47 pages • 1 hour read
Philip RothThe Plot Against America
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Big Lie
The Big Lie is a phrase coined by Adolph Hitler in his manifesto, Mein Kampf. It refers to a lie that is so big, and so audacious, that rather than scorn it, people believe it because they cannot conceive of anyone saying something so outrageous and incorrect. The Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would expand on the idea, and change it slightly for his own work. Goebbels essentially said that if a lie is told often enough, it can become the truth. Nazi propaganda relied on the repetition that the Jews were responsible for nearly every ill that had befallen European society.
Lindbergh adopts his own version of the Big Lie, but it appears to be innocuous. When responding to political attacks, he repeats that America is at peace, and that he has kept his promise to keep Americans out of the war. He says this even while his administration develops policies that marginalize Jews and separate them from their children, and while the pogrom in Detroit takes place. America—at least for Jews—is not at peace, but because the president calmly repeats it so often, he is believed.
Patriotism
Patriotism works as both a reward and a punishment in The Plot Against America. Sandy’s inclusion in the Just Folks program sends him to the Mawhinney farm. While he is there, he feels that he learns truths about America that his father never taught him. These new truths make him feel more patriotic, and his ever-growing nationalism will eventually lead him to scorn (temporarily) his own parents and their beliefs. As a child, he comes to believe that his parents are naïve because they do not see America the same way he does.
Walter Winchell is delivering a speech during which he knows he might be killed, and indeed, he is assassinated. He admits during his speaking tour that there is nothing he can do to prevent himself from being locked up, or even killed. But it is his love of America that he says cannot be extinguished, and he urges people to act and refute Lindbergh out of the same patriotism.
Herman’s patriotism is what sustains him throughout the first two-thirds of the novel, but it’s the source of his greatest inner conflict by the time of his fight with Alvin (another disillusioned patriot). Herman believes in his country, but can no longer find a way to deny that it is bowing to fascist principles. When he can no longer find a way to support his country in a meaningful way, he begins making plans to immigrate to Canada. The love of one’s country is a source of comfort, betrayal, disappointment, and a tool used by propagandists.
Homeland
Much of Jewish thinking and philosophy is rooted in the idea of having a homeland. For those who adhere to Jewish religious doctrine as literal, this is the literal homeland of Israel. But Philip says early in the novel, which is echoed later by Bengelsdorf, “Our homeland was America” (4). For Jews like Herman, the pain of Lindbergh’s rise is exacerbated by the fact that Lindbergh’s policies—and the anti-Jewish realities that they provoke—have the power to displace Jews yet again from another homeland. Herman is a patriot who also believes that he belongs in America, which is apparent in his longstanding resistance to leave for Canada until the danger is at its greatest.
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