Between Rising and Passing:

Justice Suspended in the Fiction of Philip RothJackie Weisman

« Previous Page | 1 | 2 | [3] | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

The characters that inhabit Alger's novels face hardship, but their confidence in capitalist fairness keeps them hard at work. And Alger does not disappoint—by the end of his novels, his protagonists are either financially comfortable or assured of imminent security. The notable caveat, however, is that "insofar as Alger's heroes prosper at all, they do so because they deserve prosperity, because they happily earn it with their virtue, however contrived the mechanism through which they obtain it." [7] Accordingly, all of the said heroes exhibit thrift, studiousness, honesty, and piety, among other laudable characteristics. But they are not all perfect from the start. Ragged Dick begins the novel as a boy who "swore sometimes," was "[extravagant]," had a "habit of smoking," and "sometimes lost money" gambling. [8] But Alger also speaks to Ragged Dick's redeeming features, writing, "He was above doing anything mean or dishonorable. He would not steal, cheat, or impose upon younger boys, but was frank and straight-forward, manly and self-reliant. His nature was a noble one." [9] This catalogue of qualities reveals a pattern: Dick's flaws are chosen, expendable habits; his assets, however are a fundamental part of his "nature," and therefore the traits by which the novel judges him. Thus, when Dick sheds his frivolous and indulgent tendencies in favor of higher values, it is not long before he is duly rewarded in the form of a respectable job offering from an admiring and very wealthy patron.

An American, According to a Jew

An important question Roth raises in his work is: What kind of American would his characters become as a result of assimilating or acculturating? His characters are not always forthcoming in providing an answer. Only American Pastoral deals somewhat frankly with this issue through the narrator Nathan Zuckerman—Philip Roth's alter-ego and also the narrator of The Counterlife.

Early in the novel, Zuckerman learns that his childhood idol, Seymour "Swede" Levov, has recently died of prostate cancer. This revelation sets Zuckerman speculating about the Swede's life leading up to his death, centering on the turbulent 1960s, when the Swede's daughter bombs a post office in an act of political protest and kills an innocent man. Zuckerman begins the story by explaining the origins of his hero worship as a child growing up in the heavily Jewish Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey, circa 1940:

I don't imagine I'm the only grown man who was a Jewish kid aspiring to be an all-American kid during the patriotic war years—when our entire neighborhood's wartime hope seemed to converge in the marvelous body of the Swede. The Jewishness he wore so lightly as one of the tall, blond, athletic winners must have spoken to us too—in our idolizing the Swede. [10]

In spite of its straightforward language and confessional tone, Zuckerman's professed childhood goal is replete with contradictions. For one, he begins by stating that he, like others of his generation, was a Jew who aspired to be American. This otherwise reasonable wish is freighted with the knowledge that Zuckerman and his peers are actually third-generation Americans. Thus, his statement seems to suggest that Jewishness is an albatross in his quest for an American identity, rather than a trait that may contribute to or parallel it.

Zuckerman does not define precisely what it is about being Jewish that keeps him from feeling wholly American, but he offers a clue in stating that his neighborhood lived vicariously as Americans through the deceptively Nordic-looking Swede. In other words, Zuckerman and those who shared his complex felt that being a Jew was less conducive to becoming American than being a "Swede." The paradox that a Swede should be more essentially American than a Jew whose American roots extend back to his grandparents' generation underscores a racial anxiety that still existed within the Jewish population during the Second World War. While race is never mentioned as the bond that united Weequahic's Jews, the use of the moniker of the "Swede" reveals one of the community's core beliefs: that whiteness trumps even nationality in determining who is on the privileged track toward becoming American.

Though Zuckerman suggests that the Swede is a character "more American" than he, Roth's protagonist does not exclude the possibility of becoming American himself, as he awaits the status with distinct optimism. He even speaks to the hope that the Levovs will help forge the way for the rest of Newark's Jews, calling the Swede "as close to a goy as we were going to get," and his family "audacious pioneers to the normalizing American amenities," citing their finished basement, screened-in porch, and flagstone stoop. [11] Whiteness is the Swede's "passport" to real America. And Zuckerman speaks to its associated benefits of material comforts and the honor of not feeling like a religious outsider even though he is. [12]

1 | 2 | [3] | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Next page »

Jackie Weisman is a first-year student at New York University School of Law.