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When Myth Invents the World: Imagined and Deconstructed Nations in Günter Grass’ Ein weites Feld and Philip Roth’s American Pastoral

As a result of the paradigm shift from the ontology era to the deconstruction era, the concept of national identity in humanities is today conceived not as a real entity, but rather as a social construction, imagined by people through national myths. National myths can be defined as ideal and/or ideological narrations, producing a peaceful image of the national community that does not correspond to socio-historical reality. Through Francesco Orlando’s Freudian theoretical framework, the article tackles this problem in relation to its literary representation in Grass’ Ein weites Feld (1995) andPhilip Roth’s American Pastoral (1997), showing different degrees of the deconstruction of nations in the literary field.

10.13125/2039-6597/3748