150 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel
part of the writer. This is an image of the pastoral as an “event” that
is prompted by the subject’s experience of feeling momentarily in
harmony with nature. The “event” therefore serves a metaphorical or
symbolic purpose in that it inspires a vision of the possibilities that
are open for a more productive relationship between humankind
and the environment.^56
Whereas Gifford presents a similarly appropriative position, he
also actively attempts to reconstitute the pastoral along more politi-
cally attentive conceptual lines. Like Marx, Gifford considers some
of the sentiments bound up in the concept to have productive prop-
erties, which can potentially be harnessed to advance a more sustain-
able form of human existence. He labels this ecologically focused
political orientation the “post-pastoral”—an approach that is more
aware of the “material realities” involved in humankind’s relation-
ship with nature, particularly as regards the increasing progres-
sion of environmental degradation.^57 Although Gifford and Marx’s
appropriative frameworks are important in the theoretical landscape
and provide valuable critical tools for interpreting contemporary
portrayals of nature and humankind’s interaction with the environ-
ment, I contend that Williams’s (Karl) Marxian materialist critical
approach better complements the literary procedures and priorities
of American Pastoral. This is primarily because the former two are
more focused on humankind’s relationship with the environment,
a feature that, while certainly important in the novel, is secondary
to the materialist concerns Williams raises, and that Roth prompts
us to recognize. While Gifford’s and Marx’s critiques aim toward
building a more “harmonious” relationship with the environment,
Williams seeks to illuminate the exploitative nature of the human-
kind/nature division so as to establish on firmer ground a framework
that will bring about a more equitable form of social organization.
Indeed, I argue that, once again through the use of silences
and lacunae, Roth provokes the reader into recognizing (in the
same manner as does Williams) that the kind of free-market ide-
ology espoused by Levov promotes an illusory and romanticized
distinction between the countryside and the city, one that effaces
the history of human exploitation it involved. This is a history with
familiar patterns both in the United States and in Great Britain,