American Pastoral is not a cheerful tale. Roth teaches his readers about human nature in a brutally confusing and roundabout way. The plot is a narrative wrapped within another. When Nathan Zuckerman attends his high school reunion in 1995, he is told by his best friend that his brother, and role-model had died that year. Zuckerman listens to the story of Seymour "Swede" Levov and becomes compelled to verify all of the facts of the man's life story. He needs closure and, more importantly, he needs to know what went wrong for Seymour so that he can avoid the same mistakes if possible.As Zuckerman learns more and more about Seymour, he understands why the man was so depressed.
Seymour had set up the perfect little life for himself. If ever a person was poised to live the ideal American dream in a quiet country town, it was him. Life had other plans though. After various important people in his life leave him and betray him, he is forced to rethink his basic beliefs about mankind. What he finds is that he doesn't fully understand who he is, so he puts on a front to project assurance. He concludes that this is everybody's problem; they don't really know who they are. This leads to fear and loneliness and deceit. Born of internal dissonance, people are sick of themselves and the projected personas they represent to people. In turn, this thought upsets Seymour because he realizes that the whole point of life is that nobody will ever know anybody else. The only successful response, then, is to accept that and sit tight, allowing life to take you where it will. Tragically for Seymour, he is unable to accomplish this within his own soul, so he lives out his miserable days still alone.
