Philip Roth's Fictions of Self-Exposure

Abstract

The article examines Roth's exploitation of his own persona through self-reference in his writing. It argues that throughout his career, Roth has challenged readers' expectations of the truth value of narratives that simultaneously expose, conceal, and rewrite the autobiographical subject—the "I" in the text. Roth has thereby not only explored postmodern epistemologies of identity, but also has offered fresh angles on the problem of writing the self in a variety of genres: from autobiography and memoir to dialogue and reflexive fiction.