Home+of+the+Who?

 Greg Raupp Hour 1 Home of the Who? The land of the free and the home of the brave, that is America. The world’s only pure-volunteer military defends the shores and freedoms of this great land. However, there are those who find discontent with America. Those who want to dismantle the American principles and break down the land of the free and the home of the brave. But how could one take away these two very important adjectives and leave America as just a land and a home? This is the question posed by Philip Roth in his novel //The Plot Against America.// Roth takes his readers back to a critical time in American history, World War II. However, instead of Franklin D. Roosevelt being elected president in the 1939 election, Roth sets up the challenger, Charles A. Lindbergh, for a victory, and the snowball cabal starts a-rolling. While answering his question, Roth provides a commentary on American society. Throughout the book, Roth examines how this alternative course of events would change everything about the path of American history. He starts with the much larger conflicts of World War II and Nazi Germany, and shows how a slight change of personnel at the Oval Office affects every single person in America, including a young Jewish boy in New Jersey. How could one strip America and its people of their patriotism, beliefs, and liberties? Roth poses this question very early in the novel. On the cover, in fact. Information is often given in a format that explains who, what, when, where, why and how. Roth does this on the cover to lead readers to the central question of his work. ‘What’ and ‘where’ are answered quite clearly: a plot and it is against America. A postage stamp supports the idea that the story takes place in America, as it is marked “U.S.” ‘Who’ is answered by the stamp as well by the insignia of a Nazi swastika. A clever person might link this to the answer of the question of ‘why.’ Nazis had one goal, and that goal was to create a superior, Aryan race out of humanity. America was instrumental in stopping them. Why would the Nazis desire to destroy America? Because it was Americans who kept them from accomplishing their goal. When did the Nazis attempt this? World War II. If more clarification is needed, again the stamp must be considered. Nazism didn’t exist until the 1930’s or so, thus it must have been during or after the Great Depression. In addition, the postage stamp is fairly colorless, possibly due to a lack of widespread color printers. Its greenish hues and shading certainly would not lead readers to assume the stamp came from a modern post office. This leaves ‘how’ standing all by its lonesome. How would one destroy America?  “’It’s disgraceful. It starts with the White House…’” (65). Roth starts his cataclysmic macrocosm at the highest peak of society in America and vividly shows how it works its way down to every last American. By breaking into the largest government in the land, Roth portrays how one can shake the foundations of the most basic government, the family. The propaganda and dissention spread by the government under Lindbergh split the Roth family when Herman Roth threatened to kick his son out of the house. “’You people’ one more time, son, and I am going to ask you to leave the house.” A few sentences later Sandy, the son in question, responds to his father with “’But I //can’t// listen to you. How can I listen to you when you tell me about ‘millions’ of people? Millions of people are nothing but idiots!’” (231). The change Roth creates tears families apart and rips loved ones from each others’ grasps. “’Then she is dead!’ Seldon screamed” after suspecting his mother was killed by an angry mob (335). Sadly, his suspicions were correct. Simply tip the scales a bit in the wrong direction. Turn the United States into many factions against each other and fill the people with prejudice. That is how one could destroy America. Roth’s novel //The Plot Against America// is very much a commentary on the way the American people live. People do not have crystal balls to divine anything they want to know, so they have to listen to what other people have to say. This is where trouble shows up. When Herman Roth threatened to kick Sandy out of the house, it was a dispute about what was real that started the row. What is propaganda, where does fact end and opinion begin? Where does this information come from? People tend to believe two things: what they hear and what they want to believe. “We heard him refer to my father as ‘a loudmouth Jew’” is one example Roth presents to support this idea. One person hears something about a certain demographic, and now that person distrusts, even resents, them. This is the butterfly effect. Immediately after the gentleman’s comment on Philip’s father, an old woman is heard saying “’I’d give any-thing to slap his face.’” The opinion is spreading, and the fissure between Americans continues to grow. Close-mindedness, the belief that one way is the only way plagues the American people. Citizens such as Sandy feel that people who have a different idea than their own are “nothing but idiots.” In the end, however, Americans realize their mistake and prove their mettle by uniting and electing a bold leader to lead them out of World War II and the shadow of Nazism. As Roth sifts through the story, leading a younger version of him through a fire which no American youth would want to pass, it is the answering of his question that makes the reader understand his work. The answer reveals itself over the course of the novel. It is the answering of Roth’s own question that creates the story. However, it is not only the story that the readers must heed. It is the message. Americans too easily are swayed by propaganda and the media, too lazy to search for information on their own. Roth copyrighted this novel in 2004, the year after the United States’ invasion of Iraq. The cause for this was suspicion of their possession of weapons of mass destruction, so the media said. So the government said. So the Central Intelligence Agency said. No weapons of mass destruction have been found to date. Perhaps Roth was setting an example for the American people, encouraging them to think for themselves. The acceptance of knowledge without caution is revealed to be the most dangerous weapon of mass destruction.