Subjectivity as theme of Philip Roth's fiction- A critical study

Philip Roth, the Jewish American Novelist, deals with the contemporary social mores in America in his major fiction. Being the central novelist of his generation, he sums up its central concerns. He gives an excellent utterance to the crisis of the modern wasteland. It becomes his task to concern himself with the question of the basic values of life with a special reference to the crisis of his times. To him life is a universal phenomenon, and as such his art is as inconclusive as life. Essentially he is an intellectual and his approach is purely intellectual. The conflict of subjectivity versus intimacy caused by absolute egoism-solipsism- receives artistic treatment at his hands. His characters do not mean anything beyond a few sessions of sexual fun. They fail to get across their self-conceited ethos of superiority which brings the affair to an abortive end. Thus all men and women in his novels fail to overcome their egoism, and ultimately let go of the intimacies they form. Thus solipsism/ subjectivity emerges as the thematic leitmotif of Roth’s work, and the image of the modern wasteland pervades the vistas of his fiction. His characters live perpetually enslaved to self