The Plot Against America

In what ways does The Plot Against Amer­i­ca dif­fer from con­ven­tion­al his­tor­i­cal fic­tion? What effects does Roth achieve by blend­ing per­son­al his­to­ry, his­tor­i­cal fact, and an alter­na­tive his­to­ry that might have happened?

The nov­el begins ​“Fear pre­sides over these mem­o­ries, a per­pet­u­al fear” [p. 1]. With this sen­tence Roth estab­lish­es that his sto­ry is being told from an adult point of view by an adult nar­ra­tor who is remem­ber­ing what befell his fam­i­ly, over six­ty years ear­li­er, when he was a boy between the ages of sev­en and nine. Why else does Roth open the nov­el this way? What role does fear play through­out the book?

How plau­si­ble is the alter­na­tive his­to­ry that Roth imag­ines? How would the world be dif­fer­ent if Amer­i­ca had not entered the war, or entered it on the side of Germany?

When the Roth fam­i­ly plans to go to Wash­ing­ton, young Philip wants to take his stamp col­lec­tion with him because he fears that, since he did not remove the ten-cent Lind­bergh stamp, ​“a malig­nant trans­for­ma­tion would occur in my absence, caus­ing my unguard­ed Wash­ing­tons to turn into Hitlers, and swastikas to be imprint­ed on my Nation­al Parks” [p. 57]. What does this pas­sage sug­gest about how the Lind­bergh elec­tion has affect­ed the boy? Where else does this kind of ​“mag­i­cal think­ing” occur in the novel?

Her­man Roth asserts that ​“his­to­ry is every­thing that hap­pens every­where. Even here in Newark. Even here on Sum­mit Avenue. Even what hap­pens in this house to an ordi­nary man — that’ll be his­to­ry too some­day” [p. 180]. How does this con­cep­tion of his­to­ry dif­fer from tra­di­tion­al def­i­n­i­tions? In what ways does the nov­el sup­port this claim? How is the his­to­ry of the Roth fam­i­ly rel­e­vant to the his­to­ry of America?

After Mrs. Wish­now is mur­dered, young Philip thinks, ​“And now she was inside a cas­ket, and I was the one who put her there” [p. 336]. Is he to some degree respon­si­ble for her death? How has his desire to save his own fam­i­ly endan­gered hers?

Observ­ing his moth­er’s anguished con­fu­sion, Philip dis­cov­ers that ​“one could do noth­ing right with­out also doing some­thing wrong” [p. 341]. Where in the nov­el does the attempt to do some­thing right also result in doing some­thing wrong? What is Roth sug­gest­ing here about the moral com­plex­i­ties of actions and their consequences?

When Her­man Roth is explain­ing the deals Hitler has made with Lind­bergh, Roth com­ments, ​“The pres­sure of what was hap­pen­ing was accel­er­at­ing every­one’s edu­ca­tion, my own includ­ed” [p. 101]. What is Philip learn­ing? In what ways is his­to­ry rob­bing him of a nor­mal child­hood? Why does he want to run away?

What moti­vates Rab­bi Ben­gels­dorf, Aunt Eve­lyn, and Sandy to embrace Lind­bergh and dis­miss Her­man Roth’s fears as para­noia? Are they right? In what ways do their per­son­al aspi­ra­tions affect their per­cep­tions of what is happening?

In what ways are Bess and Her­man Roth hero­ic? How do they respond to the crises that befall them? How are they able to hold their fam­i­ly together?

Roth observes that vio­lence, when it’s in a house, is heart­break­ing: ​“like see­ing the clothes in a tree after an explo­sion. You may be pre­pared to see death but not the clothes in a tree” [p. 296]. What caus­es Her­man Roth and Alvin to fight each oth­er so vicious­ly? What is it that brings the vio­lence swirling around them off the streets and into the house? Why is vio­lence in a home so much more dis­turb­ing than on the street or the battlefield?

Much is at stake in The Plot Against Amer­i­ca — the fate of Amer­i­ca’s Jews, the larg­er fate of Europe and indeed of West­ern civ­i­liza­tion, but also how Amer­i­ca will define itself. What does the nov­el sug­gest about what it means to be an Amer­i­can, and to be a Jew­ish Amer­i­can? In what ways are the Roths a thor­ough­ly Amer­i­can family?

What does the Post­script, par­tic­u­lar­ly the ​“True Chronol­o­gy of the Major Fig­ures,” add to the novel?