The Analysis Of American Pastoral With A Vision Of Violence In The Pre-9/11 Era

Philip Roth is one of the most important and distinctive Jewish-American novelist in post-war America.He is specialized in combining individual destiny with grand national narrative,and has created many works with distinctive characteristics of the times and cultural imprint.As Roth’s representative work in the pre-9/11 era and the first part of the American Trilogy,American Pastoral combines the rise and fall of a Jewish family and social environment turbulence and describes Jewish-American’s living state under multiple violent oppression during the Vietnam War.During the period from World War II to 9/11,American society has undergone profound changes.Violence has become the main means of resolving various conflicts,and all kinds of confrontational violence has intensified and reached its peak at the outbreak of 9/11.It can be said that the evolution of the concept “violence” defines the pre-9/11 period.In writing about the turbulent changes of American society in the historical period,Roth pays close attention to terrorist violence and the root of capitalist system,and expresses his profound reflection on violence in American Pastoral.In the past,the research on American Pastoral from the perspective of violence is relatively few in domestic academic circles,and has not been carried on with the new era background and systemic violence theory.With the help of Zizek’s violence theory,this thesis will more deeply interpret the form of violence development in the pre-9/11 historical period,and re-examines the political background,figure images and social reality embodied in the novel.In American Pastoral,through Merry’s violence and the fate of the Levov family,Roth wrote both subjective and objective violence,and even sketched out a blueprint to deny capital logic.But for objective violence,especially systemic violence,Roth’s writing is glorified and incomplete.This shows that while criticizing the capitalist system with the current ideology and values of the United States,Roth also mended and maintained the capitalist system.It is this repair and maintenance that indicates that Roth has limitations in his understanding of violence,and that he still shows a covert adaptation to the western power discourse in his pre-9/11 writing on violence.This thesis discusses the violent writing of American Pastoral from the following aspects.Chapter One begins as a brief review of Philip Roth,American Pastoral,the pre-9/11 period and Zizek’s theoretical framework about violence.This chapter analyzes the current research of Philip Roth’s works,and traces the path that he wrote violence.In context of the Vietnam War,many young Americans fell into frenzied anti-war campaigns,even resorting to violence to revolt against American capitalism.This attracted Roth’s attention.In the description of the rise and fall of the Levov family,the triple violence in Zizek’s view: subjective violence symbolic violence and systemic violence gradually surfaced.Chapter Two traces the origin,characteristic and essence of subjective violence in American Pastoral.First of all,Merry’s explosion is typical subjective violence which has natural roots from individual,family and society.Then,through the double contradiction of Merry’s identity and action,this paper discusses the deceiving characteristic of subjective violence.Finally,the essence of Merry’s violence is confirmed as indignation of the new generation of Jewish-Americans who had lost their “symbol” positions.Chapter Three explains the origin,mode and essence of symbolic violence in American Pastoral.By interpreting the inequality of discourse space in capitalist system,this chapter points out that the root of symbolic violence is the irrational authority imposed by violence on linguistic symbols.In the process of tracing Merry’s attempt to rebuild her own symbolic system,it is proved that the imposition of symbols on things is actually an oppression to people.Finally,this chapter reveals that the essence of symbolic violence is social violence by exploring the imposition of symbols in law,morality and daily life.Chapter Four investigates the origin,operation characteristics and the ultimate fate of violence.By investigating the capitalist political and economic system in Roth’s work,this chapter excavates that the deep foundation of systemic violence is the capital logic of interest supremacy.The way the Levov’s factory works and the fate Merry and others were abandoned attest to the mandatory and exclusive nature of systemic violence.After the review of the existing violence,it is suggested that emancipatory violence is the best way to completely deny the overall framework of capitalism.Chapter Five concludes with a review of the thesis and summarizes the full interpretation of Roth’s writing on violence.This part reveals the introspection of the pre-9/11 narration of American Pastoral on the living condition of modern people in violence,ponders the ways to solve the problem of violence,and probes into the literary value and practical significance of Roth’s violence writing.