In Philip Roth's 2008 novel Indignation, Marcus Messner is the teenage son of a kosher butcher in Newark, New Jersey. He has worked alongside the father he adores most of his adolescent life. But suddenly, Messner Sr. is overtaken by an uncontrollable, obsessive fear of letting his only son go out into an unprotected world. Ironically, this fear compels Marcus to escape from the suffocating environment that his insular family has created, to one where he is in constant conflict with himself, others and the society in which he lives.

He moves from the constraints of his family to the restraints of a small, conservative Christian college in mid-western America under the backdrop of the Korean War. As the casualties mount, the Messners’ lives begin to unravel. Marcus becomes the unintended victim of historical circumstances, chance, and his own indignation.

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