47 pages • 1 hour read
Philip RothThe Plot Against America
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Alvin’s Stump
Alvin’s stump is a symbol of loss. For Alvin, it initially signals the loss of the life he wanted to have. For Philip, it is a symbol of fear and loathing—the loss of safety and empathy. From the moment he hears that Alvin has lost a leg, Philip is consumed with worries about whether he will have to see, touch, or smell it. Alvin’s prosthesis—while it has an improper fit—makes the stump worse. It makes it so that Alvin cannot put weight on the remainder of his leg, or leads to new bruising, breaking, and rot. Philip overrides his fear of the stump and learns to take some satisfaction for caring for Alvin. Near the end of the novel, Philip refers to himself, after Seldon leaves: “There was no stump for me to care for this time. The boy himself was the stump, and until he was taken to live with his mother’s married sister in Brooklyn ten months later, I was the prosthesis” (361).
Philip’s Stamps
Philip’s stamp collection is his most cherished possession. He dreams that his stamps that display America’s national parks are emblazoned with the Nazi swastika and begins to fear that his collection will disappear, or mutate. Stamps commemorate the passage of time and the evolution of a society’s political norms and symbols, and Philip is forced to contemplate the fact that continuing to collect stamps may mean that he has to collect stamps that highlight people or ideas who are repellent to him. When he loses his collection, he is distraught. The depths of his fondness for his stamps are revealed afterwards, when it becomes clear that he has no other passions.
Walter Winchell
Winchell’s radio programs and columns are an early source of hope and solace for Herman Roth and many other Jews. He represents the bold speaking of truth to power, and the need of underdogs for a champion. Winchell refuses to be cowed or to censor himself. Although he speaks with a radio host’s grandiosity and unshakable conviction, there are no instances in which he ventures into hyperbole when describing the poison of Nazism, or Lindbergh’s support (even when tacit) of the Third Reich. Walter Winchell continues to say what few Jews are willing to say publicly, and this continues into his campaign for the presidency. On his speaking tour, Winchell frequently reiterates that he knows he may be killed for what he is doing, but his love for America will not allow him to remain silent. His conviction in America’s goodness, and its ability to right its own course, is similar to Herman’s patriotic views. When Winchell is killed, it kills much of the optimism Herman had been clinging to, leading him to finally investigate the possibility of leaving for Canada.
Philip thinks, “And so I understood that Walter Winchell wasn’t, in fact, the candidate of the Jews—he was the candidate of the children of the Jews, something we were being given to clutch at” (245).
Related Titles
By Philip Roth
