“I imagined Something Small”: Radio Writing in Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America

Abstract

American Jewish writer Philip Roth reimagines the history of the United States between 1940-1942 in his novel The Plot Against America. Such alternative historical imagination is inseparable from Roth’s historical consciousness that history encompasses not only the sequence of completed events, but also the hypothetical historical events, whose haunting traces in the factual history constitute a sharp reminder that history might take a different turn. This paper factors in Roth’s historical sensitivity and probes into Roth’s ironic representation and parody of radio broadcast text. It argues that through radio writing Roth not only holds the “harmless” historical discourse into question, but also expresses concerns over the dual nature of mass media as both a facilitator of the democracy and a catalyst of racism and xenophobia.