Cosmopolitanism and Tragic Silence 181To borrow the axiomatic words of Leo Glucksman, Ringold fails to
grasp the “intrinsic nature of the particular” (p. 223). Furthermore,
the failure also signals a more pernicious inability to utilize his own
introspective wisdom without having it funneled through—or dis-
torted by—a rigid interpretation of Marxian thought. He is thus
detached from—and unaware of—the intricacies of his own per-
sonal feelings.
Tragically, but entirely predictably, this strategy for promoting
domestic “peace and harmony” leads to further misunderstanding
and conflict (p. 112). After learning of Sylphid’s plan to prevent Eve
from having a child, Ringold leaves the house permanently, mov-
ing into a shack on the rural outskirts of Newark. The image of
this retreat evokes the idea of severed communication and silence;
but it also acts as a symbol of purity—a concept that reemerges
in the other installments of the American Trilogy in a variety of
guises and manifestations. As many of these are alluded to above,
it is not necessary to recount what they are in great detail; but we
could recall the pristine pastoral idyll Levov tries to build, or indeed
his untainted faith in the all-embracing fairness of American free-
market capitalism.
Purity also figures in the novels in the form of epistemological
certainty. I have already noted that Levov and Ringold are certain in
the integrity of the knowledge systems they use to interpret and act
in the world—both being grounded in all-encompassing and rather
brittle ideologies. It has also been shown that, in their different ways,
the myopic pursuit of these ideologies contributes to the demise of
both. Such an interpretation certainly seems to be a central goal
of the author, particularly when we consider the conspicuous ways
in which Roth structures the narratives—employing strategies,
themes, and tropes that are characteristic of tragedy. However, it is
also important to note that in certain moments of the trilogy (espe-
cially so in American Pastoral ), Roth draws our attention to the arbi-
trary, artificial nature of storytelling—one that inevitably involves
simplification, misrepresentation, fabrication, and error.
In spite of the fact that all three novels employ a modified form
of the classical tragic model (whose effectiveness demands that the
characters and the events are depicted in certain predictable ways),