A Study Of The Human Stain From The Perspective Of New Historicism

Philip Roth is one of the most excellent and the most popular Jewish American writers in contemporary United States, and he has won many national and international awards, including the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN﹨Faulkner Award, the National Medal of Arts, the Pulitzer Prize, and the France’s Medici Foreign Book Prize. The Human Stain is the last novel of his American trilogy. In this novel, Roth reveals the social roots of the human’s stains, and they are racial discrimination, political correctness and the Vietnam War. Roth wrote the novel with special writing strategies, such as non-linear narration and irony. The complicated social background and special writing strategies are more valuable to study.The thesis tries to analyze The Human Stain from the perspective of New Historicism. The writer attempts to explore the relation between the text and American history and the influence of reconstructing history on America society.Besides the introduction and conclusion, the thesis includes four chapters. The introduction deals with Philip Roth’s literary achievements and his representative works. The plot of The Human Stain and the critical study of The Human Stain at home and abroad also are introduced and summarized briefly. Chapter One introduces New Historicism. First of all, the meaning, rise and development of New Historicism are discussed. Secondly, major representatives and their ideas of New Historicism are presented. Louis Montrose’s “historicity of texts” and “textuality of history” and Stephen Greenblatt’s “subversion and containment” are explained. Chapter Two discusses the “historicity of texts” embodied in The Human Stain. The writer explores constructing history of post-modern period in The Human Stain and the historical power of The Human Stain. Chapter three explores the “textuality of history” embodied in The Human Stain. First of all, some marginalized characters’ life experiences are analyzed. Secondly, Roth’s narrative strategies of constructing history are explored in this part. Chapter Four explains “subversion and containment” embodied in The Human Stain. First of all, the writer studies the implementation processes of subversion and containment of race, and explores the reasons of subversion being contained by ethnic power discourse. Secondly, the implementation processes of subversion and containment of gender are discussed. The reasons of containment from patriarchal power discourse are explored in this part. The Conclusion sums up the analysis of The Human Stain from the perspective of New Historicism, and expresses the writer’s wish of real democratic society.All in all, the thesis tries to analyze The Human Stain from the perspective of New Historicism. The writer explores the relation between this novel and history and Roth’s profound thinking of American society.