대재앙의 시대와 생존의 힘: 필립 로스의 『네메시스』

Abstract

Philip Roth has constantly explored who and what determines the course of a person's life in his all writings. Nemesis, his final work presents us a young Jewish man, Burky Cantor who works as a physical teacher and wants to be a full grown man despite his shameful biological and physical condition. As a Jewish young teacher, Burky faces terrifying polio epidemic situation in Newark, which seems to be similar to the Holocaust of Europe at that time. Roth presents us how Burky faces that urgent situation, how he decides to escape from it, and how he copes with the tragic consequences of it. The protagonist lives in eternal shame because he cannot forgive his mistaken choices and betrayal of his ideals. He is so obsessed with what he has gone through that he lost his sense of living, and has been living an extremely shrunken and desolate life with deeper feeling of shame. He constantly criticizes himself, connects his bad luck and sadness cases and fights against God because he thinks it is all due to God's cruel intention. Therefore, there is only a devastation in his life which is highly contrasted with the life of narrator’s who had contracted with polio like him in the past but has been enjoying the warmth, the vitality and the beauty of life. It seems that he not only survived the traumatic experience but also could get deeper understanding and sympathy of others. In this respect, even though the novel depicts a Jewish character in a very specific context, the character is not shown particularly struggling with the problem of Jewish identity and American identity. Rather, it tries to focus on what contributes to survive the disaster which is uncontrollable and unavoidable. The contrasting course of living in Burky and the narrator shows the importance of seeing circumstances in a proper distance and context, living with understanding and sympathy with others, and actively jumping into real life. This novel has even more special implications today, given that we are living in an era of cataclysmic crisis such as environmental disasters, wars, and viral infectious diseases.