A Study On The Female Other In Philip Roth’s The Human Stain

Philip Roth,one of the highest ranking writers of American literature,has won almost all the literature awards except the Nobel Prize in literature.After Saul Bellow and Eudora Welty,Philip Roth is the third writer whose works are incorporated by Library of America before his death in 2018.His works are rich in thematic concerns,ranging from race,gender,sexuality,the human body,Israeli politics and post-immigrant Jewish American life.As the last book of his best-known “American Trilogy”,The Human Stain remains one of Roth’s masterpieces since its publication in 2000.The three female characters of the novel are from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds,belong to different classes,receive various education,and hold different attitudes toward love and family,but they have very similar tragic life.Up to now,there is a large number of excellent papers,dissertations and books attempting to conduct some analyses on his novels and the protagonist’ images.However,most of the existing studies tend to focus on the narrative techniques or themes,rarely centering on the female characters from the perspective of feminism.This paper,based on Beauvoir’s conceptualizations of the Other,seeks to address the myriads aspects of female characters’ femininity,immanence and transcendence,illustrating their differences and similarities as it tries to explore the roots of their tragic destiny as the Other and to illuminate the existential plights of contemporary women in American society.It is also expected to present Roth’s reflection and concern for women and,hopefully,to argue against the castigation of Roth as a misogynist.