Abraham Maslow’s Notion of Self-Actualization in Philip Roth’s American Pastoral

This article makes the argument more specifically on the humanistic psychology; a vibrant movement of the late 1950s; emphasizing the qualities, growth, need, creativity, and motivation of an individual. Philip Roth’s American Pastoral was an American classic, a novel of American culture. It is not only a biography, but an intensive interpretation of the fall of American dream. The author demonstrates the American Pastoral from the humanistic point of view. This paper attempts to analyse the humanistic attitudes and values in the novel American Pastoral. The process from the basic to the being needs in the novel is being critically expressed within the framework of the humanistic psychology.


Introduction
Kurt Goldstein introduced the term 'self-actualization', but Abraham H. Maslow explored and popularized it as a concept of self-development.Maslow added how actualization can emerge as a motivator to actualize the full potential of oneself.Philip Roth's American Pastoral illustrates this aspect.

Philip Roth's American Pastoral as Everyman's Tragedy
The novel American Pastoral can be considered as a tragedy and Roth has explicitly evoked the tragic elements in the novel by representing the story of Seymour Irving Levov.Swede is initially being portrayed as having a famous and very stunning wife."During the week in September 1949 leading up to the Miss America Pageant, when she called Newark every night from the Dennis Hotel …, what radiated from herself was sheer delight in being herself" (Roth 5.7).Swede was having a lovely home and running his family business like a charm.Swede is unprepared to witness things going wrong.This person is not prepared for the worst-case scenario of life.
It was published in 1997 was a critical analysis of the demise of American dream.The loss of meaning in life, innocence, and success echoes throughout the novel.American Pastoral is in a sense, the tragic story of a brilliant man.Another narrative involves the tragedy that everyone experiences when life takes unexpected turns."The tragedy of the man not set up for tragedy -that is every man's tragedy" (Roth 94).Nathan Zuckerman is an alter-ego writes the story of his childhood idol Seymour Levov who was a talented and a very famous athlete.Seymour's fate drastically made a shift from the very fascinating aura of success to an aura of sorrow and failure.In Nathan's memories of his time at Weequahic High School in Newark, New Jersey, Seymour Levov, sometimes known as "the Swede" comes to the mind.Zuckerman and Jerry Levov the swede's younger brother were buddies in the high school.The swede had been a star athlete in the basketball and football.He had been Mary plants a bomb in the town's post office in 1968 when she is a teenager, killing a man in theprocess.
Merry is angry with the world and finds her focus in being angry about the war.She runs away and her father searches for her desperately for years until finding her in Newark living in poverty.That's just the beginning of the Swede's life's downward spiral.Merry's life has been miserable ever since the bombing, marked by poverty, two rapes, residing in several communes and having passionate relationships with women.She even planted two more bombs which resulted in two more fatalities.Sheila Salzman, her speech therapist was the first person to hide her as revealed by Merry herself.The Swede finds it hard to accept that Merry's life has come to this.Her stench repulses him, and he vomits.She resists his requests to return home with him, so he abandons her in Newark.The Swede then tells his brother Jerry over the phone about seeing Merry.Jerry rants at the Swede telling him the entire situation was his, rather than consoling him.
Literature reflects life and life always takes place in the mental arena.The younger sibling of literaturepsychology is focused on the human mind as well as human behavior, emotions, dreams, and desires.The Behavioral movement emerge in society during the 20 th century with an idea that understanding human behavior is important for analyzing social and political realities.The power of psychology is increasing every day.Understanding human ability and appreciating its fundamental values are now crucial for achieving greater results in any sector.
In response to the Psychoanalysis and Behaviorism-Humanistic psychology evolved as the third force.Not as a system, but as a movement that began to take shape in the early 1960s.Humanistic psychology is a movement that has brought together psychologists from many specialties.It was created in response to the first two factors and focused on both the individual's capacity for development as well as his subjective experiences.Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, the two founders of Humanistic psychology, downplayed the significance of the unconscious mind and the environmental stimuli.The humanists placed emphasis on conscious, logical, freewill creativity and choice of an individual.
Not all humanists share the same opinions.It is a system made up of academics and scholars from many disciplines who identify as humanists.This system was put into place in 1962 when Abraham Maslow who is generally regarded as the founder of Humanistic psychology, and his adherents gave it that name.Humanists thought about examining a person.All actions and behaviors were examined while considering a person's entire life history.Humanistic psychology views the individual as a complete organism and interprets a person's conduct by looking at their full life trajectory.The first two forces of psychology gave rise to the Humanistic system.Behaviorism, according to humanists, ignores the entirety of human being and all its processes.Maslow claimed that behaviorism viewed people as organisms that respond to environmental stimuli.In addition to behaviorism, psychoanalysis was also opposed by humanism since it places a man inside Although emphasizing on an individual's inherent potential, humanists also stressed the value of development and the need to achieve self-actualization.Maslow contends that the person has inherent goodness and is deserving of realizing their potential.He continued by saying that human beings' divergence from this natural propensity is the cause of all problems, social or mental.Humanistic psychology looked at the whole individual.Because the personality is investigated as an individual's subjective experience, the term phenomenology resonates with the Humanistic method.This theory takes the holistic view of human existence and places a strong focus on concepts like human potential, spirituality, individual accountability, and selfactualization.

Needs And Self-Actualization in American Pastoral
There are five different levels of need arranged in a hierarchical system by Abraham Maslow.
There are two levels of needs -the higher and the lower order needs.The idea behind the Maslow's Humanistic theory is that the higher order needs become the motivating factors for an individual once he satisfies the lower order needs.The five different needs in the hierarchy are: 1. Physiological needs 2. Safety needs 3. Love and belongingness needs 4. Esteem needs 5. Self-actualization needs.
Philip Roth, an American novelist, has written several short stories, essays, and novellas.He is one of the most prolific American writers.He was awarded with several prestigious awards for his immense contribution in the field of American literature.Roth's character in the novel American Pastoral is not static.His character represents the process of development.His character represents his amazing journey of life.The ripeness of life has been attained by Seymour at the very end of his life.The growth towards maturity has been clearly observed in the character of Seymour Irving Levov.His character symbolizes a responsible youth.Surroundings play a pivotal role in shaping his character.Some sort of harmony exists between his character and surroundings.
The novel American Pastoral traces and exciting progression of Seymour from a child to a teenager and then to an adult.The relationship he had with other people from an important role in his life.The important part of Seymour's life has critically been explored and explained.He is a kind of a person who is ready to accept challenges in life.With positivity and optimism, Seymour Irving Levov embarked on a new journey with great hopes and aspirations.One can trace the impact of environment on Seymour.
Maslow and Rogers, the two great pioneers of Humanistic Psychology put great emphasis on the importance of a fully functioning being.To become the best version of oneself is the aim of everyone and such version is termed as self-actualization.This version is the highest order a person can reach up to.An individual can achieve physical, emotional, material, or spiritual potential in his life depending upon the path and individual chooses in his life.One individual is different from the other one and so is his experiences, dreams, and aspirations.Although the experiences are unique in nature but the underlying mechanisms in individuals remain same-the process to achieve self-actualization.
Maslow in his theory of Hierarchy of needs portrayed the concept of self-actualization.
He discussed a hierarchical level of needs to be achieved before reaching the optimal state.The different levels in the hierarchy indicate the stages of fulfillment in an individual that led him to seek higher order needs in life.To become psychologically and physically healthy, an individual needs to reach the optimal state in the hierarchy-self-actualization.According to humanists, the desire or the inquisitiveness in an individual to attain self-actualization is innate and can never die.Every person in the universe is walking on the path of learning and attaining the self-actualization but it is their level of growth that varies.condition and forced her to move with him, but she denies.Seymour broke all his bonds and connections with his daughter and came back home.He tried hard to again get back to the path of learning, development and achieving self-actualization.He wanted to foster the mental peace and security back in his life, but he was internally so broken-which makes this process of achieving self-actualization more tedious.
In the novel, Seymour Irving Levov can be seen as possessing several characteristics.He is represented by Nathan as a kind of man who has a clarity of thoughts and strong preferences in life."…to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming" (Maslow 46).He can make judgements, viewpoints and always staying conscious of the thoughts.His life was filled with love, warmth, care and affection.Nature, learning, and surroundings played a pivotal role in his life." The good or healthy society would then be defined as one that permitted people's highest purposes to emerge by satisfying all their basic needs" (Maslow 58).All these parameters lead him to have a healthy psychological functioning.If the situation has continued in the same way until his last stages, Seymour might have developed into a complete self-actualized being.The support he had act as a building block of his personality, but certain events of his daughter shattered his life which marks an end of a self-actualized being.If the circumstances remain the same, he would have been a different personality, he would have been an idol two different people.The bombing session of his daughter and later her miserable condition broke a strong man into several parts which makes him unable to get back to his usual lifestyle.

Conclusion
The life and the different stages of Seymour's life illustrates Maslow's theory of 'hierarchy of needs' (Maslow 2017).Different events made him a different personality.He walked in the direction of ultimate fulfillment.He had experienced all strong emotions from happiness to sorrow, from having friends and family to no one.Initially, he becomes a self-actualized being but later with the downfall he became dull and weak.He may not have reached his maximum potential after her daughter's bombing session, but he managed to be the best at every stage of his life.
Abraham Maslow's Notion of Self-Actualization in Philip Roth's American Pastoral He was being admired by his Jewish residents of New York as well as his fellow pupils."Of the few faircomplexioned Jewish students in our predominantly Jewish public high school none possessed anything remotely like the steep-jawed, insentient Viking mask of this blue-eyed blond" (Roth 1).After completing high school, college, and a military service, he married Dawn Dyer, Miss New Jersey, -1094 -Available online at: https://jazindia.com a tall boy and having blonde hair.disbelief.Even more shocking to him is the revelation that Merry, the Swede's daughter blew up the Old Rimrock post office in 1968 to oppose the Vietnam War.Merry fled to live as a fugitive underground after the bomb killed a man.Jerry informs Zuckerman that the Swede's life was completely shattered because of that bomb."The loneliness he would feel as a man without all his American feelings" (Roth 53).
instincts and conflicts.Maslow stressed that psychoanalysis does not consider mentally fit persons and exclusively investigates abnormality in living beings.He brought Humanistic force to the forefront to bring out creativity, personality, and desires of an individual.
Abraham Maslow's Notion of Self-Actualization in Philip Roth's American Pastoral -1095 -Available online at: https://jazindia.com the realm of