Prof. Derek P. Royal

ENG 522 – Major Figures in American Literature

 

 

Speech Event Outline of Portnoy’s Complaint

 

Beginning page numbers for events are from the Vintage paperback edition and are in parentheses

 

 

 

“The Most Unforgettable Character I’ve Met”

 

  • Sophie Portnoy is omnipresent (3)
  • Jack Portnoy (4)
    • His constipation (4)
    • His job at Boston and Northeastern Life (6)
    • Playing baseball with him (9)
  • The powers and the generosity of the mother (11)
  • Being locked outside the apartment (13)
  • Refusing to eat dinner and mother standing over him with a bread knife (15)

 

 

“Whacking Off”

 

·         Masturbating all of the time (17)

·         During meals, rushing into the bathroom to masturbate (19)

·         Expressing a sincere concern for his father (25)

·         Recalling warm memories from his childhood (27)

·         Back to the bathroom incidents and eating habits (30)

·         The roots of Jewish guilt nurtured through his parents; he as the son in a Jewish joke (34)

 

“The Jewish Blues”

 

  • The recess of his left testicle when he was nine-years-old (37)
  • The “Holy Protestant Empire” and his father (39)
  • His antagonistic relationship with father (40)
    • Father’s passivity contrasted to mother’s dominance (42)
  • Seeing his mother’s menstrual blood (42)
    • Linking it to preparing Kosher chicken (42)
    • Going to the store for a box of Kotex (43)
  • Going to the shvitz bath with his father (47)
    • Seeing his father’s shlong (50)
  • Buying a bathing suit at his Uncle Nate’s (50)
    • Mother’s comment on his “little thing” (51)
  • Story of his cousin Heshie and his shiksa girlfriend (51)
  • At fourteen-years-old, refusing to dress for Rosh Hashanah, the same year his mother has surgery to have her hysterectomy (60)
  • Baseball as an escape from his chaotic life; a means for him to control his life; his “pastoral” (69)
  • Rabbi Warshaw and Jewish faith (72)
    • Jews –vs– goyim (75)
    • Rant on being a Jew but also being a human being (76)
  • Hannah and the Holocaust (76)

 

 

“Cunt Crazy”

 

  • Masturbating on bus from Manhattan to Newark (78)
  • Dietary laws and the goyim (79)
  • Father bringing Anne McCaffery home for “a real Jewish meal” (82)
    • Mixing up fantasy of father’s affair with Anne McCaffery and his eating of Hannah’s pudding when he his eight-years-old (84)
  • Hannah (88)
  • Mother’s experience with the forbidden (90)
    • Doyle and the lobster Newburg (91)
    • Her “pioneering spirit” in trying new things as a youth (93)
  • Ronald Nimkin’s suicide (96)
  • Being obsessed with women and sex and not being a good Jewish son (100)
  • Marriage –vs– bachelorhood (104)
  • The Monkey introduced (105)
  • His job and his accomplishments; his parents’ reactions and pointing out his faults (107)
  • Ronald Nimkin and being a good boy (120)
  • Kicking and/or biting his mother and being a good boy like Ronald (121)
  • Back to masturbating on bus; at the Empire Burlesque (127)
  • His mother helping him learn to piss (132)
  • Fucking his family’s dinner (134)
  • The Monkey and the Italian prostitute (134)
  • Christmas time, shiksas ice skating (142)
  • The Monkey’s past in West Virginia (153)
  • On first meeting The Monkey (157)
  • Ice skating shiksas at Irvington Park and breaking right leg trying to meet a one (163)
  • Bubbles Girardi and ejaculating into his own eye (165)

 

“The Most Prevalent Form of Degradation in Erotic Life”

 

  • Affects of Monkey’s handwriting (184)
  • Weekend in Vermont with The Monkey and the tender feelings he experienced (186)
  • Fantasy of finding himself in Hell, chained to a toilet and being lectured to by Rabbi Warshaw (201)
  • His post-Vermont “affair” with The Monkey; the dinner party at Gracie Mansion (205)
  • Kay Campbell, The Pumpkin (215)
  • Sarah Abbot Maulsby, The Pilgrim (232)

 

“In Exile”

 

  • Memories of “the Men” playing baseball (241)
  • Wanting to be like “the Men;” being a good Jewish boy (245)
  • On leaving The Monkey in Greece and escaping to Israel; “Alex in Wonderland” (249)
  • Meeting Israeli female Lieutenant and his inability to keep an erection (256)
  • Naomi, The Jewish Pumpkin (258)
    • Associates her with Kate Campbell (258)
    • Associates her with mother and Newark past (260)
    • Unable to get a hard-on in Israel (268)
  • Being judged for his crimes, “The Monkey’s Revenge” (271)
  • “So . . . Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?” (274)