Summer Reading

In “The Plot Against America”, Phillip Roth is able to convey such realistic human emotions through his characters that the novel begins to appear to be more than simply a fictional account of a family’s struggle. Throughout the novel, Roth draws on his own personal family experiences to give his characters the essential spark to bring them to life. The protagonist, Phillip Roth, is a seven-year-old character modeled after the author’s own early childhood and is subjected through all of the troubles in the novel. Because Roth is nearly writing an autobiography about his family members he has no trouble in clearly expressing their human traits and emotions.

As a young boy, the protagonist Phillip embodies one of the most recognizable human traits—innocence. Since he is only seven years old he has no strong, negative emotions against anything around him. He is simply a young boy hoping to enjoy his childhood and live with his loving family. Once the most influential members of his family, his parents, begin to fear the election of a radical anti-Semitic Charles Lindberg the reader witnesses the rapid changes that rock the family and Phillip to their core. Because Phillip is so young he is easily impressionable to the events that surround his life. Phillip’s father terrifies his son when he breaks down, “How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I'd think I was having a hallucination." After Lindberg is elected president, the Roth family realizes that all of America is turning against the Jews. Phillip worries that the whole world around him is the enemy. Only months before the election Phillip lived an innocent childhood life and believed nothing could hurt him or his family in America. Through the rest of the novel he develops nervous anxieties toward the frailty of life and the future of his friends and relatives. Phillip can barely even turn to his parents as they know no better than he what may become of them as the pro-Nazi Lindberg party begins to mount their offensive against the Jews.

As the novel progresses Phillip and his family no longer feel safe in their own country. The harsh circumstances that young Phillip must face to survive changes him rapidly and forces him to grow up in a constant state of fear. The fearful boy laments, "Our homeland was America…then the Republicans nominated Lindbergh and everything changed." Phillip is challenged with making difficult decisions on his own and forming his own opinions on what is right from wrong. He learns to depend on himself when he feels he can no longer trust some of the influential members of the community. The harsh experiences Phillip goes through and his subsequent personality changes express how real Phillip’s situation could be. Because Phillip’s responses seem so believable the reader can easily identify with his hardships and his motives. The author draws specific details and occurrences from his own life that he effectively instills into the characters in his novel. The “Plot Against America” contains many lifelike characters such as young Phillip due to the fact that many of their actions are drawn from real life experiences in the author’s life. There is no question that Phillip Roth’s novel contains great examples of characters expressing strikingly lifelike human emotions and qualities. (567)

Letter

Mr. Coon,
For as long as I can remember, reading and writing have been core aspects in the PCDS curriculum. Since the fifth grade, PCDS has taught me to appreciate good books and to realize the importance of writing well. Writing is an essential tool in clearly stating one’s objectives and motives while reading is a key ingredient to one’s complete education. In middle school, we students were "required" to read as many as seven books each summer. So naturally the summertime was when I did most of my pleasure reading while the school year would usually be devoted to class readings. In high school, I stopped reading as much pleasure reading as I used to in middle school simply because there seemed to be other things to do. Sports became more of a commitment, school became more time consuming and important, and other things seemed to always come up. Nevertheless, I still try to keep at least one book by my bed when I have free time to pick it up again. The books I like to read the most have always been historical fiction novels. Ever since I was little I loved learning about history because history is simply the best story there is. History is not only intriguing, but also it actually happened. It makes the story so much better to me since its true. Because historical fiction novels are tied into real life events, I feel more strongly towards the plot and the characters because it is bringing history alive. Some of my favorite books have been "Christ in Concrete" and "Killer Angles" simply due to the fact that these novels can put human faces and emotions in real life events in the past. I feel as if these books and books like them are important to society because they can show anyone what history was like not from a facts and figures standpoint, but from a more personalized level. Some of my best papers have been in history, again one of my favorite subjects, simply because I like to write about it. When I am inspired by my topic, I try my best to do it justice. Some of my papers last year covered the history of the Panama Canal, the Cold War, and twentieth century immigrant life. Once I get going on my topic, whatever it may be, it is easy for me to continue to write. On every paper it is always the hardest for me to get my introduction the way I want it. I hope to expand my abilities as a writer and I look forward to a great senior year in English. (442)