The Historic Shadow, The Present Tremor, And The Dim Future

Philip Roth is a famous writer whose writing accords with the American literature tradition, and shows strong Jewish character as well. He exposes the spiritual and emotional state of American Jewish people and depicts their bewilderment, anxiety, fear and worries. In addition, from the protagonists of Roth's works we can find characters from both unique Jewish and ordinary Americans.The first chapter introduces Roth's life story, works, writing features and defines Roth's Jewish character. Then the chapter tells us the relationship between Roth's works and the Holocaust. At last the chapter analyzes the connotation of fear and its manifestation in Roth's works.The second chapter discusses the fear in Jewry's mind left by the Holocaust. The illustration proves that the Holocaust has formed Jewry's collective memory which molds sensitive feature of Jewish character that deepens sense of fear. Furthermore, the calamity has formed the melancholy feature in the character of Jewish intellectuals.The third chapter analyzes the fear from realistic factors which include natural death, diseases, wars, terrorist affairs and modern thoughts and living manners. The modern thoughts and manners result in loneliness, nothingness and impotence, which deepen the death fear of human beings with no exception of Jews. In addition, there is more anxiety in the character of American Jewish youths.The fourth chapter analyzes the fear caused by the collective memory of the Holocaust and social factors. Jewish descendents try to get rid of historic constraints when they are melting into mainstream cultures. They lose their ethnic identity and embody their efforts in sexual desire; as a result, they fail to get rid of the historic shadow and hasten the coming of death fear. Thus they experience metamorphosis under the squeezing of the old and new fear. Moreover, the metamorphosis to some extent hints that some American Jewish people's character has been twisted.The fifth chapter analyzes the relationship between the uncertainty of Jewish fate and the sense of fear. Fear brings out aggressiveness in the character of some Jewish people to ward off the threat of insecurity, which results in new fear. Roth expresses his worry about Jewish fate.In short, the fear in Roth's works is the manifestation of the shadow left by the historic trauma, the present tremor, and Roth's worry about Jewish fate. Furthermore, through exposing the American Jewish fear in their mind, Roth provides us with a window through which we can observe the whole mankind's spiritual and emotional world, so he has international dimension in his writing.