Between Rising and Passing: Justice Suspended in the Fiction of Philip RothJackie Weisman
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On the opposite side of the scale, Roth depicts his main characters in The Counterlife as American by default, in some cases, in spite of their best efforts. The novel's structure allows for several opportunities to prove this argument, as its individual chapters are variations on a single starting point. The first chapter has Zuckerman's brother Henry die of a heart condition. At the post-funeral brunch, Zuckerman ruminates on Henry's place within his generation of "secular, college-educated atheists," for whom "running away with shiksas had gone out as a felony years ago." [21] In the following chapter, Henry survives the surgery that kills him in the first chapter. Convinced that his lifestyle contributed to his illness, he flees New Jersey and settles on an Israeli frontier colony. In an effort to comprehend Henry's decision, Zuckerman appraises Henry's life of American "normalcy," consisting of "Carol for a wife, dentistry for a livelihood, South Orange for a home, well-behaved kids in good private schools- even the girlfriend on the side." [22] Despite their different outcomes, the unifying strand between the chapters is the fact of Henry's leaving behind what most would consider a desirable lifestyle made possible through successful participation in American institutions—education, the job market, and marriage, to name a few. Moreover, it would appear that Henry's success came at little to no cost to the identity with which he grew up, casting him into the mold of rising characters.
But judging from the fact that Henry does not survive his American success story (literally or figuratively, depending upon the plot line), it is clear that Roth takes some issue with the basic rising paradigm of acculturation at no expense. In spite of the relative smoothness of Henry's ascent, he still feels that America is no place to foster the identity he adopts when he survives his surgery. And in the chapter which features Henry's demise, Zuckerman conceives that "it was being a Jew that had killed him." [23] Paradoxically, Roth matches an economic rising storyline with a racial passing outcome. This inversion is also visible in Brenda Patimkin's case: although her elective surgery for the sake of looking "whiter" invokes the passing genre on the surface, the ending of her story bears closer resemblance to that of Alger's characters. She expresses neither bitterness nor compunctions regarding her loss, and when Neil asks why she chose it, she responds, "I was pretty. Now I'm prettier." [24] Seeing as both rising and passing depend heavily on the systems of justice they perceive in America, one must assume that Roth carves out his own endings due to a profound mistrust of the systems his predecessors envision.
Entertaining Fatalism: An Alternate Proposal
The logic of the typical rising and passing narratives assumes a reasonable correspondence between an action and its outcome. Often at first, the characters in these novels remain oblivious that their decisions produce results consistent with these rules. By the end of their journeys, however, the characters perceive this logic and persist or adapt accordingly. However, in contrast to the typical rising and passing genres, Roth's characters generally presuppose some logical construction, and then struggle with the realization that one does not exist. Of all of Roth's renditions of this vacuum of justice, American Pastoral paints the most vivid picture of the devastation it causes. It also lends the most insight into the theory of universal justice that Roth proposes in its stead.
As the novel's focal character, the Swede functions as a pawn for Roth to expound his model. His gifts of good looks, athleticism, understated charm, and material privilege make him the ideal specimen for one who has a shot at success, and from the start, he makes clear his aspirations to indulge in all that real America has to offer. Whereas The Counterlife and Goodbye, Columbus take place during relatively stable periods in Jewish American self-identification, American Pastoral is marked by variability and is set in a period of extreme flux. For example, rather than drawing with too much prejudice on either rising or passing, the Swede uses some aspects of both models to fashion his American identity. He marries out of his religion against his parents' inclinations but he does not completely defy them. Per his father's wishes, he breaks off his relationship with the first non-Jew he plans to marry, but he eventually marries a Catholic girl anyway. The second time, however, his father grants his approval after ascertaining that the Swede would be able to live a Jewish life to the extent he did before the relationship.
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Jackie Weisman is a first-year student at New York University School of Law.