SOURCE: Duban, James. “Being Jewish in the Twentieth Century: The Synchronicity of Roth and Hawthorne.” Studies in American Jewish Literature 21 (2002): 1-11.

In the following essay, Duban explores connections between Roth's story “Eli, the Fanatic” and Nathaniel Hawthorne's “The Minister's Black Veil.”

To be a Jew in the twentieth century Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse, Wishing to be invisible, you choose Death of the spirit, the stone insanity. Accepting, take full life. Full agonies: Your evening deep in labyrinthine blood Of those who resist, fail, and resist; and God 

Reduced to a hostage among hostages. The gift is torment. Not alone the still Torture, isolation; or torture of the flesh. That may come also. But the accepting wish, The whole and fertile spirit as guarantee For every human freedom, suffering to be free, Daring to live for the impossible. 

—Muriel Rukeyser¹

In Philip Roth's The...