The Breast

1972 novella by Philip Roth

For other uses, see Breast (disambiguation).

The Breast

First edition cover

Author| Philip Roth
Language| English
Genre| Novella
Publisher| Houghton Mifflin

Publication date

| 1972
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print (hardcover)
Pages| 113
ISBN| 0-03-003716-6
OCLC| 482720

Dewey Decimal

| 813/.5/4
LC Class| PZ4.R8454 Br PS3568.O855
Followed by| The Professor of Desire

The Breast (1972) is a novella by Philip Roth, in which the protagonist, David Kepesh, becomes a 155-pound breast.[1][2] Throughout the book Kepesh fights with himself. Part of him wishes to give in to bodily desires, while the other part of him wants to be rational. Kepesh, a literature professor, compares his plight with that of fictional characters such as Gregor Samsa in Kafka's short story The Metamorphosis and Kovalyov in Nikolai Gogol's short story "The Nose". Throughout the novel, he describes the various sexual and physical feelings he has while people handle him, while initiating sex with his girlfriend, and while he is alone.

During a stay on the beach with his girlfriend, Claire, Kepesh had wished to have breasts, to be a breast, and he struggles with the idea that apparently this wish was fulfilled while other more important wishes were not.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "The Breast". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
2. ^ Shostak, Debra (1999). "Return to The Breast: The Body, the Masculine Subject, and Philip Roth". Twentieth Century Literature. 45 (3): 317–335. doi:10.2307/441922. ISSN 0041-462X.

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Works by Philip Roth

Fiction|

* Goodbye, Columbus (1959)
* Letting Go (1962)
* When She Was Good (1967)
* Portnoy's Complaint (1969)
* Our Gang (1971)
* The Great American Novel (1973)
* My Life as a Man (1974)
* Sabbath's Theater (1995)

Kepesh novels|

* The Breast (1972)
* The Professor of Desire (1977)
* The Dying Animal (2001)

Roth books|

* The Facts (1988)
* Deception (1990)
* Patrimony (1991)
* Operation Shylock (1993)
* The Plot Against America (2004)

Zuckerman novels|

* Zuckerman Bound
* The Ghost Writer (1979)
* Zuckerman Unbound (1981)
* The Anatomy Lesson (1983)
* The Prague Orgy (1985)
* The Counterlife (1986)
* American Pastoral (1997)
* I Married a Communist (1998)
* The Human Stain (2000)
* Exit Ghost (2007)

Nemeses: Short Novels|

* Everyman (2006)
* Indignation (2008)
* The Humbling (2009)
* Nemesis (2010)

Collections|

* Reading Myself and Others (1976)
* A Philip Roth Reader (1980, revised edition 1993)
* Shop Talk (2001)
* Library of America collection (2005–17)

Film/TV adaptations|

* Goodbye, Columbus (1969)
* Portnoy's Complaint (1972)
* The Human Stain (2003)
* Elegy (2008)
* The Humbling (2014)
* Indignation (2016)
* American Pastoral (2016)
* The Plot Against America (2020)
* Deception (2021)

Related|

Philip Roth: The Biography

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