47 pages • 1 hour read
Philip RothA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“Or was a book about a sweet star savagely and unjustly punished—a book about a greatly gifted innocent whose worst fault is a tendency to keep his right shoulder down and swing up but whom the thundering heavens destroy nonetheless—simply a book between those ‘Thinker’ book ends up on his shelf?”
Roth ponders a great many questions in American Pastoral, and he foreshadows one of the biggest right at the beginning. Using a young adult novel, The Kid From Tompkinsville, as a metaphor for the Swede’s life, he wonders if there is some cosmic rationale behind the Swede’s great tragedy or if everything is random. It’s an unanswerable question but one that humans, in their quest to understand their own lives, cannot stop themselves from asking.
“The Swede returned home in 47 […] at twenty unencumbered by a Gentile wife and all the more glamorously heroic for having made his mark as a Jewish marine.”
All the Swede’s heroics—from his feats on the athletic field to his military service—are prefaced by his Judaism. In literary terms, the Swede is a tragic hero, and Zuckerman thus holds him to a higher standard than other people. His task is to transcend, on behalf of his whole community, the discrimination they face for their Jewish identity. By withstanding the brutal training of Parris Island, lettering in three sports, and marrying a Gentile beauty queen, the Swede proves to himself and his community that they can break free of the limitations that have been imposed on them.
By Philip Roth
Defender Of The Faith
Philip Roth
Everyman
Philip Roth
Goodbye Columbus
Philip Roth
Indignation
Philip Roth
Operation Shylock: A Confession
Philip Roth
Patrimony
Philip Roth
Portnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth
Sabbath's Theater
Philip Roth
The Conversion of the Jews
Philip Roth
The Counterlife
Philip Roth
The Ghost Writer
Philip Roth
The Human Stain
Philip Roth
The Plot Against America
Philip Roth
Zuckerman Unbound
Philip Roth
American Literature
View Collection
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Books on U.S. History
View Collection
Daughters & Sons
View Collection
Fate
View Collection
Fathers
View Collection
Jewish American Literature
View Collection
National Book Critics Circle Award...
View Collection
Pulitzer Prize Fiction Awardees &...
View Collection
The Best of "Best Book" Lists
View Collection