Henry Roth Call it sleep - an Analysis

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, printed single-sided, grade: 1, University of Vienna, language: English, abstract: The New York Times described Roth s novel Call it Sleep as One of the few genuinely distinguished novels written by a twentieth-century American (Roth blurb). The book tells us about David Schearl, child of Jewish immigrants in the first decades of the 19th century. Similarities between the author s biography and David s life are quite obvious. This paper will give a short overview of the author s life and point out a few similarities with the book. After a brief abstract of the novel s content the focus will be on identity created through language and the Jewish origin of the character. Identity is a very important motif in Roth s novel and it is influenced by the history of Jewish immigrants in New York s Lower East Side, as well as by the urban experiences of the character. David searches for his own identity within and outside of his own community.In the following parts Roth s technique will be explained by Cohn s theory of psycho-narration, with a focus on the modernist climax in the penultimate chapter. The paper ends in the conclusion that Roth s novel is about the search of identity, depicted through a variety of methods.