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)