The Ghost Writer Critical Essay | Critical Essay by W. Clark Hendley

Critical Essay by W. Clark Hendley

The Ghost Writer must be initially examined from the context of the Bildungsroman because Roth has so deliberately placed it in this context. After focusing on the novel as a work of fiction within a clearly defined tradition, then the critic can look to the narrative for parallels to the author's life and insights into his growth and development. In comparing the novel with its predecessors we can not only evaluate its departures from that tradition but also assess Roth's implications about the viability of this form in late twentieth-century fiction…. Roth's late twentieth-century Bildungsroman protagonist typically searches for a father and simultaneously flees both a father and all the suitable father substitutes, a fashion that bears the mark of the late twentieth-century fragmentation which has eroded family ties and given rise to homelessness. Thus in a pattern that is repeated throughout The Ghost Writer, the tradition of the Bildungsroman...
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