LITERATURE, SECRECY, AND THE POLITICS OF INTERPERSONAL NARRATION: PHILIP ROTH'S AMERICAN TRILOGY A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts In English University of Regina By Benjamin Salloum Regina, Saskatchewan December, 2009 Copyright 2009: B. 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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1+1 Canada UNIVERSITY OF REGINA FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE Benjamin Scott Salloum, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in English, has presented a thesis titled, Literature, Secrecy, and the Politics of Interpersonal Narration: Philip Roth's American Trilogy, in an oral examination held on November 20, 2009. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material. External Examiner: **Dr. Jeffrey Severs, University of British Columbia Supervisor: Dr. Michael Trussler, Department of English Committee Member: *Dr. Kenneth Probert, Department of English Committee Member: Dr. Kathleen Wall, Department of English Chair of Defense: Dr. William Brennan, Department of History *Not present at defense **Attended via video conference i ABSTRACT This thesis considers the social role of the novelist and the value of the novel as a discursive form in Philip Roth's American Pastoral, I Married a Communist, and The Human Stain, which together form the American Trilogy. Critical consideration of the three novels together has unified them as Roth's "political" books, focusing almost exclusively on the historical, social, and ethnic tensions characteristic of the novels' subject matter and embodied by their main characters. Such approaches, however, ignore that Roth presents these embattled characters through the perspective of novelist Nathan Zuckerman, who is positioned as both participatory narrator and purported "author" of these books. In doing so, Roth shifts his attention away from the surface concerns of these tensions and towards the ways in which the novelist translates real people and real events into fiction. Incorporating M.M. Bakhtin's conceptualization of the novel as a dialogic form and Adriana Cavarero's assertion that narrating others constitutes a political act, this study examines Zuckerman's efforts, as a novelist, to both contend with and incorporate the many divergent, ideologically-charged accounts of his main characters in his own self-consciously fictional treatments of their lives. Set during particularly aggravated moments in American history, these novels depict the potential for personal and social oppression enabled by what Cavarero identifies as our fundamental vulnerability to how others narrate us. In contrast to the efforts of all others who seek to definitively and tyrannically narrate, label, and expose these characters, Roth advances a vision of the novelist and the novel as preservers of personal privacy, democratic freedom, and the philosophical secrecy of other people. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to gratefully acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding the research and writing of this thesis. I would also like to express my appreciation to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research and the Department of English, for providing funding throughout my graduate degree. Special thanks to Dr. Michael Trussler, for his wisdom, guidance, and enthusiasm for my work. The seed of this project was planted in one of his undergraduate courses, and that it has grown to blossom is a credit to his provident advice and direction. Thank you to my committee members, Dr. Kenneth Probert and Dr. Kathleen Wall, who provided me with helpful commentary and whose keen interest in my work motivated me throughout the writing and revisions of this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Troni Grande, Dr. Jeanne Shami, and Dr. Garry Sherbert, for their generous support of my academic development. My profoundest gratitude goes to my parents, Reg and Sandee Salloum, for protecting me from necessity and privileging me with the opportunity to be selfish in the pursuit and enlargement of my interests. Their quiet, unwavering support of my education put me on this track of my own choosing, and their pride amplifies every success I achieve. Finally, this thesis owes its completion to my dearest companion, Johanna, whose unfathomable patience and loving confidence sustain me. iii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Brady Salloum. Brady spent his professional life working to make post-secondary education accessible to all who pursued it. UB was no fan of Roth, but he was a curious and enthusiastic supporter of mine, and his warm, familial spirit will forever stay with me. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii DEDICATION iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: "WRITING TURNS YOU INTO SOMEBODY WHO'S ALWAYS WRONG": INTERPERSONAL NARRATION AND NOVELIZATION IN AMERICAN PASTORAL 24 CHAPTER TWO: "RECEDING FROM THE AGITATION OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL": I MARRIED A COMMUNIST AS A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST 44 CHAPTER THREE: "STAYING IN THE PLACE WHERE THINKING MUST OCCUR": PERSONAL CLOSURE, DRAMATIC UNITY, AND THE FUNCTIONING OF THE NOVEL IN THE HUMAN STAIN 63 CONCLUSION 86 WORKS CITED V LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations have been used parenthetically throughout this thesis to identify frequently cited works by Roth. AP American Pastoral HS The Human Stain IMAC I Married a Communist RMO Reading Myself and Others 1 INTRODUCTION In 2006, The New York Times Book Review polled "a couple hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages" to determine "the single best work of American fiction published in the last twenty-five years" (Scott). The resulting list consists of the twenty-two novels that received multiple votes, and is topped predictably by some of the most distinguished names in late-twentieth century American writing: Toni Morrison, Don DeLillo, John Updike, and Cormac McCarthy. Less predictably, however, one other writer stands out beyond the rest: Philip Roth. In an extraordinary feat, Roth penned six of the poll's twenty-two "best books," with American Pastoral (1997) ranking as runner-up to Morrison's Beloved and five other novels—The Counterlife (1986), Operation Shylock(1993), Sabbath's Theatre (1995), The Human Stain (2000), and The Plot Against America (2004)—all positioning on the list. In the accompanying essay, A.O. Scott ponders over Roth's eminence within the American literary community, noting with some surprise that "if we had asked for the single best writer of fiction over the past twenty-five years, he would have won." Confirming the Book Review''s poll results, this collective reverence for Roth's recent writing has manifested itself in unprecedented formal recognition from both American and international literary awards councils.1 Such acclaim, celebrating both his particular literary achievements and his general lifetime accomplishment, has entrenched Roth's standing as a leading scrutinizer of the post-war American condition and as a writer who, as Harold Bloom argues, "has earned a permanent place in American literature" (7). Nevertheless, Scott's undertone of surprise in attempting to account for Roth's prominence is certainly understandable, given the checkered history of the writer's 2 reputation and critical reception over the last fifty years. Roth's debut work, Goodbye, Columbus, earned him the National Book Award in 1960 and won endorsements from the likes of Saul Bellow