『미국 전복의 음모』: 남성적 개인주의와 민주주의의 불편한 동거

Abstract

This article aims to explore the two fundamental yet mutually contrasting elements of politics in Philip Roths The Plot against America: the necessity to rejuvenate American democracy and the desire to reinstate masculine individuality. By adopting historiographic narrativity, Roth shows how Americanness has degraded into an empty category in the early twentieth-century. The problem is, however, that Roths political critique quite dismantles toward the end of the novel. The masculine patriarchal individual, which the author provides as an imaginary solution, tries to protect his family from the ruins of America, but in doing so, the texts focus shifts from the nations communal identity to personal survival. This paper argues that The Plot against America suffers from this deviation, in which the authors overall attempt to radically re-imagine the nations collectivity is severely crippled by his desire to revive a form of masculine heroism based on physical violence.