Philip Roth Studies

The longest and bloodiest war in Portnoy’s Complaint, that between mother and son, finds its most contentiously fought front at the dinner table with Alex attempting to free himself from the control of his mother and her religion by secularizing and sexualizing food. He fights in vain, however, as a self-definition marked only by rebellion is never wholly differentiated from that which it opposes, and consequently, Alex never develops a psychologically and emotionally healthy diet.