The Plot Against America

by

Philip Roth

The Plot Against America: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
In January 1942, having been trained by nurses in Canada to move about on a prosthetic leg, Alvin is discharged from the hospital and sent home with a pension and severance. Herman’s brother Monty, a rich wholesaler of fruits and vegetables locally known as “the Tomato King,” thinks Alvin should stay in Canada, where he could qualify for additional benefits. During a Sunday visit the week before Alvin returns, Monty lambasts Herman for letting Alvin run away to fight in the war. Herman accuses Monty and other “rich Jews” like him of turning a blind eye to the injustices of Lindbergh’s administration simply because the market is up.
This passage shows how sensitive Herman is to the wedges and divisions which the Lindbergh administration seeks to drive among members of Jewish families and Jewish constituencies, using wealth and class as a means to break apart Jewish communities.
Themes
Jewish Identity vs. Assimilation Theme Icon
Isolationism vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
Historical Fact vs. Emotional Truth Theme Icon
Family and Home Theme Icon
Quotes
On the day Alvin arrives home, the Roths go together to meet him at the train station. As Alvin’s train pulls in, Herman and Bess warn Philip not to be afraid of Alvin—or of his leg. Sandy rushes down the platform to meet Alvin, who is being pushed off the train in a wheelchair by a nurse. He hugs Alvin tight around the neck. Herman and Bess burst into tears. Meanwhile, Philip feels overwhelmed by his confusing fears about Alvin, Lindbergh, Sandy’s involvement with the OAA, and the recent squabbles between Herman and Monty. He robotically moves toward Alvin and hugs him. Philip notices that Alvin’s mouth smells terrible. As Philip looks down at Alvin’s leg, he sees that Alvin’s prosthesis is in his luggage rather than attached to this body.
Philip’s fears about encountering Alvin’s stump are now dwarfed by his much larger fears of all the strife, discord, and danger swirling around in the world. Philip is overwhelmed by all of this, and his reaction to Alvin’s homecoming is muted and uncertain. Alvin’s detached prosthesis symbolically represents the detached, disoriented state in which he’s arriving home.
Themes
Jewish Identity vs. Assimilation Theme Icon
Isolationism vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
Historical Fact vs. Emotional Truth Theme Icon
Family and Home Theme Icon
As the Roths accompany Alvin to collect his baggage, he stands up out of his wheelchair and begins hopping through the station. Sandy, concerned, asks the nurse if Alvin could slip and fall. The nurse, however, assures him that Alvin is exceptional at hopping and that his determination will take him anywhere he wants to go. She has never seen anyone as angry with how things have turned out as Alvin is.
In this passage, Alvin’s anger is shown to be a driving and galvanizing force rather than a demoralizing or stultifying one. This foreshadows Alvin’s continued anger not at his own circumstances, but at the continuing injustices at home and abroad.
Themes
Isolationism vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
Family and Home Theme Icon
Sandy, Herman, and Alvin load Alvin’s luggage into the car while Philip and Bess take the bus home—there is no room in the car for them. Bess, sensing Philip’s fear and discomfort, tries to warn Philip that though Alvin is angry, he’ll soon return to his old self. All Philip is concerned about, though, is having to look at—or worse, touch or care for—Alvin’s stump. Alvin is moving into Philip’s room to stay with him while Sandy moves into the guest bedroom. Bess offers to take Philip’s place in his room and let him sleep with Herman, or for Philip and Sandy to switch places—but Philip knows he can’t allow Alvin, who lost his leg fighting Nazis, to share a room with a boy who is working for Lindbergh
Philip places Alvin’s need above his own in this passage as he becomes determined to protect Alvin from Sandy. In spite of Philip’s fears about Alvin’s stump, Philip remains in awe of his cousin and of Alvin’s values of solidarity and anti-fascism.
Themes
Jewish Identity vs. Assimilation Theme Icon
Isolationism vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
Family and Home Theme Icon
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After several visits to the family dentist to get his rotted teeth—the source of the foul smell in his mouth—fixed up, Alvin begins smelling better. His stump, however, is deteriorating—cracked and bloodied, it pains Alvin and prevents him from using his prosthetic leg. One night, Alvin wakes up in the middle the night covered in sweat due to a terrible nightmare. When Alvin turns on the light, Philip sees his stump for the first time. Philip asks how long it will take for the stump to heal. Alvin replies that it will take “forever.” He explains to Philip the cyclical issues with his prosthesis and its fit that he will endure for the rest of his life, and he shows Philip how he needs to keep the stump bandaged. Philip feels less frightened.
Even though Alvin begins healing in tangible and significant ways, the issues and trials he will face for the rest of his life because of his new disability still torture him. His prosthetic leg—and the issues it causes him due to its imperfect fit—are a symbol of the inadequate and imperfect ways in which governments and people respond in times of crises, often failing to support those most in need of help.
Themes
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Family and Home Theme Icon
Quotes
The next day, when Philip returns home, Alvin is at the dentist and Sandy is out with Aunt Evelyn. Home alone, Philip decides to play with Alvin’s bandages and pretends to wrap up his own leg. When Philip finds that the bandage is dirty, however, he begins to dry heave. He runs down to the cellar to vomit in the laundry sink. Down in the dank cellar in his petrified, disgusted state, Philip is reminded of the underworld of Greek myth. Philip fears the cellar and hates going down there to do laundry of shovel coal into the furnace—he believes that the ghosts of his dead family members live down there.
Philip wants to be a better caretaker to Alvin—yet he is still burdened by his own anxieties and reservations. Philip’s fears are still very much a child’s fears—even as he tries to hasten the process of growing up by exposing himself to the very things that most frighten him.
Themes
Isolationism vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
Family and Home Theme Icon
While Philip is in the cellar, he hears the pained cough of his family’s downstairs neighbor, Mr. Wishnow, who is, like Herman, an insurance agent with Metropolitan Life. Mr. Wishnow has been out sick from work with cancer of the mouth and throat for over a year. The Roths sometimes bring food over to the Wishnows—and Philip often gets roped into playing with Seldon, a chess-loving, nerdish schoolmate of his.
This passage expands the bounds of Philip’s world a bit more, introducing new characters who make up Philip’s Jewish neighborhood. Philip is scared of Mr. Wishnow, and he detests the needy Seldon—yet these are the people with whom Philip and his family must stand in solidarity.
Themes
Jewish Identity vs. Assimilation Theme Icon
Isolationism vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
Within a week, Philip overcomes his squeamishness and begins helping Alvin change his bandages with ease. Soon, Alvin’s stump is healed well enough that he can put on his artificial leg and walk around. After several days of practicing around the house and in the alleyway, Alvin is able to play football and run errands. Philip helps Alvin take his pants to a seamstress and have hidden zippers installed so that Alvin can more easily get his pants on and off while wearing his prosthesis—in exchange, Alvin awards Philip with the medal he received for his service in the Canadian Army. Philip loves the medal and wears it all the time. As Philip and Alvin grow closer, Philip knows that Alvin must have noticed Sandy’s removal from the family and filled in the blanks regarding Sandy’s allegiances.
Even as Philip and Alvin grow closer, and as Philip learns to extend empathy and solidarity to those he loves even in tough times, there are still divisions in the Roth family. Alvin was only gone for a short while, yet he tacitly understands the new rifts and schisms which have opened up in his absence—all, of course, due to the divisive politics to which the nation has recently been subjected.
Themes
Jewish Identity vs. Assimilation Theme Icon
Isolationism vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
Family and Home Theme Icon
Everyone is happy about Alvin’s speedy recovery—but with so much idle time on his hands, Alvin begins wandering the neighborhood and shooting craps with neighborhood youths. Bess and Herman are worried about Alvin’s future and believe he should return to school or find a job—after all, he is 22 years old. One afternoon, Philip comes home from school and finds Alvin in the cellar masturbating. Alvin doesn’t hear Philip at the top of the stairs, and Philip doesn’t know what Alvin is doing—he believes that Alvin is crying, grieving, and releasing in the form of a viscous liquid on the wall a festering embodiment of his grief.
Alvin is getting older—he’s not a child anymore, not by a long shot. He clearly craves companionship and friendship, yet he feels isolated and incapable of making smart choices for his future. This passage portends the struggles Alvin will continue to have as he rebels against the very family that has sheltered him, afraid to accept the things they try to bring into his life and instead opting for loneliness.
Themes
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Family and Home Theme Icon
Uncle Monty comes by to see Alvin one afternoon in January. Monty wastes no time drilling Alvin and urging him to tell the story of how he lost his leg—confronting the tale, Monty suggests, will help Alvin feel better. Alvin says that while stationed in Europe, he shot a German in the middle of the night while waiting for a boat that would evacuate his platoon. The German cried all night—Alvin’s shot hadn’t killed the man. Alvin at last crawled over to the man and shot him in the head, then spit in his face. German troops threw a grenade at Alvin, and the blast ruined his leg beyond saving. Philip is disappointed by the cowardice he perceives in Alvin’s story.
The story of how Alvin lost his leg is not one tinged with heroism or bravery. Alvin instead showed incompetence, pettiness, and vindictiveness as he maimed a German soldier, killed him, and then spit in his face as an act of superiority and disdain—only to get distracted and blown up in the process. Though going to war was an act of solidarity from the outside, it seems as if Alvin sought to release anger and his own personal fear and hatred while fighting abroad.
Themes
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Monty chides Alvin for his stupidity and shames him for his lack of motivation upon returning home. In spite of his disgust with Alvin, Monty offers Alvin a job at his market, claiming that he would do anything for the son of his dead brother, Jack—Alvin’s father. Before leaving, Monty reminds Alvin that the friends who saved him after he was hit by a German grenade didn’t risk their lives so he could spend his life shooting craps and lazing about. Alvin is a wreck who must now make something of himself. Alvin doesn’t react at all—he simply goes upstairs, gets in bed, and refuses to talk to anyone for the rest of the day. Philip goes down to the cellar to cry. 
Though Monty is taking a tough-love approach to trying to force Alvin out of his inertia and get him to reclaim control of his life, the spectacle is hard for the sensitive young Philip to watch. What has happened to Alvin is terrible from every perspective—and witnessing Alvin’s profound isolation, his paltry reward for his pursuit of doing the right thing, has made Philip feel hopeless.
Themes
Isolationism vs. Solidarity Theme Icon
Family and Home Theme Icon