Identity Construction in Philip Roth´s American Trilogy: Self-Invention and Historical Determinism
Identity Construction in Philip Roth´s American Trilogy: Self-Invention and Historical Determinism

Summary/Abstract: In the contexts of the Zuckerman series of novels, the American trilogy represents a new phase for the identity construction of the writer Nathan Zuckerman: he appears restricted in action and rather dimmed in personality and he gives up his pervasive self-questioning, on the other hand, he becomes aware of the interplay between history and identity. Foregrounding the lives of three remarkable men, the trilogy demonstrates that free invention of personal identity, in a society advertised as having the cult of individualism, of change and of personal control over environment, is after all prevented by the very ideological and historical circumstances that prompt it in the first place.

• Details
• Contents