The Existentialist Analysis Of The Protagonist Levov In American Pastoral

Philip Roth, one of the most famous contemporary American Jewish writers, is the third living American writer to have his work published in a comprehensive, definitive edition by the Library of America. So far, Roth has been writing for over 60 years. Roth is regarded as a timeless writer in American literature. Roth’s works not only had a significant influence on American literature but also achieved a great number of honors and awards.American Pastoral is one of Roth’s American Trilogy and it was regarded as one of the most profound and thoughtful novels among all his works. American Pastoral won Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1998. This work is not only a famous novel to respond the living state of American Jews, but also an excellent work to understand the living state and mental state of all human being.This thesis uses Sartre’s existentialist theories:The world is absurd, and life is painful, existence precedes essence and free choice to analyze the process of the protagonist Levov from a successful Jewish business man to being in trouble, and discuss the reason of Levov’s sufferings in pursuit of pastoral life.This thesis is composed of four chapters. Chapter One is the introduction which introduces Philip Roth and his works. It also includes the literature review of Roth’s works. Chapter Two is the theoretical frame which involves a brief introduction to existentialism, Sartre and some basic concepts of Sartre’s existentialism. Chapter Three is the main part of thesis. It interprets the reason of Levov’s sufferings from three point due to the basic concepts of existentialism. Firstly, it analyzes the absurd social environment of Levov’s time and his painful living state. Secondly, it analyzes Levov’s existence in the conflicts with others and discusses Levov’s confusions:alienation, nothingness and anguish in the process of his pastoral essence. Finally, it reveals Levov’s three failed choices and then he chooses to escape from failure and fall into bad faith from the view of free choice.The conclusion reveals that the protagonist Levov cannot confront his confusions and failure in the existence of absurdity and conflicts with others and then falls into the depths of despair in American Pastoral. Meanwhile, applying existentialism to analyze the reason of Levov’s sufferings intends to encourage the people in dilemma to confront absurdity and conflicts with others bravely. Only by accepting responsibility and bad faith bravely can we realize the value of our existence.