The Breast

{{Short description|1972 novella by Philip Roth}} {{other uses|Breast (disambiguation)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox book |  | name = The Breast | title_orig = | translator = | image = The Breast by Philip Roth cover scan.jpg | caption = First edition cover | author = Philip Roth | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = United States | language = English | series = | genre = Novella | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | release_date = 1972 | media_type = Print (hardcover) | pages = 113 | isbn = 0-03-003716-6 | dewey= 813/.5/4 | congress= PZ4.R8454 Br PS3568.O855 | oclc= 482720 | preceded_by = | 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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Breast |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/11/specials/roth-breast.html?_r=2&oref=login&oref=slogin |access-date=2023-09-04 |website=archive.nytimes.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shostak |first=Debra |date=1999 |title=Return to The Breast: The Body, the Masculine Subject, and Philip Roth |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/441922 |journal=Twentieth Century Literature |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=317–335 |doi=10.2307/441922 |issn=0041-462X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> 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 novella, 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 == {{Reflist}} {{PhilipRoth}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breast}} Category:1972 American novels Category:1972 English-language novels Category:1972 fantasy novels Category:American fantasy novels Category:Novels about teachers Category:Novels about shapeshifting Category:Novels by Philip Roth {{1970s-novel-stub}}