joy Helpern. They meet at their high school reunion after years of separation, and reminisce about the hay ride they had together when they were both still young. During that ride, Zuckerman had wanted to touch her naked breasts, but Joy did not let him for reasons so trivial today that she regrets not taking full advantage of that sexual opportunity. Overcome with nostalgia for her past youthful glory she says: I should have let you undo my bra. Undo it now if youd like to (AP 78). This is particularly painful to Zuckerman who is impotent and incontinent, and thus unable to perform sexually regardless of whether or not he wanted to. The choice to say yes or no has been made for him. The underlying message of this simple scene is manifold. Firstly, Joy Helpern expresses a sexual need that is completely dissociated from the demands of heterosexual love. Secondly, Joy accepts the notion that men desire women for their bodies first. Last but not least, she also recognises that at her age erotic encounters with men is hard to come by because of the damage or loss of bodily functions. In other words, women do and should enjoy their sexuality while they still can before time takes its toll on their bodies.

Irosemito 33 The tragicomic tone that Joy conveys about her current position on the erotic front, soon takes on a more alarming note in American Pastoral. A kiss that carries a degree of taboo that is far too much for a father and daughter to share, occurs between Swede and Merry. The setting for the kiss seems innocent enough; a father and daughter enjoying a sunny day at the beach. However, dark clouds appear at Seymours horizon when Merry gives her father a taste of her sexual powers by straightforwardly asking him to kiss her the way he would kiss her mother. Caught off guard, he kissed her stammering mouth with the passion that she had been asking for all month long. The ensuing after-shock comes from the awareness that he enjoyed his parental misstep more than a father should. He shuts away what he considers to be an anomalous moment in order to never be caught out like that again. After Merrys disappearance four years later, Swede is forced to relive that day at the beach with the most unlikely adversary, the child-woman Rita Cohen. She represents female sexual energy unleashed to its most menacing potential. Looking like a third grader who had ransacked her mothers room, (AP 142) Merrys revolutionary emissary challenges Swede to step outside his comfort zone by saying: You cant have met your match in little me. Look at you. Like a naughty boy. A child in terror of being disgraced. Isnt there anything else in there except for your famous purity? I bet there is. I bet youve got yourself quite a pillar in there. (143) Posturing like the commonest street prostitute in a cheap hotel room, Rita exposes her vagina and verbally abuses Swede by telling him to look at it, to smell it, to taste it, and to penetrate it. At this point Rita and Merrys semblance to each other and the sexually aggressive males of Roths fiction is uncanny. Like the diabolical Mickey Sabbath, they seem to derive pleasure in engaging in sexual perversities. Merrys

Irosemito 34 oedipal yearnings are expressed by allowing sexual abuse happen to her; first by her father, and later by other perpetrators during her years in hiding. Rita does the same by trying to provoke Swede into sexual intercourse with her while pretending to be his daughter. The point that Roth is reiterating here--as he did with Drenka--is that in essence there is no difference between female and male sexuality. Women and men alike are capable of having sinister sexual tendencies. With reference to Simone de Beauvoirs feminist legacy, Thomas Fahy argues that Roths fiction relegate women to the realm of the physically deformed in order to focus on the concerns of male characters (118). He continues his argument by saying that Roths male characters reflect anxieties about female power and control and by physically othering the women around them they can reassert themselves as the dominant Absolute as Simone de Beauvoir explains in The Second Sex (118). Case in point seems to be the hotel room episode with Rita. However, instead of asserting his male dominance over the situation, Rita subverts his othering attempts by the essence of female sexuality; the life giving quality of the vagina. The same way in which Swede refused to be affected by real-time American politics, like the war in Vietnam or the race-riots tearing up his beloved Newark, Swede persists in his naivet about female sexuality. To look at her genitalia without the frame of the tender and glowing descriptions of his lovemaking to his wife, he wants to find demeaning to himself. Swede also tries to be repulsed by Ritas flayed and mottled naked vaginal flesh and the fecund smell that comes from her swamplike vagina (145146). However, nothing in his estimable strongbox of reactions prepared him for the seeking out of his basest male instinct. The sights and smells of her raw femininity reminds him of that day at the beach when he gave in to his most perverse impulses. What is more, he is frightened by it for the feeling that it might possibly arouse in his

Irosemito 35 body after all those years. Bolting the room like the most unlikely Rothian male that ever was offered fuss-free sex, Rita Cohen confronts Swede with all the shame of masquerading as the ideal man (174). After all, a man who wont look, whats he a travesty of? (146). Five years after that freak episode in Swedes life, he sits at the dinner table with his parents and closest friends discussing moral implications of the pornographic movie Deep Throat. Its plot is based around a woman whose clitoris is located in the deep of her throat (hence its title Deep Throat). At the time of its first showing it caused national outrage. Swedes father is also deeply offended by it. Swede on the other hand is unmoved. Boiling away beneath Deep Throat was the far more disgusting and transgressive subject of Merry, of Sheila, of Shelly, of Orcutt and Dawn, of wantonness and betrayal and deception () among neighbors and friends (380). He has just discovered that his wife has an affair with Orcutt and that his first and only mistress betrayed him by harbouring Merry for three days without him knowing. Jaded by the enormities of his personal life, Swede is no longer phased by a womans genitalia on display. The real perversity he feels is not human intercourse put on film, but the moral degeneracy that a sexual act can constitute: infidelity, disloyalty, adultery and the common denominator betrayal. On that note we arrive at Roths second novel in this trilogy, I Married a Communist. The novels overriding theme is betrayal which operates at a number of levels. For example, the novel is set in McCarthys red-baiting heydays that immerses the plot in a climate where betrayal was government policy. What is most relevant for this discussion however, is the betrayal at the heart of Iras destruction. He did not simply fall in love with Eve Frame. Lovestruck and starstruck. He was dazzled by her. She was dazzlingand dazzlement has a logic all its own (IMaC

Irosemito 36 54). Reaffirming the basic tenet of all of Roths boy meets girl plots--namely that men desire women for their bodies first and the for their minds--Ira has already committed the first trespass against Eve before he even spoke one word. According to popular consensus, women do not want to be loved for their bodies first, but for their minds. Blindsided by her physical attractiveness Ira in his turn also does not realise that Eve does not want him for him, but for his status as a radio star. This causes Roths men and women to get stuck in what Joel Grossman calls a disastrous cycle of mutual incomprehension and misrepresentation () The man and woman are using each other, imposing on each other fictive roles which they have created for one another (7). Ira wants to start a family whereas Eve simply wants another man to surrender to, like she did with Carlton Pennington and all her other ex-husbands. Eventually, both end up betrayed by their own expectations of each other. Love in the romantic sense of the word, has nothing to do with their marriage. The love that is so evidently lost in Ira and Eves relationship brings us back to Sabbaths Theater. The lascivious love affair between Sabbath and Drenka might raise eyebrows, but their debauchery has created a bond that is so strong that her death leaves Sabbath inconsolable. He spends the rest of the novel trying to end his own life. In other words, what was born out of lust has transformed into true love. The same deep feeling shared between a man and a woman also can be found in the Human Stain. The relationship between Coleman Silk and Faunia Farley started of as two people seeking sexual companionship with each other. Viagra gave Coleman a new leash on the erotic frontier. As their affair progresses, he asks her to spend the night. Their story ends with the sharing their innermost secrets, and much to Colemans delight, Faunia does not run away from him. Next thing Coleman knows is that he has started to call her Voluptas (35). Her pet name refers to the Roman

Irosemito 37 personification of sensual pleasure. It is Colemans way of saying that he loves her. By doing so, Coleman defines love in terms of erotic fulfilment sanctified by the divine. Sexual objectification then does not necessarily have to be dismissed as degrading to women like Linda Grant has done in her review Breast Man. If consensual, Roth suggests that the erotic intimacy between a man and a woman is perhaps the only valid basis for real love

Irosemito 38

Conclusion
By way of examining the correlations between the novels American Pastoral, I Married a Communist and The Human Stain, the principal aim of this project was to arrive at a portrait of women in Roths American Trilogy. The resulting picture describes Rothian women on a number of levels. Their personal struggles seem to be determined by a quest for freedom; the freedom to chose their own body image, how to assert their sexuality, ethnicity, identity, nationality etc. On a larger scale, they transfer private drama into the public property by acting as vehicles through which the historical forces of their time change the American cultural landscape. Ideologically, most women are torn between or fatally defined by the consensus ideologies of girlhood, womanhood and/or feminism. Roths quarrel with feminist critics is widely understood, and has given some critics licence to argue that Roths heroines confirm his alleged misogyny. The second objective therefore was to address his feminist critics by examining how mainstream feminist theory is supported or challenged in these three novels. The fundamental problem with feminist theory according to Roth, is that it presupposes female subjugation by men, whereas matriarchy can be as oppressive. At last, Roths alleged misogyny is replaced by his proposition of a new feminine ideal that is not defined by gender roles but by our shared humanity.

Irosemito 39

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