Chaos and stillness: The art of Saul Bellow

This thesis attempts to substantiate Saul Bellow's premise that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. Bellow achieves chaos by depicting a world where anxiety, confusion and suffering are inevitable. When despair seems all-consuming, Bellow's art permits his heroes transcendence and stillness where a mystic healing takes place.; Three of Bellow's novels are examined using three specific fields of knowledge that seem especially conducive to that particular novel: The Victim, Sociological; Herzog, Psychological; and Mr. Sammler's Planet, Philosophical.; This study reveals Bellow's uncanny talent for achieving chaos, and then stillness, by relinquishing conventional conclusions, and by relying on the reader's ability to stretch his/her imagination.