Philip Roth’s “Defender of the Faith” takes place at a “new front” during the last months of World War II (161). Focus on a “fight” in the story and show how characters acquit themselves on that “field of battle” (166). What is the struggle about? What weapons are used? What is the outcome?
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Roundtable Conversation 
Defender of Faith; or, War without Arms
Sometimes the meaning or act of war is not only confined to the violence and use of weapons in the battle front, but it can mean the clashing of beliefs or personal intersts.
Since Nathan Marx’s very first encounter with Sheldon Grossbart (page 163) we see that Grossbart has a way to twist around words and meanings to get what he wants; and that has become his main weapon.
Marx claims that was had hardened his heart and deprived him of feeling, but when he called out Grossbart for being against cleaning the barracks on Friday nights, he felt startled of himself. “My tone startled me. I felt I sounded like every top sergeant I had ever known.” Thus, Marx’s suit of armour seem to not be strong enough, causing him to lose in this first war with Grossbart.
On the other front of war, Grossbart uses sympathy, and the reference to mutual religion that Marx and Grossbart shares.
“We thought that with you here things might be a little different” (163) Grossbart said, in hope to ask for sympathy from Marx who shares the same religion. Furthermore, he points out that Marx shares the same name with Karl Marx, the defender of social equality.
Syta Seth.
Lie, the Powerful Weapon
There are series of battles taking place in Philip Roth’s “Defender of the Faith” without ordinary arms. Sheldon Grossbart fights against his enemy, Sergeant Nathan Marx, for getting weekend pass. Grossbart attacks his opponent first by using a made-up “whole Passover dinner” (187) invitation from his relatives to get his pass. Suddenly, Marx fights back by using the rule “No passes during basic,” (187) and his authority as his weapons. The next Grossbart’s weapon is to ask the Sergeant for mercy, “I’ve been eating trafe till I want to die,” (187). This weapon is not so powerful to the Sergeant, he uses the Grossbart’s latest letter to the congressman as his armor, “I thought you’d made up your mind to live with it,” (187). The sergeant seems to prevail over Grossbart, but Grossbart decides to use his ultimate weapon, Jewish-ness, to win in this battle. “Ashamed, that’s what you are,” (188) is Grossbart’s attack but, suddenly, the fact that “Passover had been celebrated weeks before,” (188) makes the sergeant perceive that what Grossbart said was a lie. Grossbart does not give up. He makes an excuse by saying, “[his] aunt’s willing to go out of her way—to make a Seder a month later,” (188). His weapons and his stubbornness make him to be a winner. The result of the battle is that the sergeant loses and Grossbart get a pass.
Work Cited
Roth, Philip. “Defender of the Faith.” Columbus and Five Short Stories. New York: Modern
Library, 1995. 161-200. Print.
In “Defender of the Faith,” we may observe a battle of interests between Marx, who prioritises resoluteness and order, and Grossbart, who manipulates to get whatever he desires. Marx is equipped with his ‘hardened’ heart—a wartime effect that, as he believes, leaves him cold and unfeeling; whereas Grossbart wields a lethal weapon that is speech, with sly and calculated delivery. When determined to acquire information, Grossbart is shown to be manipulative, as evident in the scene where he asks Marx if ‘there’s a chance of any of [the privates] going East.’ Marx, mistaking ‘East’ for Germany, says ‘Maybe.’ Grossbart then corrects himself, specifying that by ‘East,’ he means to say ‘New York,’ Marx, probably in the spur of the moment, says ‘[he] don’t think so,’ which, in itself, is a sort of revelation—Grossbart’s primary goal. In other scenes, for instance, Grossbart refers to his ‘relatives in St Louis,’ and the Jewish tradition of having ‘gefilte fish,’ for Seder in order to gain compassion from Marx, whose resoluteness wavers rather easily. Consequently, Grossbart gets whatever he wants every time, thus winning the very battle of interests, until Marx runs out of patience and avenges on him out of pure vengeance by the end of the story.
Philip Roth’s “Defender of the Faith” has features many confrontations in the story where Nathan fights against Grossbart, an antagonist of the story. The example of battle in the story which can be conspicuously observed is the fight for weekend passes. Gtossbart is coaxing Nathan to give weekend passes not only for him, but also his two friends, Halpern and Mickey, as well. Grossbart uses three weapons to fight Nathan, the first of which is Seder, the holy meal for Jews. Grossbart acts as a “defender of the faith” who puts respect to his religious belief, which prompts him to strictly follow the tradition. After the first attempt fails, Grossbart uses tears as a second weapon, because it may make Nathan sympathize him. In a way, tears may shake Nathan’s heart so as to let him give weekend passes. The last weapon Grossbart uses is accusation. He accuses Nathan of being heartless, not giving empathy to the condition of Grossbart’s life. He says as to create pathos to convince Nathan to finally gives weekend passes. While Grossbart is fighting with his best, Nathan also fights back to resist the force of Grossbart as well by using regulations. Using rules to fight means Nathan is a “defender of the faith” of his own duty not to break the rule and stick with it, thereby not going to grant or do whatever against the regulations. The result is that Grossbart has an influence over Nathan, thereby winning for weekend passes. Nathan loses his “faith” in the end.
From “Defender of the Faith”, there’s a little battle scene takes place in a conversation between Marx and Grossbart, the ‘sir’ business. From the beginning, Grossbart usually calls Marx sir instead of sergeant. It’s not just an identity misunderstanding, but the repetition reveals that Grossbart do this on purpose by using language as a weapon. He might be willing to raise the identity issue towards Marx so that he will be self-realized and take Grossbart side supporting the Jewish personnel. The fact that Marx are also Jewish seems to be appealing and hopeful for Grossbart and his Jewish friends that some regulations could be changed due to religious practices. The possibilities that Grossbart uses the word ‘sir’ might be that he wants to befriend or include Marx in his group. It doesn’t seem to work out well at first since Marx corrects it most of the time, but Grossbart doesn’t call it a quit. And his choice of word also depicts his attitude, from the story when he wants to stir up the situation he would use ‘sir’, but sometimes he prefer to call Marx correctly as ‘sergeant’ in a plea as mentioned in “Sergeant, for two months, practically, I’ve been eating trafe till I want to die”. From his fickle word preference kind of shows that he’s willing to do whatever that will benefit himself or his gang regardless of Marx’s consent. Moreover, it’s not only Grossbart who make use of the language, but also Marx. After having to explain and make the word right, there’s a point when Marx himself tells Grossbart to call him ‘sir’ when he decided to sign him a pass. The word ‘sir’ in this context is used to portray Marx feelings, it sound a bit sarcastic, anyway, it gives sense of acceptance of Grossbart too. And it also reflects the end of the battle.
Nathan Marx’s personal war: Mind against heart
In Philip Roth’s “Defender of the Faith”, there are many wars going on at the same time. But one of the most interesting battles in the story is how Nathan Marx, as a main character, fights against himself. The struggle is about him finding the right balance between his sergeant identity and his civilian one. No matter how many times he tries to convince readers that he’s got “an infantryman’s heart”, he still shows tenderness and emotions just like other ordinary human beings. To remain as a top soldier figure, Nathan Marx’s mind confronts with his heart and reasons are used as weapons, but the result is that his heart wins.
The fight between Marx’s mind and heart is presented throughout the story. At first, he claims that he has a hardened heart after joining World War II. And if someone wants to reach for his tenderness, “It had to reach so very far to touch me! It had to reach past those days…” (170). His mind is convincing himself all the time that he is a strong sergeant. However, the enemy of his mind is his heart and emotions which prevent him from conducting any cruel actions. In many scenes, Marx’s heart manages to win. The very clear example is the scene when Grossbart asks Marx for a weekend pass. He begs for Marx to give him a chance to come back home for Passover dinner. At first, Marx’s mind provides some reasons as weapons to fight against his want to let Grossbart go. For instance, he recalls the rule they’re going to break by saying “No passes during basic” (187). He’s clever enough to know that Grossbart is using him to gain benefits for himself because he says that “What are you after? You want me to give you special privileges…to give you a weekend pass” (188). Apparently, he doesn’t want to be unfair to other soldiers and give Grossbart privileges again. Yet when Grossbart says that “Stop closing your heart to your own!” and then carries a bag, ready to find a way out of the barrack, the sergeant’s heart orders him to stop Grossbart and finally signs him a pass. His mind and reasons he gives can’t overcome the power of his own kindness and sympathy.
This is made clearer by the end of the story. Although Marx shouldn’t interfere with any of soldier’s fate, but he manages to change the location that Grossbart will be sent to. There isn’t even a single moment that he thinks of being fair to other soldiers by correcting Grossbart’s order. Instead, he admits that he resists “an impulse to turn and seek pardon for my vindictiveness” (200), meaning that what he does is more like getting revenge than acting as a decent sergeant. His mind is defeated by his heart filled with anger and need for a revenge. Obviously, no matter how much he wants to believe that he has a hard heart, he still feels a lot of emotions and surrenders to what his own heart wants.
One of the battles in “Defender of the Faith” is the incident when Sheldon Grossbart tries to get a weekend pass from Nathan Marx who refuses to grant it because he believes it is not right, so the argument then starts. In the “fight”, many weapons are used by Grossbart to achieve the desired result and at the end, Marx loses to him and Grossbart gets what he aims for. Unlike the battles in the war which are mostly physical, this battle between Grossbart and Marx are fought verbally and mentally, with Grossbart being the one who initiates the fight and carry out more attacks while Marx is more passive and only responding to the weapons and defending himself. The main weapon employed by both parties is their words, but in order to defeat and get the weekend pass that he wants, Grossbart specifically uses lies and bringing in a third person, his aunt, as the reason for him to leave. He says that his aunt invites him to have dinner for Passover Seder, a Jewish ritual feast, which is completely made up as it is revealed later after he returned that his aunt is not home and Grossbart went out for a Chinese restaurant instead. Referring to a kind relative and claiming that she was “willing to go out of her way” (188) and that Marx “should have heard her” (187) when Grossbart called could be Grossbart’s way of making his reason stronger and more convincing as family affair is usually close to people’s heart, possibly including Marx’s, so by doing this, Grossbart may intend to bring out the nostalgia within Marx and cause him to be more inclined towards allowing him to leave. The next weapon that Grossbart picks up is a commonality between him and Marx, their religion. He uses a sense of unity and belonging to the same group against Marx as can be seen from the moment when Marx was trying to use his power as a weapon, telling him to “Get the hell out of [his] sight” (188), Grossbart somewhat accuses him for being anti-semitic, saying “They say Hitler himself was half a Jew. Hearing you, I wouldn’t doubt it.” (188). Grossbart also makes Marx feel like he is isolating him by denying him the pass when he utters “It’s hard thing to be a Jew…it’s a harder thing to stay one” (189), which can be implied that Marx is supposed to help people of the same religion and race, and to stick together. This way Grossbart gives Marx another reason not to refuse his request. In addition, Grossbart also does not miss making use of the sacredness of the occasion that he is going to celebrate, asking Marx “Is a Sedar sacred or not?” (188), which would make it more difficult for Marx to deny him and it could also be the ritual that Marx himself has experienced, so he would be more sympathetic to him as a result. These religious strategies of Grossbart is indeed very clever since religion, especially Judaism, is a sensitive issue and would put most people in the position that they don’t dare to offend and have to surrender. However, when Marx still does not agree to Grossbart’s request, Grossbart presents his last weapon – this one being a more physical action than the others – which is his persistence and stubbornness as he insists to leave the training site despite not having a pass and is not afraid of getting caught. This last weapon is the one that Marx finally gives in to, falling into Grossbart’s trap and giving him what he wants at last.
Battles of the Faith, By the Faith, For the Faith
In Philip Roth’s short story, “Defender of The faith”, battles of faith between Nathan Marx, the protagonist, and Sheldon Grossbart, the antagonist, can be seen throughout the story. The first battle between the two occurs in the orderly room when Grossbart fights for his belief that the other soldiers have no rights to “make accusations” (165) for him and his friend going to services. By using his Jewishness that Marx shares, he overcomes Marx’s belief that is the accusations are “not the Army’s problem” (165), resulting in Marx announcing the permission to every soldier. The second battle is when Grossbart wants a permission to go outside the camp. In this battle, like the time before, Grossbart uses Seder, a Jewish ritual, as a weapon against Marx’s faith in rules by saying “It’s a hard thing to be a Jew. But now I understand what Mickey says—it’s a harder thing to stay one. Look at you.” (189) But this time Marx’s shield is stronger than Grossbart’s weapon so he stops using speaking as a way to use a weapon and uses action instead. He shows Marx that he is willing to get caught for going out without a pass in exchange for a chance to practice his Jewish ritual. And this time Marx’s faith, again, fails to win him this battle.
The last battle in the story is quite different from the others. It is a battle happening in mind. Marx and Grossbart do not fight against each other in this final battle, they fight against their own hearts. The result of Grossbart’s final battle against his own heart is not in the story. It is unknown whether he is going to give up and really accept his fate or he is going to come up with another weapon or another string to pull. But for Marx, it is crystal clear that he wins over his own “impulse to turn and seek pardon for my (his) vindictiveness” (200) since he does not turn and apologize for his action. But to succeed in resisting his own desire, is that really a victory? Does he really win if he has to do the opposite of what he really wants to do?
The fight in “Defender of the Faith” is not a bloodshed one, where a soldier steps on a mine or kill each other with mustard gas. The battle at Camp Crowder, Missouri is another kind of battle, the one where no one shed blood (on screen at least), the one where weapons are words and schemes, and the one where nobody actually loses or win. We see Grossbart and Marx clash words like how they would clash swords. One ‘sir’ from Grossbart is like a thin slash on Marx skin which does not hurt, two ‘sirs’ from Grossbart increased more cut on Marx’s skin as would his wall. The word ‘sir’, the familiarity in which Grossbart conducted himself cutting more and more slashes on Marx’s barrier of military ranking and pseudo-harden heart until it could not protect his empathizing heart anymore. We see that Grossbart is the initial one here while Marx was on the defensive. Grossbart pushed and pushed the boundaries like how a soldier would push the territories until he almost – almost! Conquer Marx and has him wrapped around his finger. Meanwhile, Marx struggles to gain his footing back. His weakness, his bleeding Jewish heart, is already exposed to Grossbart! ] He strikes back at the end by sending Grossbart to the front in Japan, showing him the vindictiveness of a person who has been on a defensive for too long and all too eager to be the initiative. However, I don’t get the sense of anyone achieving the ultimate triumph at the end. Because all that’s left is a sense of ruin, of feeling, relationship, trust, and faith between Grossbart and Marx. But I think that’s how every war ends. It leaves wreckage in its wake, and no one really wins.
“We see that Grossbart is the INITIATIVE one” Sorry for autocorrect!
The character’ struggles are how to survive in a new battle field which is psychologically battle. The battle partly is between two characters, Grossbart who wants to push his boundary of being Jewish in this front, and Marx who tries to hide true mercy in his mind. There are many weapons which are used as themes; verbal, mental and ethical. An intelligence of Grossbart brings hidden kindness of Marx out. The techniques of Grossbart in the battle are to use word like “sir” or to act ,sending fake letters to him, to raise himself in Marx’s eyes. Another struggle of the characters is about ethic. The characters try to identify Jewishness and try to answer what is the right thing to do in the story, Marx finds a dilemma in this new front, should he sign the pass or send Grossbart to Pacific. Sometimes it shows that Marx is bias because of Jewishness.The outcome is weapons used by Grossbart reminding Marx of his childhood. Marx have to make decisions which are a dilemma, to choose between mercy and justice. In the story Marx chooses mercy to sign the pass for Grossbart and his friends. However, finally in his second decision, he chooses justice to revenge after being betrayed from Grossbart.
Nathan Marx’s years during the war has made him develop “an infantryman’s heart (160).” During those years, Marx has “shut off all softness [he] might feel for [his] fellows, […] (170).” When he moves to a “new front” and encounters Grossbart, he finds out that he still has the kind heart. Moreover, the sense of Jewishness—not as a religion or race but as a group—is revived by the trainee. Thus, at the “new front,” Nathan encounters another battle. This time, it’s an internal conflict. While he longs for the pre-war Marx, war condition does not permit him to abandon the military Marx.
With his memory of home and childhood, Marx begins to grow “exceedingly tender about [himself] (170).” Sympathy, long lost during the war, is revived and his Jewishness is being remined. He comes “ to what [he] suddenly remembered was [himself] (170).” However, the pre-war Marx is not for war. Marx is duped by Grossbart as he manipulates Marx’s longing. For example, he accuses Marx for being a shameful Jew for not helping him to celebrate the Passover dinner at his relative’s house. While Marx admit to himself that “it was a great relief to stop fighting Grossbart (190),” it seems that the relief is rather because of helping a fellow Jew, fulfilling his longing as he admits that Grossbart’s word has “touched [him] more than any words from Grossbart’s mouth had the right to (190).”
Grossbart also proposes the familiarity (163) or the alliance (184), which is lost during the years at war. However, war does not entirely permit Marx to agree to Grossbart recruiting. The ‘sir’ business is Marx’s attempt to establish the distance as an obstacle to defend himself from being recruited as a part of Grossbart Jewish community. War summoned men of all races and religious; therefore, condition in the army does not allow familiarity. Moreover, a sense of belonging to a certain group, other than the army or nation, could destroy the unity of the army. Marx knows this all along and tries to balance his own wish and duty. Years in Europe should have make him be used to the war condition but he feels uneasy with military ranks (163). As it is mentioned in the story, on one hand Marx long for familiarity with his Jewish fellows (190), on the other hand he must keep the distance due to the military hierarchy (174). Furthermore, intimacy between military personnel could cause selectiveness and bias as Grossbart demands range of privileges—from an official command for Jews to go to the service to an attempt to help him from the Pacific. It is later revealed that Grossbart is plotting this for his own privilege—though he has reason to do so, it is still for saving only himself (199). This makes Marx felt betrayed and ridiculed for naively wishing for something that could not happen in war, but it seems to end his internal conflict. Marx realizes that there is no such solidarity among Jews group. It is always for someone’s benefit. The pre-war Marx cannot exist in such circumstance. While Grossbart’s weapon to survive from war is Marx’s longing, Marx’s weapon against Grossbart is the infantryman’s heart. Even though Marx felt sorry about his change in the orders to the Pacific, he opts for his revenge and accepts his fate that he is never to be the pre-war Marx until the all wars end.
This battle field has again help Marx strengthen “an infantryman’s heart (160).” He takes his revenge by interfering in Grossbart’s plan to escape from the Pacific. Marx’s wish for the pre-war Marx no longer becomes a weapon for Grossbart, as he understands that he is still in the ‘remainder of the war’ and, that consequently, his old self would make him loses in this battle. Thereby, Defender of the Faith seems to suggest the pessimistic aspect of the war, by showing that the reality of the war is cruel, without any bloodshed element.
In Roth’s story, “Defender of the Faith” there are many battles throughout the story, even though the background of this story is World War II, the battles in this story are not physically like 2 sides bring swords or guns or tanks to fight each other but it is mental, emotional and verbal fight between protagonist, Marx, and antagonist, Grossbart. Each person fight for himself and uses many kinds of weapon, especially Grossbart, who seems to fight for his right of being a good jew but in reality he fight for his privilege. Grossbart uses variety weapons, for example, a familiar smile and action, uses ignorance that causes Marx to forgive him, the world “sir”, the Jewishness that he shares with Marx in order to deceive and convey Marx to be by his side and be the same rank as him. He even uses his family as a weapon for his privilege and to get mercy and sympathy from Marx. While Marx was pushed his boundaries by Grossbart’s weapons and seems to lose many times in the battles between them, he also fights to himself, deciding which person he will choose to be, Mr.Marx or Sergeant Marx, for example, he claims that he is a heartless soldier but his action shows that he has a sympathy and care like ordinary people like when he thinks that Grossbart may cry (163). From the beginning of the story, it seems that Grossbart is the one who always initiates the battles and win and take an advantages while Marx is defensive but at the ending, is it a time for Marx to get a revenge by using his military connections as a fatal counter strike to bring Grossbart back to the path of the real World War II. By the action of Marx at the ending, it makes Grossbart to fight with his mind, to accept or not accept his fate, however, the fate that he has to join the Pacific’s battle field is not change regardless of the outcome of his own mind-fight.
In Philip Roth’s “Defenfer of the Faith”, Sergeant Nathan Marx, a narrator of the story, has a fight with Grossbart many times through the story. Grossbart, as a Jewish soldier, uses his religious as a weapon to fight with Marx and get a privilege over the others. First, Grossbart uses “Jewish” as a tool to separate himself from the others and to tell Marx that they are in the same side. “We?” “The Jewish personnel.” (163) Grossbart tries to tell Marx that he should be on his side since he’s a Jew, too. By including Marx in the Jewish group means that Marx should understand Jewish people since he’s a Jew himself. Second, Grossbart argues with Marx that “Friday nights, Jews are supposed to go to services.” (164) although there is a G.I. party on that night and he’s supposed to clean the barracks, he asks for the privilege because “this is a matter of religious.” (165) he should have a right to go to services and not just to stay at barracks and scrub the floor. Third, there is a scene where Captain Barrett and Marx discuss about Grossbart’s food “he’s a very orthodox Jew, and so he’s only allowed to eat certain foods.” (175). Marx tries to fight Grossbart back by saying that “I’ve have seen you eat like a hound at chow” (182) which is contrasted with what Grossbart has said “I don’t eat one mouthful more than I need to in order to survive.” (179). Grossbart also mentions that he throw up because of the food and acts like he needs some special care. Fourth, Grossbart also uses his religion as a weapon to fight with Marx when he asks for the permission to have a weekend at his aunt’s house to celebrate the Passover. Although he’s not supposed to go out of the camp during weekend, he managed to win Marx this time and get a permission to go. Marx knows that in this field of battle, he is likely to lose. “You want me to give you special privileges, to change the food, to find out about your orders, to give you weekend passes.” (189) and “Why can’t you be like the rest? Why do you have to stick out like a sore thumb?” (189) are what Marx asked Grossbart and Grossbart replies that “Because I’m a Jew” (189). Through the story, Grossbart uses his religion “the Jewish” as a main weapon to fight against the authority to get a privilege and most of the time he manages to win the battle.
In Phillip Roth’s “The Defender of the Faith,” there are many battle scenes which are mostly mental battle scene between Sergeant Nathan Marx and Sheldon Grossbart in which religion, rank, and individuality are used in the battle. Even though they are both in military force, in new front, and really , there isn’t any physical battle scene where Grossbart and Marx fight or punch at each other. However, their fight is no less severe as the physical fight. Grossbart uses his individuality of being jewish and the word ‘fairness’ to fight for his desire such as being granted permission to visit his aunt or claiming for his right to attend the church (or so-called shul.) It seems that Marx is the one who is always loss to this mental fight letting Grossbart and even his friend outside as they claim to visit Grossbart’s aunt. However, Marx, at least, wins the last battle with Grossbart which Marx put Grossbart’s name to go to Pacific.