Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

180
Philip Roth
of one conversation in a public bathroom, and Sabbath’s infraction
against the taboo governing professor/student relationships becomes
known. Having thus failed to control the secret (and Kathy), Sabbath
is judged a second time, and again he loses his job, revisiting the court
room scene that effectively shut down his Indecent Theater.
In both cases, the offense he is accused of is not one committed
against an individual (the student whose blouse he unbuttoned in
Manhattan; Kathy Goolsbee in the small college), as neither one is
particularly put out by the experience. At stake is the breaking of the
taboo and therefore a matter of principle: one does not take sexual
advantage of (young, female) students. Sabbath’s point, however, is to
overstep the boundaries and to draw others across the line with him.
Both these women are game, to a degree, but they cannot prevent
Sabbath’s punishment by society (the judge, the college administration).
They remain shadow figures in the novel, hardly developing their
own voice: most of Kathy’s voice is reduced to her responses in a footnote,
always prompted by Sabbath (215–35); Helen Trumbull is only
brought to us second-hand, in a retelling of the event by Sabbath and
Norman (312–20). Their voices are appropriated by others: Kathy’s by
the “Women Against Sexual Abuse, Belittlement, Battering, and Telephone
Harassment” committee that makes the tape public; Helen’s
name is temporarily erased because at first Sabbath cannot remember
it (312), then refers to her as Debby, Norman’s daughter (321). These
undeveloped, quasi-silenced female characters are out-performed by
Drenka, a willing participant in Sabbath’s performances who begins
to stage her own taboo-breaking events.
Drenka is an exception among the novel’s female characters as
she develops her own identity rather than simply being coaxed into
one by Sabbath (Kelleter 176). She easily takes up Sabbath’s challenge
to break taboos and entice others to do the same. Liberated from an
unsatisfying marriage, she happily meets Sabbath for trysts, claiming
“I couldn’t carry out my responsibilities without you” (19). But she
does not stop here: After Sabbath arranges for a threesome with
Christa, a woman he first picks up hitchhiking, Drenka not only willingly
complies but develops her own relationship with Christa, which
quickly slips beyond Sabbath’s control: at their first sexual encounter,
Sabbath is reduced to looking on “like a medical student observing his
first surgical procedure” (63). But further encounters (some kept secret
from him) between Drenka and Christa leave him out completely,