' The Swede In Philip Roth's American Pastoral

The Swede. He is the utterly ordinary, somewhat disappointing protagonist of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral. Like discovering that Santa Claus was really your uncle in a costume from Walmart or that the tooth fairy was simply mom sneaking a dollar under your pillow after you fell asleep, the magic of “the Swede” is an illusion created by the Jews of Weequahic, Newark to restore hope in the future of the Jewish people at the conclusion of World War II. The narrator, Skip Zuckerman, uncovers that although as a high school student, Seymour “the Swede” Levov is elevated to teen idol status by his neighbors, his life is ultimately as depressing as any other typical American-Dream-gone-wrong. The Swede’s community projects onto him an image

In addition to “[living] in dread of never seeing their sons or their brothers or their husbands again,” the Jews of Weequahic, Newark have to live with the tragic disillusionment that accompanies the discovery of the horrors of the Holocaust (Roth 4). Traveling through what feels like a dark, endless tunnel leading toward Jewish extinction, the Weequahic Jews designate the adonis Seymour “the Swede” Levov as the beacon of light to guide them to comfort. Narrator Skip Zuckerman makes a generalization about Gentile American society, implying that most communities fawn over high school star athletes; this is not the case with Jewish neighborhoods. As Zuckerman puts it, “physical aggression, even camouflaged by athletic uniforms and official rules and intended to do no harm to Jews, was not a traditional source of pleasure in our community––advanced degrees were,” (Roth 3). The Weequahic Jews, along with most other Jews value education above athletics. However, the desperation of the Jewish adults to distract themselves from the lack of room in the world for their people drives them to obsess over the only Jew in sight that seems to be experiencing victory in

Due to the public veneration he effortlessly receives as a teen Judeo-Gentile hybrid, it makes sense that the Swede would want to continue the separation between him and the rest of the Jews. He marries “shiksa-goddess” Dawn Dwyer, former Miss New Jersey, deviating from the stringent Jewish custom of marrying within “the tribe” (Rubin-Dorsky). This marriage is part of the Swede’s efforts to extend the worship he enjoys as a teen. He learns in his childhood that posing as a non-Jewish Jew is the fast route to notability, so marrying a beautiful Catholic pageant queen is the next logical step. Along with his trophy wife, the Swede surrounds himself with the Gentile elite. This is part of his attempt to assimilate into the Gentile-American culture, leaving behind his true roots. The Swede pulls his family into “ a world of Gentile wealth where the buildings were covered with ivy and the people had money and dressed in a certain style,” and he is attracted to the fact that a bucolic Old Rimrock neighborhood “[does not] admit Jews, [does not] know Jews, probably [does not] like Jews all that much,” (Roth 307). The Swede goes on to refer to himself as “‘a man to whom practicing Judaism means nothing,’” after becoming “irritated” by an old friend in Old Rimrock who makes it his mission to convince the Swede to join the local Jewish community (314). In