| Saul Bellow (1915-- ), a Canadian-born Jewish-American, is regarded as the strongest American novelist of his generation. Marked by his "human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture" in his works, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in October 1976, which established him as a representative figure in contemporary American Literature and a vanguard of contemporary fiction in the wake of Ernest Hemingway and William Faulker. All Bellow's novels successfully expose the contradictions in capitalist society. They chiefly reflect the crisis of the modern western bourgeois humanism and truly manifest the depression and perplexity of the people who are unable to find a 'still point' in the world they live in. By focusing on the ordinary inner agonies and conflicts in the hearts of the main characters in his novels, Bellow has continuously shown great enthusiasm in probing into the existence of the human beings. Herzog, Bellow's sixth novel, was published in 1964. It is generally acclaimed to be one of Bellow's most important representative novels. By profound moral significance, minute psychological descriptions and unique narrative techniques, Bellow successfully depicts a typical intellectual's image in 1960s' America. Like most Bellow's other protagonists, Herzog shows an amazing perseverance both in his quest of the ultimate truth and in his endeavor to work out his individual fate. The appearance of this novel arouses the interest of a lot of critics. Though some critics have attempted to examine the novel within an existential framework, they only touched briefly on some existential elements in the novel without probing into it in details. So in this thesis the present author will exert every effort to provide a thorough and detailed interpretation of the novel from existential perspective so as to make a better understanding of its themes and Bellow's existential evaluation of human life. The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One, Introduction, is a brief introduction of the present research, in which the rationale to carry out this present study has been clarified. Objectives and methodology are also stated. The objectives of the study are twofold: one is to expound the theme of this novel in the light of existentialism and exhibit affinities between Bellow and the existentialist thinkers in their common concerns about human living condition—absurdity man faces, alienation he feels, and his struggle for the authentic existence. At the opening of the 21st century, existentialism receives renewed attention. Just as the Americans in 1960s, human beings in the new century are also in their predicaments. So the other objective of the study is to explore the ultimate meaning of human existence by means of an analysis of the ending of Herzog, which exhibits Bellow's unique understanding of the human authentic existence in the world. Chapter Two, Literature Review, concentrates on a review of the life and career of Saul Bellow, and the importance of Herzog. As one of the most important living American novelists, Bellow has written eleven novels, several novellas, a good number of short stories, plays and essays, and won a good number of awards. All his novels have one feature in common: each centers upon a character who, caught up in the chaos of modern civilization, facing violence and victimization, is in quest of order, love, equilibrium, and the meaning of human existence. These central characters, share so many common preoccupations that they have become a recognizable character type, the Bellovian hero. When one of the most typical Bellovian heroes Moses Herzog first appeared in 1964, he caused a stir. Herzog thus received an extraordinary amount of public attention, both from literary critics and ordinary readers. Although some critics see it to be a deeply 'flawed book', most reviews of it are overwhelmingly laudatory. Because in this novel, Bellow not only uses complex structure and varied writing techniques to directly reveal the turbulence of the protagon...
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