ILLUSION AND DISILLUSION IN PHILIP ROTH’S AMERICAN PASTORAL

So far little work has been done to highlight and analyze the illusion and disillusion of American dream with reference to Philip Roth’s American Pastoral. This article shows Roth’s exploration of the myth that United States offers its citizens opportunities for wholesale self ? reinvention ? an explosion that occurs quite literally in the text with the ignition of a bomb. This novel portrays the passionate commitment of many mid-century Jews, often just a generation away from immigration, to the mythic promise in the United States that material prosperity offers a sure avenue to reinvention as “Americans.”