My Own Foe from the Other Gender: (Mis)representing Women in The Dying Animal

This essay argues that the treatment of women in Philip Roth’s fiction must be seen in light of his central concern with masculinity. The essay reads the third novel centered on the character-narrator David Kepesh,The Dying Animal (2001), as an illustration of the way masculine gender norms are both developed and contested. Roth’s allegedly misogynistic representations of women result entirely from his fictional method. Indeed, by tracking the struggle of the masculine self to preserve its wholeness against a female other perceived as a threat, the essay shows that Roth exposes, rather than reinforces, the misrepresentation of women.