Vicarious Trauma in Philip Roth’s American Pastoral and The Human Stain

Abstract

Philip Roth’s novels--American Pastoral and The Human Stain--present American Jewishness. The main characters in these novels draw readers’ attention towards the Vietnam War. This research examines Roth’s narrativizaion from the perspectives of trauma theory. It studies the psychological suppressions in protagonists: Coleman Sil in The Human Stain and Seymour Levov in American Pastoral. Philip Roth’s characters in the novels are the victims of trauma which passes in them through the characters who are suppressed by the unseen force when working with trauma victims. This research attempts to unravel the issue of vicarious trauma with relation to memory and ethics. This research focuses on how Roth depicts in these novels the post-war American life triggered by vicarious traumatic dread because of American violence in Vietnam. The significance of this study is a new way of understanding the Vietnam War trauma in mentioned characters. So far as this research is concerned, it can be another brick to put on the wall of knowing Jewish and vicarious trauma.