Author(s)

Ziwei Dai ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China

Corresponding Author

Ziwei Dai

ABSTRACT

Phillip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, American Pastoral, characterizes Seymour Irving Levov as a tragic hero of American Adam with unique narrative techniques. The novelist-narrator Zuckerman adds metafictional features to the realistic narration of the story of the Swede and varies the narrative distance in the novel. This article discusses the effects of narrative distance on the characterization of Swede Levov. It argues that the dynamic change of narrative distance in the novel at first mythologizes the Swede as a successful Jewish American Adam, then undermines the mythical narrative, and at last reconstructs Swede Levov as a flawed hero. Through the sophisticated control of narrative distance, Roth emphasizes the analytical position of the novel in its exploration of the myth of American Adam.

KEYWORDS

Phillip Roth, American Pastoral, American Adam, Narrative distance

CITE THIS PAPER

Ziwei Dai, Shaping Swede Levov: The Myth of American Adam and Narrative Distance in Phillip Roth's American Pastoral. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature (2023) Vol. 6: 34-38. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/langl.2023.060806.

REFERENCES

[1] Parrish Timothy. (2007) Introduction: Roth at Mid-career. In: Parrish, Timothy, Ed., The Cambridge Companion to Philip Roth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1-8.
[2] Safer Elaine B. (2006) Mocking the Age: The Later Novels of Philip Roth, State University of New York Press, New York.
[3] Roth Philip. (1998) American Pastoral, Vintage Books, New York.
[4] Railton Ben. (2011) Novelist-Narrators of American Dream: The (Meta-) Realistic Chronicles of Cather, Fitzgerald, Roth, and Díaz. American Literary Realism, 43, 133-153.
[5] Dickie George. (1961) Bullough and the Concept of Psychical Distance. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 22, 233–238. 
[6] Booth Wayne C. (1983) The Rhetoric of Fiction, Second Edition, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
[7] Lewis R. W. B. (1955) The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
[8] Macdonald Brian. (2004) "The Real American Crazy Shit": On Adamism and Democratic Individuality in American Pastoral. Studies in American Jewish Literature, 23, 27-40.
[9] Hutcheon Linda. (1988) A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory Fiction, Routledge, New York.
[10] Bai Chunxiang. (2010) Aesthetic Essence and Artistic Creation of Narrative Distance of Novels. Journal of Central South University (Social Science), 16, 122-127.
[11] Hu Xiaoling. (2015) Three Perspectives of Narrative Distance: Structure, Space, and Dialogue. Guizhou Social Science, 310, 49-54.
[12] Waugh Patricia. (1984) Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction, Routledge, New York.
[13] Goldberg R. L. (2020) "Incest, Blood, Shame. Are They Not Enough to Make One Feel Sinful?" Miltonic Figurations of Incest and Disobedience in Philip Roth's American Pastoral. Philip Roth Studies, 16, 33-52.
[14] Shen Dan. (1998) Narratology and the Stylistics of Fiction, Beijing University Press, Beijing.
[15] Sun Lu. (2017) The Pastoral Ideal of the American Adam: An Analysis of American National Myths in Philip Roth's American Pastoral and Their Enlightening Values in Contemporary America. Foreign Literatures, 1, 109-116.

Sponsors, Associates, and Links

---

• Journal of Language Testing & Assessment
  
  
• Information and Knowledge Management
  
  
• Military and Armament Science
  
  
• Media and Communication Research
  
  
• Journal of Human Movement Science
  
  
• Art and Performance Letters
  
  
• Lecture Notes on History
  
  
• Philosophy Journal
  
  
• Science of Law Journal
  
  
• Journal of Political Science Research
  
  
• Journal of Sociology and Ethnology
  
  
• Advances in Broadcasting