The Plot Against America

by

Philip Roth

Sanford “Sandy” Roth Character Analysis

Philip’s older brother and Herman and Bess’s son Sandy is a talented artist whose intense desire to please others and prove himself leads him down a dangerous path. Sandy harbors a secret love of Lindbergh, even as Lindbergh’s anti-Semitic beliefs and isolationist, antiwar rhetoric sends shockwaves through Sandy’s community when Lindbergh is elected president in the fall of 1940. Sandy covets an idyllic American life and longs to separate himself from his Jewish identity. He becomes deeply involved in the Office of American Absorption (OAA), taking Aunt Evelyn’s employment there are a sign that the office’s programs are safe and innocent. When Sandy participates in the OAA’s Just Folks program and spends a summer on a farm in Kentucky, he returns extolling the virtues of rural life and speaking with a country accent. Sandy begins referring to his family as “you people,” seeking to separate his own identity from theirs. Sandy’s involvement with the OAA rachets up as Bengelsdorf, seeking “revenge” on Herman for Herman’s excoriation of the rabbi’s isolationist, America First beliefs, appoints Sandy to work as a recruiter for Just Folks. Sandy’s continual betrayal of his family frustrates and indeed frightens Bess and Herman, who are already struggling with the painful realities of raising a Jewish family in a world that is growing increasingly hostile toward Jews no matter how much they profess their allegiance to their homeland or to Gentile values. Sandy’s struggle is profound and intense, and by the end of the novel, Sandy has more or less abandoned his fealty to Lindbergh and the OAA—yet he still has trouble understanding what his Jewish identity means in the context of the Jewish people’s long and painful history.

Sanford “Sandy” Roth Quotes in The Plot Against America

The The Plot Against America quotes below are all either spoken by Sanford “Sandy” Roth or refer to Sanford “Sandy” Roth. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Jewish Identity vs. Assimilation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

“Alvin’s going to go to Canada and join the Canadian army,” he said. “He’s going to fight for the British against Hitler.”

“But nobody can beat Roosevelt,” I said.

“Lindbergh’s going to. America’s going to go fascist.”

Then we just stood there together under the intimidating spell of the three portraits [of Lindbergh.]

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth (speaker), Alvin Roth, Charles Lindbergh, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Adolf Hitler
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:

It was when I looked next at the album’s facing page to see what, if anything, had happened to my 1934 National Parks set of ten that I fell out of the bed and woke up on the floor, this time screaming. […] Across the face of each, […] across everything in America that was the bluest and the greenest and the whitest and to be preserved forever in these pristine reservations, was printed a black swastika.

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth
Related Symbols: Philip’s Stamps
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

We had driven right to the very heart of American history, and whether we knew it in so many words, it was American history, delineated in its most inspirational form, that we were counting on to protect us against Lindbergh.

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Herman Roth, Bess Roth, Sanford “Sandy” Roth, Charles Lindbergh
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

My brother had discovered in himself the uncommon gift to be somebody, and so while making speeches praising President Lindbergh and while exhibiting his drawings of him and while publicly extolling (in words written by Aunt Evelyn) the enriching benefits of his eight weeks as a Jewish farm hand in the Gentile heartland—while doing, if the truth be known, what I wouldn’t have minded doing myself, by doing what was normal and patriotic all over America and aberrant and freakish only in his home—Sandy was having the time of his life.

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth, Aunt Evelyn, Charles Lindbergh
Page Number: 184
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“And who will I talk to?” she asked. “Who will I have there like the friends I’ve had my whole life?”

“There are women there, too.”

“Gentile women,” she said. […] “Good Christian women,” she said,” who will fall all over themselves to make me feel at home. They have no right to do this!” she proclaimed. […] “this is illegal. You cannot just take Jews because they’re Jews and force them to live where you want them to.”

Related Characters: Herman Roth (speaker), Bess Roth (speaker), Philip Roth, Sanford “Sandy” Roth
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:

“I lived in Kentucky! Kentucky is one of the forty-eight states! Human beings live there like they do everywhere else! It is not a concentration camp! This guy makes millions selling his shitty hand lotion—and you people believe him!”

“I already told you about the dirty words, and now I’m telling you about this ‘you people’ business. ‘You people’ one more time, son, and I am going to ask you to leave the house.”

Related Characters: Herman Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth (speaker), Philip Roth, Bess Roth, Walter Winchell
Page Number: 230
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

This was how Seldon came to live with us. After their safe return to Newark from Kentucky, Sandy moved into the sun parlor and Seldon took over where Alvin and Aunt Evelyn had left off—as the person in the twin bed next to mine shattered by the malicious indignities of Lindbergh’s America. There was no stump for me to care for this time. The boy himself was the stump, and until he was taken to live with his mother’s married sister in Brooklyn ten months later, I was the prosthesis.

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth, Alvin Roth, Aunt Evelyn, Charles Lindbergh, Seldon Wishnow, Mrs. Wishnow
Related Symbols: Alvin’s Prosthesis
Page Number: 361-362
Explanation and Analysis:
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Sanford “Sandy” Roth Quotes in The Plot Against America

The The Plot Against America quotes below are all either spoken by Sanford “Sandy” Roth or refer to Sanford “Sandy” Roth. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Jewish Identity vs. Assimilation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

“Alvin’s going to go to Canada and join the Canadian army,” he said. “He’s going to fight for the British against Hitler.”

“But nobody can beat Roosevelt,” I said.

“Lindbergh’s going to. America’s going to go fascist.”

Then we just stood there together under the intimidating spell of the three portraits [of Lindbergh.]

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth (speaker), Alvin Roth, Charles Lindbergh, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Adolf Hitler
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:

It was when I looked next at the album’s facing page to see what, if anything, had happened to my 1934 National Parks set of ten that I fell out of the bed and woke up on the floor, this time screaming. […] Across the face of each, […] across everything in America that was the bluest and the greenest and the whitest and to be preserved forever in these pristine reservations, was printed a black swastika.

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth
Related Symbols: Philip’s Stamps
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

We had driven right to the very heart of American history, and whether we knew it in so many words, it was American history, delineated in its most inspirational form, that we were counting on to protect us against Lindbergh.

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Herman Roth, Bess Roth, Sanford “Sandy” Roth, Charles Lindbergh
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

My brother had discovered in himself the uncommon gift to be somebody, and so while making speeches praising President Lindbergh and while exhibiting his drawings of him and while publicly extolling (in words written by Aunt Evelyn) the enriching benefits of his eight weeks as a Jewish farm hand in the Gentile heartland—while doing, if the truth be known, what I wouldn’t have minded doing myself, by doing what was normal and patriotic all over America and aberrant and freakish only in his home—Sandy was having the time of his life.

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth, Aunt Evelyn, Charles Lindbergh
Page Number: 184
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

“And who will I talk to?” she asked. “Who will I have there like the friends I’ve had my whole life?”

“There are women there, too.”

“Gentile women,” she said. […] “Good Christian women,” she said,” who will fall all over themselves to make me feel at home. They have no right to do this!” she proclaimed. […] “this is illegal. You cannot just take Jews because they’re Jews and force them to live where you want them to.”

Related Characters: Herman Roth (speaker), Bess Roth (speaker), Philip Roth, Sanford “Sandy” Roth
Page Number: 208
Explanation and Analysis:

“I lived in Kentucky! Kentucky is one of the forty-eight states! Human beings live there like they do everywhere else! It is not a concentration camp! This guy makes millions selling his shitty hand lotion—and you people believe him!”

“I already told you about the dirty words, and now I’m telling you about this ‘you people’ business. ‘You people’ one more time, son, and I am going to ask you to leave the house.”

Related Characters: Herman Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth (speaker), Philip Roth, Bess Roth, Walter Winchell
Page Number: 230
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

This was how Seldon came to live with us. After their safe return to Newark from Kentucky, Sandy moved into the sun parlor and Seldon took over where Alvin and Aunt Evelyn had left off—as the person in the twin bed next to mine shattered by the malicious indignities of Lindbergh’s America. There was no stump for me to care for this time. The boy himself was the stump, and until he was taken to live with his mother’s married sister in Brooklyn ten months later, I was the prosthesis.

Related Characters: Philip Roth (speaker), Sanford “Sandy” Roth, Alvin Roth, Aunt Evelyn, Charles Lindbergh, Seldon Wishnow, Mrs. Wishnow
Related Symbols: Alvin’s Prosthesis
Page Number: 361-362
Explanation and Analysis: