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

The therapy continues as David Kepesh and Claire travel to Prague where Kafka becomes the spiritual authority and he discusses Kafka's relevance to the citizens of Prague with a Czech professor. After visiting Kafka's grave, he starts writing his next lecture and again the situation is awkward as Kafka's "Report to an Academy" provides the form, while two prostitutes act as muses. The lecture is planned to help his students understand how Madame Bovary and other great novels 'concerned with erotic desire' have a 'referential' relationship to the students' own lives and to the life of their teacher and David Kepesh claims that he wishes to give to his students an honest interpretation of his life. There is no external ointment for the professor's internal conflict. David Kepesh remains suspended between reckless sexual ambitions and fake conscientious intellectual dedication, and later he will become the slave of his sensuality, and lose not only his 'battle,' but also his body in Roth's earlier novel The Breast. The Breas The protagonist of The Breast

, is the same David Alan Kepesh, the Stony Brook professor of comparative literature who has apparent public success, lives with a nice young schoolteacher, in short his life seems to be stable. Certainly the scheme is just too nice. No doubt, David Kepesh is governed by a disposition to maintain his male identity and status as a professor but indications of slippage in his male identity suggest the storm that is approaching. Actually, too much identification with the adored woman brings about a desire that is directed against his masculinity. David Kepesh feels in Claire's breast an imposing organ continually exposing sexuality. David Kepesh has a similar relationship with high art, as he employs the power of art to explain everyday situations repeatedly by way of identifying art with reality. Total identification with the beautiful woman's breast leads to catastrophe. David's admiration for women's breasts is formulated in The Professor of Desire in three interesting contexts: family, art and history. The mother's breasts are interpreted as the basis of his father's decision to marry his mother and are associated with an orderly, safe existence. In the scene I quoted earlier breasts come to be associated 117