A Study Of The Themes Of Philip Roth’s The Dying Animal

Philip Roth(1933-), the most influential Jewish writer in contemporary American, has been nominated for the Nobel Prize many times in the last few years. Roth is always famous as a prolific writer with high literary qualities since the 1950 s when he first entered the literary world. By 2014 has more than thirty books to his name and his writings are appreciatively recognized and warmly received. Surveying his writing career, however, we will find that his later writings, with Counterlife(1986) as the watershed, have undoubtedly achieved more dazzling successes. Apart from this, Roth, in his later works, has broadened his vision to the international scope, and accordingly the existential condition of the Jews can be exaimed comprehensively. Roth published his third novel of the series of Kepesh The Dying Animal in 2001, and got a lot of discussion and praises in the critics. In the novel, there is no any chapter; only using an old man Kepesh to remember his own stories about families’ affection, love and friendship. Scholars mainly focus on the aspect of anti Jewish identity, but few from the Jewish identity to analyze the novel. In this novel, undoubtedly, Roth wants to use the stories of Kepesh to reinterpret death, life and redemption as a true Jews.This paper analyzes the themes of The Dying Animal from the aspects of death, redemption and rebirth. The paper is divided into three parts, including introduction, body and conclusion, and the main contents are as follows:The first part is introduction, mainly introduces Philip Roth, The Dying Animal, the research for The Dying Animal in domestic and foreign, as well as the significance and innovation of this paper.The second part is the body which is divided into three chapters.The first chapter is divided into three parts to analyze the theme of death in The Dying Animal and to discuses the terrible for death when the protagonists suddenly realized that death has come into their calm life. The first part mainly introduces Jewish death view and Roth’s death opinion in the novel in order to lay the theoretical basis for the following analysis. Roth focus on the Jewish-ness in his later workers, and this kind of Jewish-ness is more expressed in more has become The Dying Animal. The second part analyzes the death of George, the illness of Consuela to express three characteristics of death in The Dying Animal; they are inevitability, cruelty and contingency. The third part mainly emphasizes the terrible for death when death comes to the life. It mainly explores the terrible for death is inevitability; however, these protagonists have the different death view.The second chapter is divided into three parts to discuses the theme of redemption. Firstly, it introduces the opinion of redemption in Roth’s later works. Taking the protagonist Kepesh as an example, he begins to recover his life in order to get a kind of redemption for his ridiculous when he realized that death is nearly in his life. Secondly, it mainly expound the characteristics of redemption in The Dying Animal, it mainly includes two sectors. The first sector analyzes the protagonists review their own life in order to saving their ridiculous, and they finally find their true nature which have been covered by the endless desire and have decided to return themselves. The second sector interprets the return of soul, the protagonists decide to return the true self when they realized that living is the most beautiful object in the life. Finally, this part is exclusively concerned on the criticism for the society. These protagonists wit the ridiculous of the contemporary society and experience the ups and downs in their life, they learn to self-autonomy in the end. As the same time, Roth wants to reveal the spiritual tragedy and the crisis of immigration in the contemporary American in order to causing the thinking about the history and culture.The third chapter analyzes the theme of rebirth in the Dying Animal, and mainly including three sections. The first section enumerates the Jewish view for life and Roth’s life opinion in this novel. In the Dying Animal, Roth reinterpret the significance of life as a real Jews. The second section mainly expounds the characteristics of rebirth in the novel. In the novel, these protagonists try their best to pursue the new method of life and to enjoy themselves really when they realized that life is so short. The third section aims to analyze the protagonists want to look forward to their families affection, love and sexuality in order to encompass the real and new life. However, they eventually understand that death still is inevitable whether death really happen to these cowards or not. And only to live carefully; to treat others sincerely; to cherish everything in the life, these are the real significance of life.The third part is the conclusion of the thesis which concludes the analysis of previous parts and claims the meaning of the thesis. It aims to base on the analysis of the theme of Philip Roth’s The Dying Animal, to supply a new angle for readers. It aims to teach readers to have the correct consciousness in their life, to cherish their life, and to have the positive outlook in their life.