American Pastoral: A systemic-relational reading

Abstract

Philip Roth's novel "American Pastoral" is summarized and commented in a systemic-relational perspective. The plot is an overwhelming chaos that casts a glance not only on the Levov family but on the whole American context of the 1940s and 1960s. The life cycle of the main character, Seymour “the Sweden”, a man idealized by others, hides, behind the facade of excellence, the pain and suffering of an anything but idyllic existence: the crack in his crystal world is Meredith, a troubled daughter, consumed by an internal discontent that will lead her to commit criminal acts. Merry's character tells us about the restlessness of a revolutionary and confused generation, in constant conflict with the previous one, and suggests some considerations about the transcultural and transgenerational metamorphoses of the mid-twentieth century. The dramatic family events of the Levov describe, with clear harshness, the crisis of a certain image of the American family.