Sagledavanja

ISSN 2217-2017
UDK 821.111(73).09-31

Đorđe Ljubišić

Alienation and Unbelonging of Alexander Portnoy
in Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

This paper is an attempt to disambiguate causes and effects of Alexander Portnoy’s alienation in the world he lives, as a protagonist of the novel Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth. What makes it a difficult enterprise is the fact that we have to take into consideration all social and non-social issues that we may encounter in the novel, including notions such as growing up, family, tradition, Jewish – American identity and sex. The paper will therefore be divided into independent chap­ters, each dealing with a seemingly separate phenomenon. Introduction will provide a common framework for the main body of the text which will discuss the themes and problems related to the protagonist of the novel, and the conclusion can be seen as a summary of the presented ideas.

KEY WORDS: alienation, unconscious, growing up, family, tradition, Jewish - American identity, sex, postwar Jewish writing
 

Introduction

I Alienation and its traces in literary history

Modernist literarure showed us a deep exploitation of the subject of alienation. Although this notion can be seen as a typical product of the Modern age, it would be a mistake to limit this phenomenon to the 20th century only. In terms of, in this case, Anglo-Saxon literary history, the notion of alienation has come long way to become what it is now. A bookish definition of what is commonly regarded as alienation would sound something like the following:

the state of feeling estranged or separated from one’s milieu, work, products of work, or self. [It] usually displayes itself in the forms of powerlessness, the feeling that one’s destiny is not under one’s own control but is determined by external agents, fate, luck, or institutional arrangements, social isolation, the sense of loneliness or exclusion in social relations, and self-estrangement, the understanding that in one way or another the individual is out of touch with himself.¹

Sometimes it may be difficult to distinguish between various forms of alienation and its causes, but on the other hand, alienation, as a rule, finds its place among the people who are usually in some kind of conflict with the conservative surrounding and who expose their individuality in a manner peculiar to other people. For all those disaffected individuals, alienation is both the reaction to the meaninglessness of reality and the way out of it. For them, the reality around them surpasses even their most horrifying nightmares. Consequently, being unable to bear the burden of the trivial life, alienated people resort to unconventional behaviour and turn to themselves. This is a tangible proof for the public to proclaim them mad. Madness therefore appears as an imposed reality, and to the rest of society, it is subject to treatment with medicines and prison bars. However, to the perfectly healthy alienated individuals, madness is the only possible and reasonable response to the madness of the world around them.

At this point, it is almost impossible not to recall Hamlet, whose alienation created a critical conundrum which has perplexed readers for more than four centuries. Couple of centuries later, Ken Kesey wrote his famous novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in which he superbly described, among other things, the thin line between the normal and unacceptable. Mental hospital is a mere sanctuary for all those people who do not get on well with the real world. What Kesey wants from us is to ask ourselves whether the mental institutions and correction facilities exist to protect the society from the unusual individuals or the unusual individuals from the rest of the world. Therefore, society and social issues are to some extent always responsible for producing those people who in the world around them see the threat or feel the discomfort.

Alienated individuals are very often obsessed with living up to numerous expectations of society and their roles in it. If we try to narrow down the search for a typical outcast from the society, we must not skip Joyce’s hero and possibly his alter ego Stephen Dedalus, who while pursuing his own inner voice and artistic impulse, deliberately renounces his country, tradition, church and family. Joyce was rather ruthless when it comes to his another character, Leopold Bloom, who in an extremely narrow-minded Dublin tries to reconcile his Jewish origin with the almost terrifying uniformity of its citizens. Couple of decades later, Philip Roth will embark on a similar mission.

II Alexander Portnoy – Rothian alienated hero

The streets of Dublin are now replaced with cramped streets and Jewish neighbourhoods of Newark and buzzing boulevards of New York. A Joyce’s small, insignificant advertisement editor is now a Roth’s Assistant Comissioner of Human Opportunity for the City of New York, a man whose opinion is highly valued and whose dependability is out of question. We enter the world of serious, important people who contribute to the welfare of the entire nation. So, what are Alexander Portnoy’s problems? What is he complaining about?

"The issue in Portnoy’s Complaint is how Alexander Portnoy, the good little Jewish son of Jake and Sophie Portnoy, can be as "bad" as he wants to be and also be free of guilt. The point of the novel is that Portnoy can be neither." (Jones/Nance 1981: 72). In other words, Alexander Portnoy tries hard to disengage himself from the bonds of family, his Jewish origin and various expectations set upon him. In the end, he only realises that it is impossible due to his own conscience and the feeling of guilt which was deeply embedded in the unconscious part of his personality.

Consequently, at the age of thirty-three, Portnoy is not only imprisoned by a superego that sounds like the voice of his mother, he is also debilitated by an overwhelming sense of guilt. He is in conflict – with his parents, with his Jewishness, and with his desire to live autonomously and guilt-free. He is caught in what is perhaps the most complex and effective double bind to be depicted in literature. (Jones/Nance 1981: 73-74)

And indeed, the disillusionment with your own misfortune has never been so vehement and funny. Alexander Portnoy, deliberately or not, is a skilfull mixture of Hamlet’s age, intellect of Stephen Dedalus, ethnic and religious features of Leopold Bloom, obsession with past of Quentin Compson, rage of Jimmy Porter, and prospects for the future quite similar to those of T.S.Eliot. "The book is about absurdity — the absurdity of a man who knows all about the ethnic, sociological and Freudian hang-ups, yet is still racked by guilt because his ethical impulses conflict with the surge of his animal desires."²
 
If we are still in favour of the entrenched opinion that writer very often is not aware of the fact that his work will overcome him, this is the last moment to give up such an assumption. Roth was more than aware of his novel and especially of the series of reactions it would produce. He knew that we were far away from the morality plays, of Virtue and Vice. The modern society breeds relativity of taste, so the writer’s job is to note down the reality facts and to create a protagonist of flesh and blood in the world he dislike. The reactions, and not only literary ones, were both laudatory and derogatory. The first ones proclaimed book as one of the "dirtiest and funniest books ever published... something like a masterpiece" (Hicks in Pinsker 1982: 8), while the others, mainly stunned with Roth’s obscene and sexually explicit literary devices, labeled it "Moby Dick of masturbation" (Broyard in Pinsker 1982:7) or "onanistic Bildungsroman" (Davenport in Pinsker 1982:7). Some even said that it is a "mixture of bile, sperm and self-indulgence" (Mannes in Jones/Nance 1981:84).

However, we must admit that the most valuable works of art come from those authors who write novels on subjects they know well. In this case, it seems that Philip Roth knew some details too well, to the extent that certain critics like to point out the remarkable similarities between his private life and this novel. On this playground of autobiographical and fictional, readers are the only winners. If the entire novel is based on true events and characters, we shall indulge the genuine authenticity. If not, the novel will at least satisfy our inborn voyeuristic drives we all inevitably possess.

The case of Alexander Portnoy, we are told at the very beginning of the novel, surpassed all the realms of literature and put itself comfortably in the Mental Disorders Encyclopaedia. However, medical definitions and diagnoses tend to be dull and bookish, as if concealing the true matter. This is precisely the reason why Portnoy lies on the psychoanalytic couch of Dr. Spielvogel, determined to find out if he is only one to be blamed for all his misfortunes or there is something else in the American society around him. This will also be our task in the following pages.
 

An Alienated Son in the Family

"Alexander Portnoy is Roth’s most vocal exemplar of resistance to the authority of the family and the most self-conscious "bad boy" among his characters." (Jones/Nance 1981:85). Throughout the entire novel, we can see that the family is depicted as a conditioning and controlling force in one’s life, and one of the main motifs in the novel is the conflict between the individual and the family.

The family is the agency through which children are brought up in the knowledge of the values of their parents and of American society. The nuclear family is widely regarded as the sacred cornerstone of the American social project and it is perceived as fundamental to the happiness and success of the individual, the nation and corporate life. (Millard 2000: 8)

Roth knew these facts very well. However, he tried to show us how all these values can prove fatal to a young mind if the family is rather typical and their offspring not keen on absorbing social duties prescribed by their Jewish community. Alexander’s monologue begins with the recollections of his family and his childhood, and what is more important, the description of his mother, whom he titled as ’The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Met’.

She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise. (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:3)³

It is relatively easy to detect a kind of Oedipal connection between Alex and his mother. Sophie Portnoy is here "portrayed as sexual, intriguing and powerful in an almost magical way. She is the object of Alex’s first sexual impulses" (Jones/Nance 1981:73), but on the other hand, Alex sees her as a person who had the most dangerous influence on his future and adult life. In his opinion, she is responsible for the development of his extremely sensitive and strict superego and his sense of constant guilt. Sophie Portnoy is depicted as an almost stereotypical Jewish housewife, the bearer of the good, the just and the moral. For young Alex, she is the embodiment of the traditional values, honesty and conventions. "She is also the arbiter of goodness and morality in the household – the commanding Jewish mother under whose tutelage Portnoy learns the lessons of self-control, sobriety and sanctions" (Jones/Nance 1981:73). It seems that sanctions and punishments hurt him most. He is an excellent student, obedient and helpful, caring and responsible, yet he cannot understand why his mother punished him for various insignificant and trivial misdeeds. Alex recalls the punishments of his mother, yet he cannot detect any valuable reason:

When I am bad I am locked out of apartment. I stand at the door hammering and hammering until I swear I will turn over a new leaf. But what is it I have done? [...] I brush my teeth in the circles and never up and down, I say "Thank you," I say "You’re welcome," I say "I beg your pardon," and "May I." […] Mother, it’s me, the little boy who spends whole nights before school begins beautifully lettering in Old English script the names of his subjects on his coloured course dividers […] My homework is completed weeks in advance of the assignment – let’s face it, Ma, I am the smartest and neatest little boy in the history of my school! Teachers (as you know, as they have told you) go home happy to their husbands because of me. So what is it I have done? Will someone with the answer to that question please stand up! (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:13-14)

Even at the age of thirty-three, Alex is still bewildered by his childhood memories. He is striving to find some hidden meanings and messages for his mother’s reactions and behaviour. He was and he still is his mother’s favourite, but he feels that sudden, strict and the most important, undeserved punishments left him emotionally crippled for the rest of his life. There was one situation for which Alex feels to have left an indelible mark in his life. When he refused to eat his dinner, his mother pointed a knife at him. To him, it produced a sensation of dread, hatred and as all psychoanalysts would say, an unconscious fear of castration. For Alex, it was the ultimate fear of retribution which would follow him throughout his life and especially as an inalienable part of his relationship with girls and women. Still puzzled, Alex screams:

Doctor, why, why oh why oh why oh why does a mother pull a knife on her own son? I am six, seven years old, how do I know she really wouldn’t use it? […] And why doesn’t my father stop her? (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:16-17)

The role of the father in an oedipal situation is a clearly defined one. A father should be an object of the son’s jealousy and rage because of the son’s affection towards the mother. However, apart from a couple of boyish fantasies, Alex admits that he has never felt any kind of rage towards his own father, simply because there was no need for it. Jake Portnoy is described as a helpless, weak and constipated father and as such he is "rather ineffectual and poses no real threat to Alex’s love-hate relationship with Sophie. He is the typical hard-working family man who dreams of his son’s having opportunities that were denied to him" (Jones/Nance 1981:73). As Alex points out: "To make life harder, he loved me himself" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969: 5). How did he actually make his life harder?

Portnoy, however, experiences Jake’s love and sacrifice for him as a burden that contributes to his guilt and keeps him ambivalent about his father. Unable to separate and simplify his emotions for the man whose inadequacies can move him both to tears and rage, Portnoy asks Dr. Spielvogel a most provocative question about human relationship: "Doctor, what should I rid myself of, tell me, the hatred… or the love?" (Jones/Nance 1981:74)

This question remains unresolved and its significance can only be compared to the Hamlet’s famous doubt between to be or not to be. The consequences are quite similar for both heroes. Portnoy still remains doubtful, floating somewhere between his individuality and the outside world, still seeing the world around him as a "Jewish joke". However, his recollections about his father bring us a very important story of his childhood which may be quite significant for understanding his future life. The story takes part in a Turkish bath where his father used to take him once a month. The vision of the bath creates in him the sense of liberation from everyday fatigue:

I lose touch instantaneously with that ass-licking little boy who runs home after school with his A’s in his hand, the little overearnest innocent endlessly in search of the key to that unfathomable mystery, his mother’s approbation, and am back in some sloppy watery time, before there were families as we know them […] They appear, at long last, my father and his fellow sufferers, to have returned to the habitat in which they can be natural. A place without goyim and women. (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:49)

This passage shows us a sharp contrast between the male and female world, as Alex perceives it. This "passage evokes the primeval world of the fathers against the cultural aspirations, the "good" behaviour, the need for approval, which he associates with the mother"⁴ (Dickstein 1999:303). This is also one of the great mysteries for Alex, because father, by psychoanalytic definition, should intensify the boy’s affection towards the mother. In this case, father exists to provide a shelter, even unconsciously, for his son. So, it is hard not to notice that "the key figure in the book is the stoical, eternally constipated father rather than the cartoonish, overbearing mother" (Dickstein 1999:303).

Alex also recalls for him almost painful experience while trying to play baseball with his father. On the brink of tears, Alex realises that his father is not capable of doing anything else besides drudging as a small insurance agent. It was just another confirmation that the voice of his mother, her words, judgements and discipline will determine his fate. "Therefore, Alex’s frustration with his mother arises largely from her domination of his obsequiously submissive father, whose meekness invokes a feeling of emotional castration within Alex. This provokes severe resentment towards his father and, consequently, the entire Jewish adult male population."⁵ "If my father had only been my mother!and my mother my father! But what a mix-up of sexes in our house!" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:41)

Baseball field, not the family, is a ground where little Alex will feel safe. He remembers being in the centre of the baseball field, delighted by the sight, responsibility of the player, overall organisation. On the baseball field, everything is up to you. No one else determines your move. You do not depend on anybody. You are independent and alone.

Doctor, you can’t imagine how truly glorious it is out there, so alone in all that place [...] Because center field is like some observation post, a kind of control tower, where you are able to see everything and everyone, to understand what’s happening the instant it happens [...] "It’s mine," you call, "it’s mine," and then after it you go. For in center field, if you can get to it, it is yours. Oh, how unlike my home it is to be in center field, where no one will appropriate unto himself anything that I say is mine! (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:69)

Baseball field is another sanctuary from his mother. "The clarity of vision he achieves here is in sharp contrast to the confusing view of things he has at home, where his mother alternately smothers him with love and disregards his vulnerability" (Jones/Nance 1981:77). He realises that normal, ordinary people react to events in life instantly they happen. He longs for spontaneous reactions, those which arise from experience, from own self-confidence and from life, not from the ill-devised family conditions that he seems to be learning by heart under the tutelage of Sophie and Jake Portnoy. "Roth’s characters suffer from their failure to live, to be spontaneous; from their conflict between conscience and desire" (Dickstein 1999:301).

The watch-its and the be-carefuls! You mustn’t do this, you can’t do that – hold it! don’t! You’re breaking an important law! What law? Whose law? […] The guilt, the fears – the terror bred into my bones! What in their world was not charged with danger, dripping with germs, fraught with peril? […] Who filled these parents of mine with such a fearful sense of life? (Portnoy’ Complaint 1969:34-35)

These were the young Alex’s constant inhibitions and limitations usually imposed over a host of trivial things. However, his adulthood did not bring him any liberation. Rather, his adulthood and separate life created in his parents a sense of responsibility that Alex now should feel towards them. That responsibility should express itself in a form of a family of his own, a decent wife and a lawful heir to their surname. Consequently, Alex still sees himself as a victim of his parents’ conditioning and their attempt to turn their son into a "good, little Rabbi." When nothing else is left, he turns to his doctor:

Doctor, these people are incredible! These people are unbelievable! These two are the outstanding producers and packagers of guilt in our time. […] Doctor Spielvogel, this is my life, my only life, and I’m living it in a middle of a Jewish joke! I’m the son in the Jewish joke-only it ain’t no joke! Please, who crippled us like this? […] Why, why are they screaming still "Watch out! Don’t do it! Alex – no!" and why, alone in my bed in New York, why am I still hopelessly beating my meat? Doctor, what do you call this sickness I have? Is this the Jewish suffering I used to hear so much about? (Potnoy’s Complaint 1969:36-37)

"[Portnoy’s] voice can sound whiny and crude, out of a perverse need to shock and disturb us, but it can also be rich and complex in its shifting emotional tones, especially in his warm memories of a childhood that remained the real anchor of his life, though also perhaps the source of his later despair" (Dickstein 1999:302). For Alex, despair appears as only possible solution. While trying to find a way out of his domestic misfortune, aware that "an American myth of the family is still generally subscribed to and commonly recognized as a natural ambition and primary means of personal fulfilment" (Millard 2000:8), Alex discovers a rather unconventional means of overcoming the horrors of the present and possibly the future. In the mind of an adolescent Alexander Portnoy, sex and sexual fantasies pave his way to "freedom" and a guilt-free conscience.

Sex without Guilt, Guilt without Sex : Aspects of Sexual and
Emotional Alienation of Alexander Portnoy

"The congregation will please rise and sing All Hail the Power of Portnoy’s name. As I write he is for the time being Lord of all, the hottest brand name in the market. By now, everybody knows about him, and I don’t find him worth discussion at length" (Morse in Pinsker 1982:51). This reaction is just one of many similar reactions of literary critics who in Portnoy’s character saw only the neurotic screaming of a sexually obsessed Jew. However, to be honest to this book means to be honest towards its author and his protagonist. It would be a gross oversight if we embarked on a serious discussion about this book by including only Roth’s treatment of sex. Likewise, it would be an even more unpleasant situation if we tried to approach this novel trying to avoid all the sexually explicit material and foul language we will encounter in the book. Why did Roth use an offensive language and why did he treat the matter of sex so openly?

"On the appearance of that recent cultural phenomenon known as Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth said that right now this work "is an event. In two years it will be a book." (Friedman in Pinsker 1982:149).

Roth’s work arrived at a confessional moment in American literature, when the barriers of privacy and discretion had been breached […], when sex and the body were coming out into the open, not only with the publication of banned classics by D. H. Lawrence and Henry Miller but in learned but utopian works of cultural theory such as Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilisation (1955) and Norman O. Brown’s Life Against Death (1959). (Dickstein 1999:296)

With the Sexual Revolution in full swing, Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint was "a novel that American Jews both owned and read." (Pinsker 1982:8) Even today, four decades later, Roth still rejects charges of vulgarity and Jewish self-hatred. Nonetheless, Alex Portnoy is not just an educated, dissatisfied young man, a slave to his impulses. He is also an American citizen in search for his American dream.

His dream, however, in a period of adolescence, turned out to be a series of sexual fantasies behind the locked bathroom door. Masturbation for young Alex appears as a road to freedom from the burden of his upbringing, dogmatically carried out by his mother. He sees these sexual fantasies as a rebellious enterprise against the proscribed norms of society. However, as much as he tries to break the established rules, the prevailing effect of his sexual fantasies is the guilt. He is aware that he is doing something he should not be doing and the fear of being caught is always present. As always in his life, he is terrified to think what would happen if someone found out the truth – a boy with all A’s in school, loving, adorable and obedient – doing what he is not supposed to do. Despite all this, young Alex does not give up his obsession. Alex’s sexual alienation does not express itself in a form of repression from any sexual urge. Quite the contrary, he pushes his obsession to the limits from which there is no return. To relieve his libido for Alex means to conquer his superego. "For all his defiance of parental and cultural taboos, which he tries to express through sexual excess and verbal obscenity, he can never be bad enough to be liberated from the proscriptions of his upbringing" (Jones/Nance 1981:72). In one of his imaginary retorts to his mother, he says:

Because to be bad, Mother, that’s the real struggle: to be bad – and to enjoy it! That is what makes men of us boys, Mother. But what my conscience has done to my sexuality, my spontaneity, my courage! […] I am marked like a road map from head to toe with my repressions. (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:124).

Under the typical conviction that the sacred rite of passage from boyhood to manhood lies in a sexual intercourse, Alex finds out, to his own horror, that the lust, desire and a willing prostitute are not sufficient to liberate his tormented conscience. "Consequently, no amount of sexual activity convinces him that he is truly a man, independent of his mother’s directions" (Jones/Nance 1981:76).

This will be particularly true of his adult and independent life in New York. Believing that the separation from parents will help him to finally establish himself as a man, free from any parental and cultural taboos which kept him imprisoned in Newark, Alex moves to New York, where he is appointed Assistant Comissioner of Human Opportunity for the City of New York. The protector of the downtrodden and underprivileged, Alex’s position is now more public than ever. Just like when he was a boy, the thirty-two-year-old Alex has to maintain the appearance of a respectable and dependable man, while he has to keep his inner struggles far from public glaze. However, his inner struggles will reach their top.

"Portnoy’s Complaint is a series of set pieces that remain wonderfully funny when they deal with family, childhood, and masturbation but turn dark and self-lacerating in the portrayal of his adult life" (Dickstein 1999:301). And indeed, Alex’s adult life shows us a deep degeneration not only in his sexual, but in his emotional life, as well. Torn, as he says "by desires that are repugnant to my conscience, and a conscience repugnant to my desires" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:132), Alex meets the embodiment of his boyhood bathroom fantasies, a girl whom he calls "The Monkey".

In sexual perversions with "The Monkey" Alex sees the only way to prove to himself that he is capable of being a "man", independent of anybody else’s judgement, "man" who is now able to enjoy sex without any guilt, sanctions or fear of retribution. For "The Monkey", after her notorious past, Alex is the chance to find a decent husband. Their relationship, bizarre from the beginning to the very end is a unique reading experience for readers because Alex’s vulgar and raw language, together with hyperbolic and exclamatory style create the surrounding where "guilt, recrimination and rage are inflated to Gargantuan proportions" (Jones/Nance 1981:81).

On the other hand, in their relationship readers have the opportunity to witness emotional deterioration of two sexual libertines and the overall effect is quite poignant. Images of Alex’s family now spring to his mind and he is aware that this relationship only debases his moral standards. However, he still blames his superego for his guilty state of mind. "My right mind is simply that inheritance of terror that I bring with me out of my ridiculous past! That tyrant, my superego, he should be strung up, that son of a bitch, hung by his fucking storm-trooper’s boots till he’s dead!" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:160-161)

The truth is, however, that these moral standards Alex is fighting against are not actually the consequences of his strictly moral upbringing, they are the result of the common sense. These moments of regret are perhaps the only ones in which readers can feel a dose of sympathy towards Alex.

Alex also recalls some other girlfriends and sexual adventures of his youth. Although they are less bizarre than his relationship with "The Monkey", they also reveal his almost perverted streak of sadism towards his girlfriends. Those girls, with equally imaginative nicknames given to them such as "The Pumpkin" or "The Pilgrim", did not deserve his love because they did not suit him in various sexual, religious, cultural or any other ways. Alex’s quest for sexual freedom estranges him from the prescribed norms of decency which will reach its peak on his trip to Israel, where the feeling of sympathy towards Alex slowly diminishes from the mind of readers.

The encounter with an Israeli woman named Naomi will prove to be his last downfall and humiliation.

He thinks that she will make him whole, bring together the warring elements of Jewishness and sexuality, mother and shikse. When she rebuffs his advances, he attempts to rape her, only to discover that he is impotent […], realizing the symbolic irony of his condition. […] His obscenity and sexual aggression have not freed him; they have left him full of rage and self-hatred and, ultimately, impotent – powerless. (Jones/Nance 1981:80)

In these last chapters Alex reveals his desperate attempt to prove himself through sexual aggression his own self-assertion. However, only the opposite happens. At the end of the dark tunnel, instead of the light, he finds another, even thicker darkness. This is also the ultimate irony of this novel, which has been so notorious for its open treatment of sex, because sex is not presented here as a liberating force, the ingredient needed for the transgression from boyhood to manhood. Quite the opposite, sex in this novel is presented as a source of loneliness, unbelonging and isolation.

What happened to the good sense I had at nine, ten, eleven years of age? How have I come to be such an enemy and flayer of myself? And so alone! Oh, so alone! Nothing but self! Locked up in me! […] What has become of my purposes, those decent and worthwhile goals? Home? I have none. Family? No! Things I could own just by snapping my fingers… (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:248)

In all Alex’s sexual enterprises we witness his emotional and sexual estrangement, reinforced by his desire to be saved. However, his every attempt to free his libido and to live guilt-free is another defeat, with little or no chance for salvation.

Rather than liberating him, Portnoy’s sexual exploits condemn him to solitary confinement within the guilt-ridden self. […] Far from helping Portnoy batter his way to freedom, his penis, as the symbol of his defiance and obsession with self, alienates him from the sustaining aspects of family and culture and imprisons him within his own conscience. (Jones/ Nance 1981:76)

Knowing that he is unable to resolve his own misfortune so easily, he turns to Dr. Spielvogel crying "Bless me with manhood! Make me brave! Make me strong! Make me whole! Enough being a nice Jewish boy, publicly pleasing my parents while privately pulling my putz! Enough!" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:37) He knows that he is still locked in a conscience of the child who grew up in Newark, in a strict Jewish family with clear rules and punishments for inappropriate behaviour or even thinking of it.

"Superficially, Portnoy seems to reflect the new sexual freedom that really took off with the licensing of the first contraceptive pill in 1960. But despite its confessional frankness and wild, uninhibited vaudevillean tone, it is less about transgression than about Portnoy’s inability to transgress." (Dickstein 1999:301) This is another irony of the hapless protagonist. In the period when all the people enjoy the uninhibited sex without any feeling of guilt, Portnoy feels that his private profligacy creates in his mind the sense of degradation. Sex with women, just like masturbation, leaves him confused and disappointed.

For Alex, sexual freedom is another way to identify himself as an American citizen. Furthermore, the limitations of Jewish community imposed upon him force him to find a way out from this tribe. Therefore, sex and the belonging to your own nation are in the case of Alexander Portnoy closely connected and this will be the subject of the following discussion.

Alexander Portnoy – The Lost Sheep in the Jewish Flock:
Assimilation and Alienation

The statement that writer very often uses his protagonist to pass his own judgements on a certain sensitive issue is not just another cliché in the case of Philip Roth and Alexander Portnoy. Portnoy’s Complaint for Roth was, judging by the number of unfavourable comments, his most successful way of dealing with his own Jewish origin in a post-war America. However, to Roth and all other writers of that age, the post-war America presented

the civil rights movement, the growing youth culture, the campus uprisings and urban riots, the stealthy escalations of the Vietnam War, the new sexual freedom both among the young and in the suburbs, the spread of the feel-good drugs like marijuana and hallucinogens like LSD, the growing impact of rock music, and the new ethos of the counterculture […] Television amplified everything, from the look on the counterculture and the high jinks of the young to the racial conflicts of the South and the horrors of the Vietnam War. (Dickstein 1999:305)

This was the framework within which Philip Roth and other Jewish co-writers created their works with more or less success or with more or less reactions. "Postwar Jewish writing is generally marked by its concern with the historical, the moral and the human anxieties of the modern self and therefore has sometimes been described as displaying a return to realism in the contemporary American novel." (Ruland/Bradbury 1991:376) However, not long afterwards, Roth "complained" that "the American writer in the middle of the twentieth century has his hands full in trying to understand, describe and then make credible much of the American reality." (Roth in Ruland/Bradbury 1991:379) Gradually, "in this frustration at having to compete with the daily news, [writers] turned from fiction to journalism, or from fifties realism to black humour." (Dickstein 1999:305) This is the background from which Portnoy’s Complaint emerged, a painful, black-humoured confession of an alienated Jew in the American society. Alexander Portnoy was a superb example of what was usually taken to be a role model for a Jewish protagonist – a young man with "a gloomy sense of responsibility and culpability […] and by introduction of explicit sexuality into the text, […] protagonists become outrageous libidinal figures who mock by their actions and language the social, ethnic, regional and moral tradition within which they function"⁶ (Federman 1988:1152).

Assimilation in one society or nation involves the acquisition of all relevant ethical, extrinsic and intrinsic qualities. The overall tendency of these acquisitions is creating the unifying principles by which all the members of society accept the requirements for social membership. The immigrant, in this case, Jewish society also had to acquire the existing system of values and the prescribed norms of behaviour, which inevitably included English language. "Language is a crucial part of this process because it carries ideological values that circumscribe the individual’s understanding of who they are, and language can be used to inscribe individuals within their culture in ways that make them factions of it" (Millard 2000:154). However, Philip Roth tries to show us the other part of the assimilation story, which is not always carried out according to rules.

"Roth’s Jews are not a people, a culture, nation, tradition or any other noun of rabbinical piety. They are a tribe, which, after its own primitive fashion, observes arbitrary taboos and performs strange sundown rituals that look like obsessional symptoms" (Shechner in Pinsker 1982:122-123). In depicting his own tribe, Roth intends to show us to what extent the American society did not succeed in eradicating Jewish cultural and moral differences.

Portnoy’s Complaint, among other things, deals very seriously with this not unusual phenomenon. In a society which tries to unify their citizens, there exists quite a potent group with deliberate attempts to make the process of assimilation impossible by making constant distinctions between us and them, ours and theirs, our religion and their religion, Jewish girls and shikses, Jewish people and Goys. The basic playground for these assumptions is the family and its surrounding. Consequently, young Alex Portnoy, as it will be the case very often in his future life, finds himself in a dead-end between the cultural aspirations of his own surrounding and the tempting belonging to a great, free America.

For all children, their family is the main source for acquiring all the basic knowledge about the good and bad things in the world around them. In Alex’s family, there were simple rules and distinctions between two worlds to which they belonged – the Jewish and American world. This Jewish world was presented to Alex almost dogmatically, as the only world he will ever need to know, the world good per se, without any further clarification and critical insight. However, Alex was tempted by the outer world outside the boundaries of the Jewish neighbourhoods in Newark. "It was a hybrid culture, in which American civic lessons, sports, dating rituals, radio programmes, celebrity cults and Hollywood myths were grafted onto ethnic roots" (Dickstein 1999:293). For Alex, this was the world worth satirizing but idealising as well.

"We’re not a family that takes defection lightly" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:58), says Alex while remembering his late cousin Heshie, a superior sportsman who had a genuine, blond American girlfriend and who was bribed to break up with him. The intermarriage was a dreadful phenomenon in a Jewish community. As early as in his childhood, Alex was aware of the boundaries imposed upon him by his origin. He watched the Jewish men from his neighbourhood, their simple, contented lives, their raw but benevolent nature, their internal jokes and serious talks and he liked it. In their faces, he saw the routine belonging and serving to their community, unflappable devotion to the words of their Rabbi on Sunday congregation. He longed to become one of them one day, to pursue pure, unblemished ideals and to go to bed with his decent and honest Jewish wife. For young Alex, these prospects for the future were sufficient and a man should ask no more. "Although he desires the "American Dream" of prosperity and family, he can’t help but wonder if he seeks this for the sake of his family and the Jewish people rather than for himself."⁷

However, as years go by, Alex becomes aware of the biased attitude of his family and he himself notices certain discrepancies between the presented image of the American society and his own experience in the outer world. He found himself doubting:

The outrage, the disgust inspired in my parents by the gentiles, was beginning to make some sense: the goyim pretended to be something special, while we were actually their moral superiors. And what made us superior was precisely the hatred and the disrespect they lavished so willingly upon us! Only, what about the hatred we lavished upon them? (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:56)

As soon as these thoughts are formed in Alex’s mind, there starts the inner struggle between the "mores of the tribe and the stubborn resistance of the individual will" (Dickstein, 1999:297). The feeling of unbelonging to the world that his destiny and his parents determined to him developed very early in young Alex, that already in the age of 14, he proclaimed himself an atheist. "Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew! It is coming out of my ears already, the saga of the suffering Jews! Do me a favor my people, and stick your suffering heritage up your suffering ass – I happen also to be a human being!" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:76) He experiences his religion as a stifling force for all those innate drives and sexual fantasies he enjoys, with the overall effect of shame and guilt.

However, as much as he tries to renounce his religion and ethnic roots, he notices that the Jew like him will never fit the "media image of an American" (Jones/Nance 1981:78). Gradually, he becomes obsessed with the notion of inferiority. In his childhood, he hopelessly tries to reach gentile girls across the frozen lake, but in the end, his every attempt fails. For him, the true fulfilment of the American dream would be to possess one of these mysterious "Other" gentile girls. He idealises American families, saying:

How do they get so gorgeous, so healthy, so blond? […] For these are the girls whose older brothers are engaging, good-natured, confident, clean, swift and powerful halfbacks […] their fathers are men with white hair and deep voices who never use double negatives, and their mothers the ladies with the kindly smiles and wonderful manners […] boys whose names are right out of the grade-school reader, not Aaron and Arnold and Marvin, but Johnny and Billy and Jimmy and Tod. […] These people are the Americans, Doctor… (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:145)

His attraction to the girls across the lake is actually "attraction to America. […] This is his desire simply to be ordinary, to belong" (Dickstein 1999:304). At the same time, apart from his craving to become "one of them", Alex feels the contempt towards those people who he sees as "the legitimate residents and owners of this place" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969: 146) and envies all those American boys and girls who "go home to the grammatical fathers and the composed mothers and the self-assured brothers who all live with them in harmony and bliss" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:147).

Finally, in the moments when he tries to form a decent relationship with these girls, he realises that their love for him means nothing. "His sexual acts with the blond, blue-eyed daughters of the dominant culture are a kind of vengeance against the image of the American Dream whose reality is inaccessible to him; they are, as he finally admits, attempts to "conquer America" (Jones/Nance 1981:78). Even at the adult age, he is not able to commit himself to love the girls for their physical and mental attributes. "He identifies most of his "conquests" by names that describe what they represent to him rather than by their proper names" (Jones/Nance 1981:79). The Pilgrim, The Pumpkin and The Monkey are "primarily types to Portnoy, characterized first by being non-Jewish and next by being representative of a particular segment of Americana. Their individuality is of no real significance to Portnoy" (Jones/Nance 1981:79). Therefore, his sexual adventures and religion are always interrelated and indivisible.

In modern literature, going on a journey of any kind has lost all its tourist features long time ago. In most cases, for the majority of characters in fiction, and perhaps for a number of non-fictional ones, a journey is an escape from the everyday fatigue, confrontation with the demons from the past or the creation of a new and brighter future. In the case of Alexander Portnoy, his trip to Israel has all the mentioned characteristics. He sets off to Israel with a bit vague aim of searching for his long lost identity, hoping that his stay there will provide him with certain answers to existential questions. The Israel episode is without any doubt the culmination and the catharsis of the novel, with the exception that neither Alex nor readers have the opportunity to witness the happy-end.

"Ironically, he discovers that in the Jewish homeland he is as much isolate as he ever was in Newark" (Jones/Nance 1981:79). The encounter with Naomi, a young and ardent proponent of the Jewish morality and at the same time a harsh critic of the Western society, at first raises in him, at least temporarily, the hope for salvation. In these moments, Alex cherishes his reconciliation with the destiny, returning to his roots and the tacit acceptance of defeat.

Because why not be good, and good and good and good – right? Live only according to principle! […] Let the other guy be the villain, right? Let the goyim make the shambles, let the blame fall solely on them. […] A grueling and gratifying ethical life, opulent with self-sacrifice, voluptuous with restraint! Ah, sounds good. (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:269)

Naomi’s refusal activated in him for a moment forgotten sense of inferiority and a constant struggle for perfection. The animal impulses and the forces of ID take over the control of his mind and he attempts to rape her, which he fails to do, due to his impotence. "Even his sexuality cannot be relied upon to provide him with a semblance of control over his destiny" (Jones/Nance 1981:79). This is the moment when Naomi utters her diagnosis:

The way you disapprove of your life! Why do you do that? […] You seem to take some special pleasure, some pride, in making yourself the butt of your own sense of humor. I don’t believe that you actually want to improve your life. […] In some little way or other, everything is ironical, or self-deprecating. (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:264)

Infuriated by being marked once again as the imperfect bearer of Jewish values and the servant of American corruptness, Alex now feels utterly powerless to determine his own destiny. He is once again caught between his own image of an independent man and the prescriptions of Jewishness, his parents and even the American society.

"Corruption and self-mockery! Self-deprecation-and self-defecation, too! Whining, hysteria, compromise, confusion, disease! Yes, Naomi, I am soiled, oh, I am impure – and also pretty fucking tired, my dear, of never being quite good enough for The Chosen People" (Portnoy’s Complaint 1969:266). Stretched on the analyst’s couch, Alex yells a final scream of rage, isolation and hysteria and as the book ends, Dr. Spielvogel utters his first and for Alex and all the readers the last confusing sentence, to mark the punch line of the joke Alex is living in. It is a joke in which its main character while trying to run away from the austere norms of Judaism, falls in even more hostile ground in which he himself is his greatest enemy. His final words are just the diagnosis of horror and the confirmation of the waste of his entire life.

Conclusion

The story of alienation and unbelonging of Alexander Portnoy emerged out of Jewish neighbourhoods of Newark to sustain all the way to cosmopolitan New York society. It is a painful, black-humoured confession of a hapless young man who has been trying his whole life to renounce the unconscious part of his personality and to attain his inner satisfaction which presents itself as a guilt-free living. What makes this struggle even more painful is its harrowing outcome which proved the impossibility of such an endeavour. However, as in all major works of art, losers in unfair battles usually turn out to be heroes, because the point of such battle is not basking in victory. The point is your own cognition that you are willing enough, despite weak chances, to prove that your life and the changes you want to make are worth participating, risking, dying and living. This is one of many reasons why readers very gladly identify themselves with Alex Portnoy.

For Alexander Portnoy, alienation appears as a consequence resulting from the struggle between the individual and collective, critical and dogmatic, liberties and prohibitions, realities and myths. However, for Alexander Portnoy, alienation also serves as a means through which he can better understand the reality around him and which gives him an unbiased and objective view of the world.

It is remarkable how all features and characteristics of alienation are artfully combined and presented in a single character. As early as in his childhood he feels the burden of existence in his family, and the resentment towards his family members stretches all the way to his adult age. At the same time while longing for the family’s approval, especially that of his mother’s, Alex sees himself as a guilty creature whose sense of guilt and inferiority overcomes him whenever he attempts to violate the established order of rules and regulations for obedient living. This is also the period when he displayed the passion for breaking taboos, which will ultimately present itself in the forms of deviant sexual behaviour and rejection of faith. The last two notions are closely connected and we could say that his sexual aspirations emerged exactly from his desire to proclaim himself an atheist. Without any doubt, these are all elements of his social isolation which he experienced as a Jew in America. In trying to become part of the American world he both resents and worships, he alienates from his own social identity and the world he originally descended from. Believing that the Judaism brought him only restrictions, feeling of inferiority and sharp mental pangs, Alexander Portnoy turns to fulfilling his adolescent dreams in a thriving and guilt-free New York. The ultimate irony and truth come upon Alex when he realises that all his sexual yearnings serve only to make him more isolated and secluded. Thus the utter powerlessness, accompanied by the terrifying scream at the very end of the novel, shows us to what depths the human nature can sink to gain what is believed to be worth, only to perceive that everything else is irrevocably lost.

It is difficult to stay indifferent to misfortunes of Alexander Portnoy and even today, after four decades of Portnoy’s Complaint, readers are still puzzled by the density of hatred and sympathy they feel towards the main character. Perhaps this is the true reason why the book was simultaneously celebrated and anathematised. Unlike some other works of art, serious achievements do not present us clear-cut answers. Rather, they rely on readers’ imagination and personal experience. This was also Roth’s intention, so forty years ago, he created a new kind of American character, to shock and delight. Alexander Portnoy has never failed to do so.

References:

"A Sex Novel of the Absurd" The Time, February 21, 1969.
          <www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839017-1,00.html>.
          Last visited on 26 July 2009.
Alienation in Society <www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/15408/alienation>.
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Dickstein, Morris. (1999). Fiction and Society, 1940 – 1970. In: The Cambridge History of
           American Literature (S. Bercovitch, ed.). Vol. 7. UK: CUP. 111–311.
Federman, Raymond. (1988). Self-Reflexive Fiction. In: Columbia Literary History of the United
           States. (E. Elliott, ed.) New York: Columbia Literary Press. 1142–1157.
Jones, Judith Paterson, and Guinevera A. Nance. (1981). Philip Roth. New York: Ungar
Kerbel, Samuel. "Off the Shelf: Portnoy’s Complaint". The Columbia Current. Fall 2008.
          <www.columbia.edu/cu/current>. Last visited on July 27, 2009.
Millard, Kenneth. (2000). Contemporary American Fiction. New York. Oxford University Press.
          8–12, 153–157.
Pinsker, Sanford. (ed.) (1982). Critical Essays on Philip Roth. Boston, Massachusetts:
          G. K. Hall & Co.
Roth, Philip. (1969). Portnoy’s Complaint. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd
Ruland, Richard, and Malcolm Bradbury. (1991). From Puritanism to Postmodernism.
          New York: Penguin Group. 369–429.
 

Rezime

Đorđe Ljubišić

OTUĐENJE I NEPRIPADANJE ALEKSANDRA PORTNOJA
U PORTNOJEVOJ BOLJCI FILIPA ROTA

Davne 1969. godine, američka književnost je dobila novog nezadovoljnog i gnevnog junaka, u tom periodu verovatno jednu od najznačajnijih fiktivnih tvorevina nakon Holdena Kolfilda. Filip Rot ga je iznedrio, dao mu ime Aleksandar Portnoj, posudio mu (verovatno) neke svoje do tada javnosti nepoznate osobine i naklonosti i smestio ga u škrto i hermetično jevrejsko okruženje, u Njuark, država Nju Džersi, u isto ono mesto u kome je i sam odrastao.

Pojava Aleksandra Portnoja na književnom nebu Amerike za mnoge je bila (a i danas je) nesvarljivi zalogaj, više zbog Rotovog sirovog i neretko upadljivo vulgarnog stila, negoli zbog same tematike i problematike romana Portnojeva boljka. Sa druge strane, Rot je ovim romanom na sebe skrenuo pažnju ogromne čitalačke javnosti i ubrzo je naslovni junak njegovog romana našao svoje mesto u kućnim bibliotekama miliona američkih porodica. Ruku na srce, najviše u jevrejskom ogranku američke zajednice i na višim policama kućnih biblioteka, daleko od domašaja dece. Reakcije na ozloglašeni roman su bile dvojake. Neki su ga nazivali "onanističkim bildungsromanom", "Mobi Dikom masturbacije", a drugi su govorili da je "nalik remek-delu." Sve ove reakcije su išle u prilog Filip Rotu, koji je od tada nastavio da baštini sopstveni otvoreni i vulgarni stil i time i dalje šokira i oduševljava čitalačku publiku skoro pet decenija.

Društvene i kulturne prilike u Americi tog doba bile su i više nego savršene za pojavu Aleksandra Portnoja, mladog i inteligentnog Jevrejina koji se, dok leži na krevetu u ordinaciji psihoanalitičara doktora Špilvogela, hvata u koštac sa svojim poreklom, seksualnim porivima i sopstvenim moralnim normama. Kao što ugledni kniževni kritičar Moris Dikstajn opisuje, Amerika tog doba je obilovala pokretima za ljudska prava, studentskim štrajkovima i pobunama, rastućim nezadovoljstvom protiv rata u Vijetnamu, novim seksualnim slobodama među omladinom i pojačanom upotrebom narkotika poput marihuane ili halucinogenih supstanci, kao što je LSD. Sve veći je bio uticaj rok muzike i narastali su oblici subkultura među mladim svetom. Bila je to hibridna kultura u kojoj je uticaj televizije, radijskih programa i holivudskih mitova bio nemerljiv.

Još i pre romana Portnojeva boljka, 1961. Godine, Filip Rot, koji je na sebe već navukao etiketu "Jevrejin samomrzac" svojim prvim romanom Zbogom, Kolumbo, u eseju posvećenom američkoj prozi i pisanju, istakao je da američki pisac u drugoj polovini dvadesetog veka ima pune ruke posla dok pokušava da pronikne, opiše i zatim učini da američka stvarnost izgleda uverljiva. Zbog morbidnosti priča koje se nalaze na udarnim vestima i naslovnim stranicama novina, isticao je Rot, pisci gube bitku jer ne mogu da se nose sa neverovatnim događajima oko njih. Imajući sve ovo u vidu, ne čudi da je Rot za svog junaka odabrao mladića koji poseduje neodređeno i nejasno osećanje odgovornosti i krivice i koji otuđen u američkom društvu, kroz eksplicitno prikazivanje seksualnosti i svim onim što mu ta seksualnost donosi, pokušava da ismeva društvenu, religijsku i moralnu tradiciju u čijim okvirima obitava.

Ovaj roman je groteskna i bolna ispovest unesrećenog mladića koji ceo svoj život pokušava da se oslobodi nesvesnog dela svoje ličnosti i da konačno stekne unutrašnju satisfakciju koja mu se predstavlja kao život bez krivice. Ipak, ono što čini ovu borbu još mučnijom je i razočaravajući ishod koji mu je samo potvrdio uzaludnost celog poduhvata. Objedinjujući u sebi poniznost i isključivost jevrejske zajednice i kosmopolitsku i slobodarsku ideju američkog društva, kao i individualne težnje i društveno predodređene moralne norme, lik Aleksandra Portnoja je u celini sazdan na konfliktima, apsurdima i nepripadanju. Njegovo otuđenje je utoliko veće pri samom saznanju da ni u jednoj sferi društvenog života ne pripada u potpunosti. Na veoma odvažan način, Filip Rot je od Aleksandra Portnoja stvorio nesvakidašnju mešavinu intelekta Stivena Dedalusa, etničkog porekla Leopolda Bluma, šelijevske ideje slobode, foknerovske opsednutosti prošlošću, besa Ozbornovog Džimija Portera i eliotovske mračne vizije budućnosti. Stoga i sam kraj romana, propraćen strašnim urlikom, neodoljivo podseća na konradovsku dijagnozu užasa i ludila, tek da potvrdi svu beznačajnost protraćenog života.

Teško je ostati ravnodušan prema nedaćama Aleksandra Portnoja i čak i danas, nakon više od četrdeset godina od objavljivanja romana, u čitaocima i dalje provejava nejasno osećanje mržnje i saosećanja koje osećaju prema glavnom junaku. Možda je ovo i istinski razlog zbog kojeg je roman u isto vreme i slavljen i anatemisan. Za razliku od nekih drugih umetničkih dela, ona najveća nam ne ostavljaju jasne zaključke. Oni zavise pre svega od čitalačke mašte i iskustva.

____________
Napomene:

1. The definition in its entirety is available on www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/15408/alienation. Last visited on 26 July 2009.
2. "A Sex Novel of the Absurd" The Time, February 21, 1969. The article can be found in its entirety on www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,8390171,00.html. Last visited on 26 July 2009.
3. All citations from the novel are taken from Roth, Philip (1969). Portnoy’s Complaint. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd.
4. Dickstein, Morris. "Fiction and Society, 1940–1970." The Cambridge History of American Literature. Bercovitch, S.(ed.) Vol 7. UK:CUP. 1999. 101–311. All the subsequent citations will appear in parentheses (Dickstein 1999)
5. Kerbel, Samuel."Off the Shelf: Portnoy’s Complaint". The Columbia Current. Fall 2008. The article can be found in its entirety on www.columbia.edu/cu/current. Last visited on July 27, 2009.
6. Federman, Raymond. "Self-Reflexive Fiction." Columbia Literary History of the United States. Elliott, E. (ed.) New York: Columbia University Press. 1988. 1142-1157.
7. Kerbel, Samuel."Off the Shelf: Portnoy’s Complaint". The Columbia Current. Fall 2008. The article can be found in its entirety on www.columbia.edu/cu/current. Last visited on July 27, 2009.
 

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