Reverse Anti-Semitism in the Fiction of Bellow and Roth

In his article Reverse Anti-Semitism in the Fiction of Bellow and Roth Jay L. Halio discusses anti-Semitism in Philip Roth\u27s fiction that what might be called reverse anti-Semitism: the active reaction by Jews who are subjected to anti-Semitism. This aspect of Roth\u27s work is not often discussed: it is not the same as philo-Semitism, which takes a different form entirely. Since Roth was an admirer of Saul Bellow, Halio begins by considering reverse anti-Semitism in Bellow\u27s early novel The Victim. In the novel the protagonist, Asa Leventhal, is accused by a character named Allbee of costing him his job and his subsequent downfall because of some anti-Semitic remarks he once made involving a friend of Leventhal\u27s. According to Allbee, Leventhal provoked Allbee\u27s boss in such a way that he blamed Allbee for the altercation, which led to his being fired. To clarify more fully the nature of reverse anti-Semitism, Shakespeare\u27s The Merchant of Venice is invoked to show how the Jewish moneylender Shylock takes revenge against his Christian antagonist, the Venetian merchant Antonio, who has scorned him repeatedly and in many ways. Finally, Halio focuses on Roth\u27s treatment of reverse anti-Semitism in Portnoy\u27s Complaint, where Alexander\u27s actions with gentile women he seduces is prompted at least in part by feelings of revenge for the anti-Semitism his father has experienced over many years. Halio also discusses reverse anti-Semitism in Roth\u27s novel Operation Shylock

Identity in Shakespeare

This paper surveys the problems of identity in a number of Shakespeare’s plays, such as The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello. In these plays as in many others, Shakespeare explores the complexity of identity, not only through the use of disguise, as in the major comedies, but also through the problems of self-knowledge. The latter issue is prominent and explicit in King Lear when, for example, Lear asks “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” The opening words of Hamlet, “Who’s there?” introduce the problem from the outset, and much of the play is given over to characters trying to discover who the others in the play really are. Is the Ghost an honest ghost, or “a goblin damned?” Is Hamlet really mad or just putting on an “antic disposition” as he struggles to discover his proper course of action as his father’s avenger? Is Kate really a shrew, or just made to act like one by her family and others