From Ethnicity To Universality

Seize the Day is one of Saul Bellow's novellas and also the one which has received relatively scant critical attention compared with his other longer novels. This thesis intends to approach this novel in cultural perspective, from double cultural context—Jewish culture and American culture—to explore the important role played by Bellow and his Seize the Day in Jewish American literature through the analysis of the ethnicity and universality. Jewishness displayed in this novel not only reveals the problems of Jewish people through all their history, but also reveals the dilemma of the whole western people, therefore, this novel has had a much more general meaning beyond any ethnic group and any nation. From ethnicity to universality, from race to human being, this is Bellow's contribution to the world literature in his Seize the Day. This thesis is divided into six parts, among which the first and the last parts are introduction and conclusion, the left parts (chapter one to chapter four) are the body of the thesis. The introduction mainly introduces criticism of Seize the Day in recent years and the meaning of the study of this novel in cultural perspective. Chapter one deals with the Jewish American immigration and the making of the Jewish American literature, and this chapter also gives a brief introduction to Bellow and his Seize the Day. Chapter two mainly deals with the ethnicity, Jewishness, displayed in the novel.Being in a state of exile physically and spiritually is one of the most important reflections of Jewishness. In Seize the Day, almost every character is in a state of being exile, either physically or spiritually. The consciousness of Holocaust is another important reflection of Jewishness after the Second World War. For every Jew, the Holocaust happened to them during the Second World War is not only an unprecedented disaster in the history of Jewish people, it has become essential part of their life: the mourning for the dead and the sympathy and respect for the survived. In this way, Seize the Day is a novel about Holocaust, because the mourning for the dead and the respect for the survived are dispersed in the novel. Chapter three is about the acculturation between Jewish culture and American culture through the description of...