Saul Bellow's Herzog: The Voice Of The Marginal

Saul Bellow is regarded as a writer who can be compared with Hemingway and Faulkner in American literary history. Among his notable literary creations, it is Herzog that brought him reputation as a significant figure in American literary history. Based on Karen Horney's theory, the thesis presents a general view of Herzog's marginal state. Tortured by the conflict between ideal self and despised self, Herzog suffers from material marginality and ideological marginality. There are mainly three causes resulting in Herzog's marginalization, that is, the conflict between traditional consciousness and modern civilization, the conflict between intellectual awareness and common values, and the conflict between American mainstream culture and Jewish culture. Herzog's quest from "margin" to "center", gives some hints of the spiritual returning of the marginal people to the modern society. The reaffirmation of his Jewish tradition and his subversion of existentialism set him on the way of self-transcendence. Actually, Herzog represents the voices of the marginal people, and shows Bellow's ideal of the coexistence of all human beings in modern society.