Philip


 * Sam Showers, Patrick Ziesmer, and Greg Raupp**

Summary Philip Roth is an impressionable eight-year-old at the beginning of the novel, which begins in 1939. He has a supportive family consisting of a father (Herman), mother (Bess), and older brother (Sandy). Also living with the family is Philip's cousin, Alvin. He lives in a duplex in a Jewish community named Newark, New Jersey. He is an avid stamp collector and being a young kid he is highly intimidated by any ideas of change. This includes such examples like when Alvin comes homes with his left leg gone and it is very difficult for Philip to understand what has happened to Alvin. "'Say hello. It's Alvin. Welcome him home.' 'What about his leg?' I whispered. 'What about it, dear?' I shrugged."(pg126.) As the book continues he begins to understand that he and his family as Jews are outsiders in the land of the free. "And the conclusion the stranger drew from his observations he demonstrated with a mocking movement of the head. It was from there that we heard him refer to my father as 'a loudmouth Jew,'" (pg65). Philip talks about his life between 1940 and 1942 in which he does grow up on his own, he hangs around with a kid named Earl and he follows men around town. Either becuase of his age or becuase he's persuaded by his brother, he begins to not believe everything he hears, especially with Herman all the time. He also trys to understand his brother Sandy's views on the issues on Lindbergh and the war that continues to dictate his life. He sneaks into a movie theater by having a fake note. "One way or another, I had to see Aunt Evelyn at the White house, and not becuase, like my parents, I was appalled and outraged by what she was doing but becuase her having gone there at all seemed to me more remarkable that anything that could possibly befall a member of our family-except for what had befallen Alvin."(pg 198.)

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Analysis As the protagonist of the story, the reader almost always knows what Philip is thinking and feeling. As a result, we are able to notice the dynamic quality to Phillip's personality that develops throughout the novel. At the beginning he is a young boy that doesn't fully understand what the world is going through. He relies on the opinions of his brother as well as what he picks up from his parents and Alvin. A good example of this is when the family is on vacation and they experience an anti-Semitic evening in their hotel lobby. Phillip is confused and asks his brother what is going on, with the reply of, "Anti-Semitism."(pg 69.) Phillip goes through some more of these moments during the several years that transpire in the course of the story. These include Alvin losing his leg fighting for Canada, Sandy's journey into Kentucky, and his Aunt Evelyn constantly bashing the Jewish community. These events shape Phillip into more of an independent thinker, questioning his father's ideas about the government in the line, "I began to wonder if my father knew what he was talking about."(pg 125.) This seems to the reader like Phillip isn't able to make up his mind about the country's president or who to support within his own family, and he may not be able to do that, but he starts to think for himself, eventually trying to pursuade his aunt to keep them in their community, sneak into movie theaters, ans even run away from home, although on page 233 we see that it didn't work out so well. All these events mold Phillip into a young man with his own ideas about life and government, and even makes him see himself as a matured young adult. At the end, this is seen with the last lines of the book, "The boy himself was the stump...I was the prosthesis." (pg 362.) This line has culminated the series of events that Phillip went through in his life, and shows that he is willing to take responsibility for earlier decisions that led to his friend Seldon being an orphan. This integrity shows us that Phillip really has grown up and has let the terrible events in his life make him an adult.

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