“We chose liberty!” – democracy and moral responsibility in 'The Plot Against America', by Phillip Roth

Abstract

The novel The Plot Against America (2004), from the contemporary north-American writer Philip Roth, is studied here from the relations between the democratic ideals established by the oficial discourse on America as a nation and its fundamental values of equality and individual freedom as comprehended inside a jewish and poor Family of Newark in the 1940’s beginnings in a time of instability imagined by the novelist through the construction of a “contrafactualchronotope” (cf. ANDRADE; SANTOS, 2013) asking what could have happened to the americanjews if Roosevelt have lost the 1940’s elections. The hypothesis is conducted by Jacques Rancière, in the sense he proposes the analyzis of the term democracy, wich has been perverted by people of most various ideological positions, what is confirmed by Roth in the mentioned novel. We also try to recognize the contribution of Roland Barthes to the questions of Literature and Politics, among other authors. The moral responsibility theme has been approached in a way to pick up the ethos of the main characters face to the changes provoked by the frightful circumstances presented by fiction in a close link to the writer’s ethic and aesthetic Project.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2018n45a1067.