Negotiating the Existential “Other”: A re-examination of Female subjectivity in Roth’s “In Trouble”

“In Trouble” excerpted from Philip Roth's novel When She was Good shows the plight of women in the family crisis and their struggle to transcend themselves. This essay will use Beauvoir's "the Other" to interpret the subjectivity of the heroines Lucy and Myra in the novel. “The Other” has the characteristics of immanence, alterity, absoluteness and alienation. The writer will elaborate on the mapping of the "the Other" in the characters of the novel from the following two aspects: (1)The construction of the female identity of the Other in the family, (2) Objectification of women’s reproductive rights. To a certain degree, analyzing this novel from the perspective of feminism can provide a new way to explore Philip Roth's stereotype of "misogyny".