“Lashed to the Mast of That Recollection”: Philip Roth’s Nemesis, Polio, and Post-Traumatic Memory

ABSTRACT:This essay explores the significance of polio in Roth’s Nemesis (2010), arguing that an understanding of the nature of the disease, on the one hand, and its use as a metaphor for the Holocaust and Holocaust memory on the other hand, sheds fresh light on Roth’s achievement. Approaching Nemesis by foregrounding polio and Holocaust memory serves to rehabilitate the novel’s protagonist, Bucky Cantor, who, in contrast to the novel’s narrator, Arnie Mesnikoff, has received considerable criticism for his failure to live a productive life after contracting the disease. Viewed through the lenses of polio, the Holocaust, and traumatic memory, both Bucky as a character and the novel itself can be read in a more positive light that serves to reconcile the divergent positions occupied by narrator and protagonist. By considering the ways that the novel represents Bucky’s reaction to the traumatic effects of polio as a disease, we can better understand the ways trauma informs other traumatic legacies such as anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.