2 Dreams in Different Versions and Conflicts 5

2.1 The Dream of American People 5

2.2 The Dream of Immigrant People 5

2.3 The Dream of Jewish People 6

2.4 The Conflicts of Different American Dreams 7

3 The Anxiety of Identities on American Pastoral 9

3.1 Swedish Guy: The Lost of Identity in the Context of Assimilation 9

3.2 Dawn: The Split of Identity in the Conflicts between Ideal and Real Life 11

3.3 Merry: Dislocation of Identity and Alienation of Postnatal Culture 12

3.4 Cohen: The Rebellion of Identity under American Mainstream Society 13

4 Jewish Identity in the American Multicultural Context 15

4.1 Resistance of Jewish American to Identity Anxiety 15

4.2 The Construction of Universal Identity under Anxiety 17

4.3 Entrance into American Life with Jewish Characteristics 19

4.4 Development of American Dream with Openness and Inclusiveness 20

5 Conclusion 22

Bibliography 25

1 Introduction

Philip Roth is a representative Jewish writer in contemporary American literary world. Comparing to other writers in the same times, Roth has a long creative circle and a strong passion for his novel writing. Although Roth is over eighty years old, he also insists writing and continuously produce new novels. Changeable materials, flexible creation and active ideas are his outstanding features.

In 1997, Roth published a novel American Pastoral, which has drawn much attention and received high evaluation. The narrator of the novel is a Jewish writer, Nathan Zuckerman, and the protagonist, Seymour Levov, is a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man and a hard worker. Seemingly, Seymour became assimilated into American society and realized his American Dream. In fact, he had always been living in an illusion of life. Until his daughter took part in the protests against the Vietnam War and made continuous bombing, his life had totally changed and he saw the cruel reality.文献综述

For Jewish, American Dream involved many different meanings, including the practical needs and spiritual pursuits. This thesis aims to discuss the causes that lead to Jewish American anxiety in the decline of American Dream, to find some proper ways to ease such anxiety and to develop American Dream.

1.1 The Background Information of Philip Roth

Philip Roth is the only living novelist whose works are being collected in the Library of America series. His works depict many figures with a variety of complex attitudes in the contemporary American society. Many of them are the losers of life and finally fall into the destruction in leaving indescribable sorrow to their readers. Roth in his works revealed the conflict between the acceptance and flight of the fate, and the conflict between the inpidual and the society. The conflict comes from others’ expectation and the protagonists’ own dream. In his novels, Roth reveals the identity crisis of people and their predicament in their real life. In addition, Roth describes the various encounters of Jews in the United States in order to illustrate the social environment’s repression on human nature and their corresponding resistance. Roth examines the interpersonal relationships and social environment closely from the perspective of identity crisis in order to expose the hardships of Jews in the mainstream culture of the United States of the the white American.