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The Holocaust in the Fiction of Philip Roth

Mon, December 17, 5:00 to 6:30pm, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Federal 1 Complex

Abstract

In the words of Philip Roth himself, the thematic core of his fiction is to explore the layers that compose Jewish-American identity and the contradictions and gaps within it. In an essay called "Writing About Jews" he explains how, as a writer, he wishes to investigate how a character sense of himself as a Jew plays with his other identities: American, man or woman, father or son, lover, etc. As well as what this Jewish identity is built upon.
Therefore, in a post-Holocaust world, the memory of the Shoah has an important place in his writing. The trauma of Jewish society, the imperative of memory, the resistance against this imperative and the struggle between collective and particular History are all subjects he addresses. However, the distance and possible conflict between the individual and the communitarian demands seems to be the main lenses through which he looks at the question.
His representation of the subject changes dramatically as his characters find ways to engage personally with the traumatic memory and history. This presentation aims to address this shift and the dynamic Roth presents between individual and society, which is particularly relevant as it asks questions about how the share of Jewish society not directly related to the Holocaust relates to it and the role it plays in their sense of identity. To achieve that three novels will be briefly analyzed: THE GHOST WRITER, OPERATION SHYLOCK and THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA. This analysis will be reached through a conceptual framework of Cultural Trauma and the presence and importance of an autobiographical element in his work that engages with the gaps between society and individual

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