Portrayal of the Fragmented Self in Philip Roth’s The Professor of Desire

Abstract

Every human has two drives: an instinctual drive and rational drive. The former includes sexuality, impulses, desires, emotions; which is primordial, chaotic,and nature gifted. The later one includes reason, thought and controlling capacity, andit is ordered, logical and achieved through human efforts. Man has created his uniqueidentity through his reasoning capacity. The protagonist in the novel is pulled by his instinctual drive from one side and his rationality from the other side. The after math of this inner tussle is fragmentation in his self. He becomes a torn personality who suffers from identity-paralysis. Through The Professor of Desire, Philip Roth createsa supremely intelligent, affecting, and often hilarious dramatization about the dilemma of pleasure: where we seek it; why we flee it; and how we struggle to maketruce between dignity and desire.