Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)
Studies - Tibor Tóth: The Golden Cradle: Philip Roth's Revision of the Golden Bough Tradition
predicament while he is still living 'as a man.' The Breast has already discussed the paradoxes of desire and the constant, but ineffective struggle between David Kepesh's education and animal instincts, which were meant to suppress his need for more physical satisfaction on the basis of re-valued spiritual or aesthetic satisfaction. Although sex, or rather love-making, is an essential metaphor of creativity in his works Philip Roth can not accept the idea that reading great works of art can result in good sex. In fact David Kepesh is seeing a psychiatrist because of his impotence, the death of his sexual desire. The other power at work is predictably literature, providing desire for creative participation. The third factor at work is the 'real,' over the interpretation of which David Kepesh fails to gain authority, first because personal identification is rendered impossible through the instability of his self. He truly hopes to find a sound definition of freedom, but his obsessive insistence to explain his actual needs and deeds by way of high art prevents him from comprehensive interpretation of any possible analogies. Macbeth , Crime and Punishment , "The Duel" can not help him overcome the negative effects of his "fascination with moral delinquency" (P.D. 74). David Kepesh does not understand that the modernists did not write moral treatises and thus he cannot construct a new identity for himself on the basis of his readings. Philip Roth demonstrates that art is amoral and it can endanger the ignorant. David Kepesh is incompetent and as a result he is refused this comprehensive interpretation and thus he loses track of his quite equivocally formulated intellectual and physical ambitions. The libidinous slob's sense of reality changes its spectres and as temptation dominates him he ignores moral grandeur, aesthetic and sensual satisfaction. 3 Submissive response to temptation becomes with him the source and target of 'abnormal, amoral' lust. He fails to understand that prostituting literature in the name of purely sexual desire and exhibitionism can only result in a deep sense of guilt and shame, which further undermines his chances to achieve 3 The terming of desire as "erotic' and thanatic' is again used after Docherty, Thomas. Reading (Absent) Character. Towards a Theory of Characterization in Fiction. Oxford: Claredon. 1983. 224-25. 115
