Saul Bellow's Understanding And Analysis Of Modern Man's Existential Dilemma--An Interpretation Of Dangling Man And Herzog

Saul Bellow (1915--), a Nobel Prize winner, is widelyrecognized as America' s preeminent living novelist. The general human condition is always the focus of his work. Bellow was praised by the Swedish Academy for "the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work" . What really counts is his ideas and artistry that are endowed in his novels, through which Bellow shows his humanistic concern to his characters. Bellow attempts to discover, through his fiction and his characters, the pattern and meaning of human life, the spiritual crisis that modern man suffers in an impersonal and mechanized urban world.By analyzing Bellow' s two novels, Dangling Man and Herzog, this study focuses on Bellow' s humanistic understanding and subtle analysis of modern man' s existential dilemma. Part one is the general introduction and part six the conclusion. Part two offers a brief survey of Saul Bellow' s life, career and some criticism on his work. Part three contains a brief summary of Bellow' s Dangling Man and Herzog, followed by a general discussion of Bellow' s major theme illustrated in his two novels. The two novels are similar to each other in that theyboth vividly portray a painfully introspective intellectual, who is confronted with both inner conflicts and hostile forces of the external world. Part four focuses on the Bellow' s heroes' spiritual agonies and their struggles to search for salvation. The protagonists' spiritual crisis is caused by various factors, including the hostile reality, the sense of alienation and marginality, the flaws in character, etc. In part five, the author analyzes how Bellow employs various effective devices to illustrate his protagonists' inner world. The devices of a journal form in Dangling Man and mental letters in Herzog fully demonstrate Bellow' s fictional achievement. With a careful description and subtle analysis of the characters, Bellow demonstrates his particular and humanistic understanding of modern man' s dilemma of existence, showing his serious concern over the human life and the contemporary culture.