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Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)
Seldon is a young boy Philip’s age who lives in the apartment downstairs from the Roth family in their multi-family house in Newark. Seldon is an awkward, nerdish boy who loves playing chess and who adores and admires Philip—much to Philip’s chagrin. Philip finds Seldon so odious that he actually asks his Aunt Evelyn to move Seldon and his widowed mother to Kentucky as part of the Homestead 42 program instead of their own family—though he is horrified when he finds that his request comes to pass. Seldon and his mother live in the rural Danville, Kentucky for only a short while before anti-Semitic riots break out across the Midwest. Mrs. Wishnow is killed, Seldon is orphaned, and it is up to the Roths to collect him from the middle of nowhere and take him in to live with them back in Newark. Seldon is an important figure in the novel because he forces Philip to examine his worst impulses. Philip steals from Seldon, treats playing with him like a chore, and rebuffs him at every chance he gets—yet because of Philip’s own actions to try and push Seldon away, Seldon winds up sharing a room with Philip for nearly a year, during which time Philip finds himself caring intimately for his bereaved schoolmate. The neurotic, talkative Seldon provides much of the novel’s comic relief in spite of his status as a tragic figure.
Seldon Wishnow Quotes in The Plot Against America
The The Plot Against America quotes below are all either spoken by Seldon Wishnow or refer to Seldon Wishnow. 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:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
My father was a rescuer and orphans were his specialty. A displacement even greater than having to move to Union or to leave for Kentucky was to lose one’s parents and be orphaned. Witness, he would tell you, what had happened to Alvin. Witness what had happened to his sister-in-law after Grandma had died. No one should be motherless and fatherless. Motherless and fatherless you are vulnerable to manipulation, to influences—you are rootless and you are vulnerable to everything.
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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.
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Seldon Wishnow Quotes in The Plot Against America
The The Plot Against America quotes below are all either spoken by Seldon Wishnow or refer to Seldon Wishnow. 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:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
My father was a rescuer and orphans were his specialty. A displacement even greater than having to move to Union or to leave for Kentucky was to lose one’s parents and be orphaned. Witness, he would tell you, what had happened to Alvin. Witness what had happened to his sister-in-law after Grandma had died. No one should be motherless and fatherless. Motherless and fatherless you are vulnerable to manipulation, to influences—you are rootless and you are vulnerable to everything.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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.
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