Nathan Zuckerman, Plato, and the Lost Republic of Newark

This essay examines the role that Newark plays in Philip Roth's Zuckerman Bound books, specifically its role as a center of Jewishness. Tracing the model for Zuckerman's Newark to Plato's Republic, the essay shows how Zuckerman's Aristotelian approach to literature causes conflict with his Platonic Jewish culture. By infusing Platonic ideas of state into Zuckerman's protracted conflict with his Jewish community, Roth gives Zuckerman's saga of familial alienation a tragic tone. What is lost is not simply Zuckerman's relationship with his family. Ultimately, as Jewish Newark disappears, so does a center of Jewish identity.