The Road To Integrity

Saul Bellow, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, is one of the major representatives of Jewish-American writers, whose literary works influenced widely American literature after World War II.His work Seize the Day, which was singled out by the Royal Swedish Academy as one of the classic works of our time, gives readers lively description of the predicament of an individual in modern society. It is about the story of one day in the life of Tommy Wilhelm, a man in his mid-forties who is going through a midlife crisis. As the story opens, he is standing outside the dining room of the Hotel Gloriana in New York City, the residential hotel in which he and his father Dr. Adler live. For this moment at this place, Wilhelm lives apart from his wife Margaret and is separated from his two sons and his lover Olive. He is a struggling salesman who has quitted his job and currently has no income. He asks his father to help him both mentally and financially. However, he is refused flatly. And he gives his last $700 to a quack psychologist Dr. Tamkin to speculate on the stock market. However, he is deceived by Dr. Tamkin and loses all his money. At the end of this story, Wilhelm weeps bitterly at the funeral of a strange Jewish man.In this dissertation the writer makes use of some concepts of Carl G Jung's theory of analytical psychology to argue that Seize the Day describes vividly the changes of Tommy Wilhelm's psychology on the road of his individuation. The author agrees with the statement that Tommy Wilhelm is a masochist, and that one of the causes for Wilhelm's masochism is that he wants to recover the feelings between father and son. Then the author discusses the motives for Wilhelm's individuation: Wilhelm's desire to restore the father-son relations, and to get helps both mentally and financially from his father.After that this thesis further analyzes Wilhelm's individuation in accordance with Jung's theory, that is, the process of individuation involves a certain stripping or surrendering of persona, collective identity, social adaptation or rank, and defenses, soone must get in touch with the shadow, persona and anima/animus before one can truly get in touch with the self.In analysing Wilhelm's shadow, the author argues that Wilhelm projects his shadow image to his father, New York City and the city people to release his mental suffering and guilt. And it is Dr. Tamkin who makes Wilhelm aware of his own shadow and face it directly. In analysing Wilhelm's persona, the author argues that Wilhelm has many different social masks, corresponding to his pretender soul, resulting from his misleading opinion towards money. And it is Dr. Tamkin who helps Wilhelm understand what money really means to an individual, which helps Wilhelm better understand his persona. At last through analyzing Tommy Wilhelm's "self, the writer argues that Wilhelm is bewildered by his three different names: Wilhelm Adler, Tommy Wilhelm and Velvel. Although these three names symbolizes Wilhelm's different self and identity, yet only Velvel, with its Jewish background, indicates his true self. In these processes above, Dr. Tamkin plays an undeniable role. Through a full understanding of the shadow, persona and self of his own, Wilhelm begins his journey of individuation.