What is the butterfly effect? The butterfly effect is the name given to the concept that small things can cause big catastrophes. The story as I was told is, a butterfly lands on the nose of a dog, who sneezes, scares the cat who jumps on the man.. it goes on from here working its way up the food chain until a single butterfly destroys the world. Lindbergh is the butterfly, his election into office throws America in a turmoil of events that nearly destroys the nation. The scariest part of the story is the accuracy, it is not some wild theory, but instead is a realistic telling of what could have been. This whole journey is taken through a young Philip Roth, a Jewish child who is trying desperately to make sense of the changing not only in the world around him but in his own home. The story uses many changes to represent the environment around the Roth family.One of the most dramatic changes takes place in Roth’s own home with his older brother Sandy.
Sandy represents the nation as a whole, in the beginning he is a rather quiet but remarkable kid, you see great potential in him but not too much drive to do anything with it. Yet once his aviation hero
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On their trip to Washington you get a first glimpse at his fathers pride and self-respect when defending himself over the hotel room and to the man in the cafeteria. Also before that he has a chance to fulfill his life goal in owning his own house, but sacrifices his opportunity for the comfort of his wife. Roth makes sure you can plainly see and understand his fathers honest and good nature, and throughout every tragedy that befalls the family he keeps his morals. Where Sandy represented change and the popular majority, Philip Roth’s father represented the good, minority. He sacrifices everything for the benefit of others, even up until the end when he travels and risks his life and looses his job in order to save the neighbor boy