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Portnoy's Complaint Study Guide

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by Philip Roth
About 54 pages (16,266 words)

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Chapter 4, Part 1 Summary

"Cunt Crazy" This chapter opens with Alex's brief but intensely graphic description of how, at the age of fifteen, he masturbated on a commuter bus on the way home from a lobster dinner with friends. He wonders to the doctor what made him do it—his obsession with sex, his obsession with shikses (one of which he sat next to on the bus) or the gushing sense of freedom he felt (see "Quotes", p. 79) after eating lobster for the first time—lobster being one of the taboo foods according to Orthodox Jewish food laws. Contemplation of the laws leads to another rant-like section (of which there are several in this chapter), this time focused on what he sees as the foolishness of those laws. This rant leads, in turn, to the comment.....

This is a free excerpt of 135 words. This section contains 936 words. This study guide contains 16,266 words (approx. 54 pages at 300 words per page).

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Portnoy's Complaint from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.

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