Struggling In An Absurd World

Saul Bellow (1915 – 2005), Nobel laureate and winner of numerous other awards,is among the most acclaimed and celebrated writers of his generation, most of whoseworks reflected the life of Jewish-American intellectuals in the absurd modernAmerican society. In 1976, Bellow was awarded Nobel Prize for literature, for hisworks reflected "human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture".Saul Bellow is a rather productive writer, having published many novels:Henderson, the Rain King, Herzog, Humboldt's Gift, Seize the Day and More die ofHeartbreak, to mention only a few. In early 2000, at an age when most other authorsceased being productive, he published a novel entitled Ravelstein, which was based onthe life of Bellow's friend and colleague at the University of Chicago, Allan Bloom.As other Jewish writers, Bellow shows great concern for the Jews in modernAmerican society, trying to explore the life and spirit of these people and depictingtheir material and spiritual struggle in such an absurd society.As a noted Jewish-American writer, Bellow's works have received great concernworldwide. By now, he is undoubtedly one of the most written-about fiction writers ofthe contemporary American period. Bellow's status in the post-war period ofAmerican literature can well be compared to that of Hemingway or Faulkner in theearlier part of the century. In his novels Saul Bellow analyzes the effects of Americancultural anxiety brought about by the development of technology, rationalism,existentialism, and modernism. Bellow and his works are widely studied all over theworld. However, with regard to the Jewish culture inherent in his works, it has not yetbeen given the due importance, with the research on this aspect few and far between.In this thesis, a study is conducted on the analysis of the intellectuals in Bellow'snovels, Herzog, Humboldt's Gift and More Die of Heartbreak, in particular, from theperspective of Jewish culture and its influence on Bellow, with the aim of a betterunderstanding of Jewish culture and its impact on Jewish-American intellectuals,and thereby a further understanding of the overall situations of them in modernAmerican society.This thesis consists of five parts, the first of which is the introduction. In this part,Bellow's important literary position and great contribution to the world literature arehandled through a comparison of Bellow with other Jewish-American writers such asIsaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth. A general definition is alsogiven as to what intellectuals are and the reasons why most of Bellow's novels arecalled intellectual novels are also briefly explained.Chapter one gives a brief survey of Saul Bellow's life and of the three above-mentioned novels, with the emphasis on the Jewish origin of the author and of theintellectual protagonists in his novels. An analysis is also made concerning the Jewishintellectual protagonists and other minor intellectuals in his novels.Chapter two deals with the factors contributing to Bellow's thoughts on novelwriting. Born a Jew and brought up in a Jewish environment, Bellow is greatlyinfluenced by Judaism or the Jewish culture, which explains why most of hischaracters are Jews, especially Jewish intellectuals. As an immigrant, Bellow grew upin a modern American city, and the American culture undoubtedly has penetrated intohim and his characters. The bicultural influence and conflict account for the struggleof Bellow himself and his protagonists in the impersonal and absurd world.As an intellectual himself, Bellow has read a lot on philosophical and literarythoughts, existentialism, in particular, whose influence the readers may sense inreading his novels. Marginality and victimization are the typical existential conditionsof American-Jews, but they are also the conditions of Americans in modern world,which has affluence of materials but falls in a spiritual wasteland, and the conditionsof human beings in general.Mention is also made on the influence of transcendentalism and anthroposophyon Saul Bellow and his writings in this chapter.Chapter three serves as the major part, which analyzes the intellectual charactersin Bellow's novels, especially those in Herzog, Humboldt's Gift and More Die ofHeartbreak.Herzog, Humboldt, Citrine, Benn and Kenneth are all intellectuals in modernAmerica. As professors of romanticism or Russian literature, poet, playwright orbotanist, they enjoy the materials their fame and money have brought to them on onehand, but on the other hand, they have higher spiritual life and find it hard to satisfytheir spiritual need in a world of materialism and utilitarianism. Nevertheless, theyalways find themselves incapable of dealing with things in reality, depressed andtrying to find an escape in the ideal world they have constructed for themselves: bywriting letters like Herzog, by indulging themselves in anthroposophy like Citrine, orby withdrawing to the world of plants like Benn. Just like Bellow himself, all of themare of Jewish origin and have received higher education and live a middle-class life inAmerica. Nearly all of them are aware of the duality in their cultural identity, whichalso makes it difficult for them to fit into the American society and gives them thesense of marginality.As intellectuals, Bellow's heroes have an ideal in their mind, about the world,about love and marriage, and about the interpersonal relationships. However, theyalways find the conflict between reality and ideals, feeling alienated, unable to copewith the world, even being considered as insane or a fool in reality. Living in asandwiched culture, they are aliened and have to struggle for their spiritual pursuit inthe absurd world.Bellow's intellectuals function either as the spiritual father of other characters oras pursuers of the spiritual father. There are three types of pursuers of the spiritualfathers, namely, the alienated followers who eventually betray their spiritual father,the steadfast followers who adhere to their spiritual father under any circumstances,and the first-betray-and-then-return followers. In any case, in a cultureless andpractical society, to be spiritual fathers or to be followers of spiritual fathers is not aneasy thing. They have to make formidable fight with society and struggle with theabsurdity of existence.The conclusion summarizes the analysis by pointing out the significance of thestudy. By portraying in his novels a picture of the Jewish intellectuals with theirdespair, their loneliness and their alienation of mind in the affluent American society,Bellow reveals the spiritual crisis and the unremitting pursuit for ideals of theintellectuals in modern society, which to a great extent gives us a deep insight into theintellectuals as a whole in America and in the world as well.