“American Dream” and Identity in Philip Roth’s Novel “American Pastoral”

Abstract

The study aims to determine “American Dream” role in formation of personal and national identity of the central character in the novel “American Pastoral” by Philip Roth. The article examines constitutive elements of the studied utopian project, analyses peculiarities of its evaluation by the characters in regard to their existential plans, on the basis of which dialectical nature of “American Dream” as an aspect of identity construction is revealed. The work is novel in that it chooses material that is little-studied in the Russian literary criticism and research perspective that has not been previously used to analyse this novel. As a result, it is proved that failure of the “American Dream” project leads to its restructuring, which confirms its self-stabilising nature and fundamental role in the process of personal self-determination of the character.

References

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Author information

About this article

Publication history

• Received: February 2, 2021.
• Published: April 9, 2021.

Keywords

• Ф. Рот
• «Американская пастораль»
• американская мечта
• американская национальная идентичность
• P. Roth
• “American Pastoral”
• American Dream
• American national identity

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© 2021 The Author(s)
© 2021 Gramota Publishing, LLC

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