From Facts to Farce: The Tragedy of Passing in Philip Roth’s Zuckerman Novels

The present paper analyses Philip Roth’s so-called Zuckerman novels, in which Nathan Zuckerman assumes the roles of narrator, protagonist, and Roth’s alter ego. More precisely, the purpose of this paper is to address, and, if possible, to shed some light over the farcical nature of Roth’s fiction, with a particular focus on The Human Stain (2000), wherein Coleman Silk, a light-skinned African American, decides to pass as white to have access to the opportunities post-war America had to offer. Philip Roth, Nathan Zuckerman, and Coleman Silk, together with their ways of posing, wearing masks, and using reality according to their needs and desires, constitute the gist of this analysis. Therefore, a discussion of Roth’s craft as revealed in the Zuckerman novels will help us better understand his farcical nature, one of the many ‘masks’ Zuckerman’s author wore throughout his long and prodigious literary career.

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