‘Purity is Petrefaction’: Liberalism and Betrayal in Philip Roth's<i>I Married A Communist</i>

Hutchison, Anthony

doi:10.1080/13642520500149426

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 3 publications

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“…In Nathan Zuckerman's reminiscences of his earlier "political and artistic consciousness," [7] "the Ringolds were the one-two punch promising to initiate me into the big show, into my beginning to understand what it makes to be a man on the larger scale." [3] In I Married A Communist, Philip Roth sketches "the large scale" of the tradition of American liberalism featured in populism by those people young Nathan Zuckerman admires-Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln and Norman Corwin.…”

Section: Whiteness and American Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whiteness and Democracy in Philip Roth's I Married a Communist

Wang¹

2019

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Philip Roth is one of the most well-known and prolific writers in contemporary America, and I Married A Communist is the masterpiece of his reflections on American society at large. Set against McCarthyism in the 1950s, I Married A Communist displays Roth's contemplation of the relationships among Communism, whiteness and American democracy, and especially that between the latter two. Whiteness, based on racial differentiation and exclusion, exposes the inherent contradiction of American democracy. On the one hand, American democracy strives for equality, liberty and individual rights for all its citizens, but on the other hand, whiteness reveals various inequalities and injustices. To some extent, whiteness is complicit with American democracy, and Communism makes that complicity explicit.

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Section: Whiteness and American Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%