On Modern Women’s Predicament In Philip Roth’s American Trilogy

Philip Roth is one of the most influential Jewish writers after Saul Bellow incontemporary American literature. During the past50years, Roth has published more than30novels, and won various awards like the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize. HisAmerican Trilogy, namely, American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), andThe Human Stain (2000), is known as the “problem novels” of American society, whichhave aroused much critical attention. However, most critics analyze his work from theperspective of race, identity, postmodernism, ethic, etc., focusing mainly on the maleprotagonists, while paying little attention to the female characters. Roth is often despisedby some feminist critics as misogynist, but as we can see from these novels, he also caresabout women’s living predicament.This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One is a brief introduction to Roth’slife, literary career, and literature review. Chapter Two to Four discuss three kinds ofwomen respectively,“the submissive one”,“the passive resistant” and “the fanatic rebel”.In detail, Chapter Two elaborates on the first kind of woman, the submissive one,represented by Eve Frame. Living in a male-dominated society, Eve chooses to submit thepatriarchy, but ends in tragedy. Chapter Three focuses on the second kind of woman, thepassive resistant represented by Faunia Farley. Unlike the first kind of woman who submitsthe oppression, Faunia manages to take passive resistance against it. However, her failureis doomed since the subordinate position wont’t change by fighting as an individual insteadof a team. Chapter Four depicts the third kind of woman, the fanatic rebel, represented byMerry Levov who despises the American society and everything that is unequal. She triesto subvert the society in a very fanatic way, but all these crazy actions lead to her owncatastrophe. The last chapter is the conclusion. By describing these women’s tragic life,Roth reveals the common problems and plights women are confronted with. He is not amisogynist as some critics claimed, but rather a great writer with deep concern towardsmodern women’s living condition, as well as the whole human beings.