Eve's anti-Semitism

Eve, in a desperate attempt to move to the top of the Hollywood social hierarchy, attempts to ditch her Jewish identity. She's no longer Chava Fromkin from Brooklyn. She's beautiful, she's famous -- what she needs now is a way to maintain this. So she latched onto movie star Carlton Pennington, taking him as her Gentile model and a means to de-Jew herself.

Murray mentions The Sun Also Rises to further explain Eve's transformation: like Robert Cohn in Hemingway's novel who goes to Princeton to box and forget his Jewish identity does Eve with Pennington. But he was more than, as Murray says, "this rich, polo-playing upper-class genuine aristocrat ... her director." He was gay, he was anti-Semitic: the ultimate outsider, truly, in the movie studio community.

Here, as Mr. Heidkamp pointed out, lies one of the book's themes, this unwillingness to make your own decisions, to remain true to yourself. This is on the bottom of p 158:

The crime isn't even bringing an anti-Semite close to you. That's your choice too. The crime is being unable to stand up to him, unable to defend against the assault, and taking his attitudes for yours. In America, as I see it, you can allow yourself every freedom but that one.

Eve, Murray later says, is taking an act too far. To rid your identity? Fine. That's your prerogative. But to continually hate Jews? To spite a baby for having a Jewish mother? That, he says, is wrong. She could act with nuance and change on stage, but in reality, she was unable to shake this habit that she acquired from Pennington. She's a vessel. She comes back to Jumbo Freedman in the same manner: she conveniently drops her hatred for, as Murray says, "what you go to a Jew for -- money and business and licentious sex. It was a transaction." With her star falling, Eve hedged her bets.

But is Murray also foreshadowing Ira's downfall? Ira tried to leave his past behind, the primordial sixteen-year-old kid who laughed after he killed a man, the tempestuous Army brat who threw a guy into the ocean for disagreeing with him. And so he married Eve, he hosted The Free and the Brave, he dressed up like Abe Lincoln, the paragon of American virtue. It all crashes down, doesn't it? He marries Eve and tries with all of his literary and political might to rid her of the anti-Semitism, to be her O'Day. He takes on Eve, Murray theorisizes, to win the ultimate battle. To enforce his beliefs onto hers is, as Murray says, rendering Eve "unable to stand up to him, unable to defend against the assault, and taking his attitudes for [hers]." The least permissible transgression of all -- the opposite of his prized critical thinking.

For that matter, who does honestly change in this novel? Nathan? Why's he living alone on the hills? Why does he ignore what he once thrived on -- he ends the novel not with a bang, but with a whimper, "the colossal spectacle of no antagonism."

Comments

[Sam B.]

About Pennington: "homosexuality was the permissible transgression," Murray says, in Hollywood. But the fact that he was gay, he continues, was enough to signal Pennington's more unique outsider stance.

[Natalie N.]

I think it is a provacative thought that it is ok to be anti-semetic as long as you don't push that view on others. There mere fact of having that view is already causing a problem, whether or not you voice it. To judge others by an arbitrary standard will surely cause problems when the tables are turned.

[Lana G.]

Interesting insights Sam. You make good points.

Eve's anti-Semitism is an interesting and integeral part of her character. She is trying to hate a part of who she is; trying to make herself separate on the outside, yet she is self-destructive.

I agree with Natalie. People do have the right to feel however they want to feel about other people, as long as they do not impose those feelings on other unwilling people.

[Myles L.]

Murray wasn't saying it was bad to hate Jews, he was saying it is wrong to hate Jews merely becaue you are emulating someone who does hate Jews. This is why Eve's anti-semitism is ridiculous, and also why Ira's views are ridiculous. He obviously did not start the way he was, but he didn't get there by his own thoughts and actions, he got there because he met O'Day and just took everything O'Day said. That's why, like Eve, Ira is a fake and for him to expect to be able to force his ideas on Eve is stupid, they're not even his ideas.

[Thomas B.]

I agree, by becoming Anti-Semetic, Eve is trying to also become aristocratic. But she doesn't realize that by becoming actively anti-semetic, she is going too far. Real aristocrats smile and cover any hatred they might feel for Jews. But she is "patholigically imbarrassed" by her Jewish-ness

Her anti-semetism also makes Ira angry. Being a good Communist, Ira despises any religion and being a good husband, he tries to wean her from her anti-semetism. But it is to no avail. Eve is unable, or doesn't want, to lose her prejudice. Perhaps this is a foreshadowing of their falling out.

I think, as I have said in class, that, at least in Murray's point of view, the most important American right is the one to make your own decision. Everyone must decide for him or herself who they want to be.

[Sam B.]

Excellent point Myles. I guess I kind of hinted at that, but you articulated the reason Eve and Ira are equally ridiculous very well.

[John M.]

I definetly agree with Myles. I think this is one of the larger points in the story, that Eve and Ira are alike in the respect that they both took ideas from other people and based their lives around them.

[Kathi S.]

Myles does make a good point, especially the part about him not having his own ideas. Thomas said that in America we have the right to decide what we want to be, but in my opinoin not at the expense of others. Eve's anti-semetism does end up at the expense of others, when the Grants manipulate her into doing the book. Ira's anit-semetism may not be his own, but it never ends up hurting Eve.

[Lucy W]

It is a noble thing for Murray to proclaim that, as Thomas put it, "Everyone must decide for him or herself who they want to be." But what does that really mean? One cannot expect man kind to wipe out a habitual instinct(a knee jerk reaction). This is exactly how these evil infectious thoughts spread: the weak are lured by a promise of power. It's the age old bulley rule: oppressing others means that you are no longer on the bottom. And Americans are not exempt from this.

[Lucy W]

It is a noble thing for Murray to proclaim that, as Thomas put it, "Everyone must decide for him or herself who they want to be." But what does that really mean? One cannot expect man kind to wipe out a habitual instinct(a knee jerk reaction). This is exactly how these evil infectious thoughts spread: the weak are lured by a promise of power. It's the age old bulley rule: oppressing others means that you are no longer on the bottom. And Americans are not exempt from this.

[Tiffany S.]

I also agree with Myles, it's like Eve and Ira are living fake, made-up lives and this seems like a big event in the novel, it might seems insignificant because Roth doesn't really focus on it. Eve is a famous actress, shes's beautiful, her life is pretty much perfect. Not accepting the fact that she's Jewish seems to be giving her a good life. Yet, I don't think that she has the right to judge or treat Jewish people harshly, it is her heritage. She can deny it all she wants and I don't feel that it's wrong to deny it but she will always be Jewish.

[Ben M.]

What's already been said is very insightful, and I would just emphasize this—one of the central themes of this novel is that you should be true to yourself.

Look at the characters who aren't. Eve pretends she's not Jewish, starts hating Jews, taking cues from her model—her first husband, Pennington. She's not true to herself. She's a wreck.

Ira tries to change himself into a better person by modeling himself after O'Day. However, he can only play characters for so long—a communist, an actor—before he comes crashing back down to his initial personality.

But the most stable, well off character in the novel is Murray Ringold. He's educated, he becomes an educator, he lives a full life with a family in Newark, he lives to a ripe old age—he seems satisfied. He never tries to model himself after anyone else—at least that we see—he does what he wants, and on his terms.