Philip Roth and Sexual Roles

Paper Summary:

This paper offers a thorough discussion of human sexuality as depicted by Phillip Roth in his novel "The Human Stain" published in 2000. The writer looks into the effects of Roth's inclusion of popular culture, including Viagra, popular sex theorist Paul Gray, and Bill Clinton's scandal. The paper also includes commentary by reviewers.

From the Paper:

"The formation of Coleman's attitudes toward gender relationships are revealed circuitously. The reader is shocked, well into the book, to learn that Coleman, a distinguished classics professor with a white Jewish wife, is black, passing as white. In the middle of the book after we already know something of his various relationships we hear of "the worst night of his life," the night he tried to enter a whites only whorehouse and was thrown out with the words: "You're a black nigger, ain't you, boy?" (Roth 180) Roth uses this method of gradual revelation to show that whatever opinions we may already have formed about Coleman and his relationships, will need to be revised. This is continually the case as Roth demonstrates that nobody ever knows anybody, and a rush to judgment will probably prove erroneous."

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