Contradicting

I think Eve Frame is such a weird character.  She has this intense disgust for Jewish people, like on Page 53 where Murray tells Nathan "It was a sickness, that aversion she had for the Jew who was insufficiently disguised."  However she has no problem with the Jewish people who are actors, or famous, or rich.  She only hates the Jewish people she thinks are "common", the ones who also tend to be her biggest fans.   If she hates Jewish people how can she marry Ira, who is also Jewish?  I just don't why she is so specific on the Jewish people she hates and why she even hates them so much to begin with.

Comments

[Jake R]

I think she's weird too and kind of hypocritical. Ira is still somewhat famous though with his radio show, which could be why Eve is ok with marrying him. There was also Doris' whole speech about how love doesnt make sense, which could be Roth's explanation for Eve's behavior.

[Theresa Y.]

In the book, there was a passage about how she hated Jews for a lot of reasons. One, was that her famliy is Jewish and she is trying to escape them to make a better living. Two, marrying Pennington was a HUGE mistake. Pennington taught her to be anti-semetic. and this was not good, because he already was a social outcast, and she copied all of his thoughts and actions to try to guide her life. Basically, the poor Jews represent her family which she is trying to get away from.

[Shannon M]

Maybe Eve's extreme hatred for Jewish people stems from her own low self esteem. She looks in the mirror and hates her "Jewish appearence" and self loathing and projection runs in her family (look at Sylphid). I think that Eve is extremley self concious and is displacing her hatred for herself onto Jewish people.

[Adrian L.]

I think she still likes Ira because she can see he's rich and famous--maybe she doesn't really love him as a person, but she loves his fame and fortune. She realizes that she can use those traits to her own advantage and thus is able to overlook his Jewish ancestry. If he was a nobody she'd probably hate him too because he's Jewish.

[Brett N]

Maybe it came from Eve, but Sylphid also posesses an intense hatred, mostly for her mother. Sylphid intensely hates her mother even though her mother loves her and shows admiration towards her. Maybe this hate stems from all of the hatred that Eve has and shows towards other people.

[Haley J]

As Shannon posted, Eve seems to hate the Jews in order to indirectly hate herself. She cannot readily admit to her low self-esteem and self-loathing, and so redirects it onto those with whom she could identify the most during the years she is most ashamed of. She hates the fact that she once was who she was, and so attempts to erase her past by pretending to despise it.