Chaos, Choices And Redemption: Philip Roth’s Mentality In Operation Shylock

Philip Roth, known as one of the most influential writers in contemporaryAmerican literature, published Operation Shylock in1993. Based on increasinglyserious Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the contentiously advocated Diasporism, the phonyone’s actions in the name of a famous writer, the plots from the Mossad and otherhistorical events, the novel tells a story of the protagonist being personated by hisimpostor to carry out political propaganda. The writer, Philip Roth, combines his ownlife experiences with the protagonist Philip Roth’s encounter with unpredictable chaos,complicated choices and redemption after struggling. Thus, Roth is able todemonstrate his exploring and considering about his Jewish identity and the Jewishnation through the mentality of the hero from Operation Shylock.The mirror stage in Lacan’s theory could be divided into three stages. In thepre-mirror stage, the infant is obsessed with his own image in the mirror despite forthe body is not fully-developed; in the mirror stage, the infant is confused aboutothers’ image in the mirror and even furious with them, unable to make out the realityand fantasy; in the post-mirror stage, the infant sets about to figure out his image boththe real one and the visual one, getting rid of the interference from others. This theoryhelps to reveal the mentality of the protagonist from caring about himself, exploringinto himself to the relief of himself, considering more about the society and nation.Then the maturing of its hero’s mind is brought to light: breaking through fromoriginal status and eventually living up to self-fulfillment. Each stage is related todifferent status of the protagonist’s mind. In the beginning of the novel, Philip (thehero, later called Philip for short) is just recovering from serious disease whenhappening to know that someone is taking advantage of his name and reputation toadvocate Diaspora. Moreover, his ideas in some books has been misunderstood andmis-presented to support Jews in Israel back to European countries. It is the event thatbreaks into Philip’s gradually peaceful life. What’s worse, chaos comes one afteranother since then. George Ziad, used to be one of Philip’s best friends in the college,tends out to be an endless Arabia accuser backing up for the impostor’s advocation;the unknown American jewelry salesman, working for the Mossad, persuades Philipinto taking up the secret mission. These people stand up to their own reasons: theembracer of Diasporism sticks to his sacrifice for Jews; the Arabia friend also hasverified his accusations of Jew’s behaviors in Israel; the radical Zionist’s confession is so powerful and sincere. Faced with the confrontations of those people, Philip is lostin confusion. The situation is referred to the pre-mirror stage, in which the infant issatisfied with his visual image in the mirror, excluding others’ image and fed up withtheir interruptions. Philip is reluctant to face up those unexpected things sincere-gaining normal peaceful life is so hard for him. Yet Philip has to deal with thechaos and seek for truth in order to free from the trouble. He gets to investigate themotivations beyond those persuaders, finding out their living status, political standsand inner force, which pave the way for relief from confusions. This can bedemonstrated just as the mirror stage, in which the infant starts to consider abouthimself, the image and others’ image in the mirror. Finally, in the last status, Philipcomes to re-consider his inner thought and maintain the Jewish conscience, fulfillinghis mentality journey. Therefore, the protagonist successfully discovers a way toachieve balance among self, others and society. And that has a lot to do with thepost-mirror stage: the infant struggles through obsession with itself and interferencefrom others, coming to a new stage in which it is socialized with a view about the realworld and the visual one. All in all, the latter stage is superior to the former one, fullyexplaining Philip’s gradually maturing mentality: chaos, choices and redemption.The hero has lived up to himself after experiencing various struggles. And he isnot the only Jewish American. Philip’s life also reflects on the destiny of the author(Roth). Actually, there are large quantities of people like him, suffering from the lossof themselves who could not achieve the right way of living as a Jew in Americanmelting pot, the sense of Jew overwhelming the American identity and vice versa.Moreover, they deserve our caring and concerning, which has a far-reachingsignificance onAmerican race culture and even the peace all around the world.