American Pastoral Literary Elements

American Pastoral Literary Elements

Genre

Historical Fiction

Setting and Context

Newark, New Jersey, the 1960's and 1970's

Narrator and Point of View

The book's narrator is Nathan Zuckerman

Tone and Mood

Contentious, Violent, Chaotic, Sad, Solemn, Radical, and Historical

Protagonist and Antagonist

Seymour "Swede" Levov vs. Merry Levov

Major Conflict

The major conflict of the film involves Seymour's struggle to keep his family held together in face of societal pressures (the Vietnam War, mainly) and his daughter is accused of bombing the local post office to protest the Vietnam War.

Climax

When Seymour finally sees his daughter after five years and she reveals that she did, in fact, bomb the post office and has killed a few more people

Foreshadowing

The line "Christ, you even gave him a mistress. Perfectly misjudged, Zuck. Absolutely off." foreshadows Seymour's affair with Sheila, a speech therapist.

Understatement

The extent of Merry's naivete and her lack of compassion is understated throughout much of the book

Allusions

To Milton's Paradise Lost, Sir Walter Scott, History (the Vietnam War, Prohibition-era, WWII, The Civil Rights Movement and MLK, etc.), Popular Culture, Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage, and Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto.

Imagery

Roth uses imagery quite frequently throughout American Pastoral. One instance is when Roth describes the baked ziti that Merry and Seymour eat together at a restaurant.

Paradox

Merry is raised in a seemingly loving home with decent parents, yet acts out in incredibly violent, heinous ways.

Parallelism

Merry's story and the story of the Weather Underground terrorist group are parallelled throughout much of the book (since she even becomes involved with them).

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Metonymy: Seymour and the United States

Personification

Newark itself is personified in the book.

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