Conflict And Convergence

Saul Bellow is considered as the most essential novelist after William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway in the present America. His works contain abundant social contents and profound psychological thoughts. He has received American National Book Awards for three times and Pulitzer Prizes once. In 1976, he has received Novel Price in Literature for"understanding the modern culture with the human nature and refined analysis". As a representative Jewish American novelist, Bellow's thoughts and works have combined the conflict and convergence of the Jewish culture and the main American culture, and have shown the complex cultural origin and change of himself and the nation of Jew.The deepest value of the novelist and one's works is the cultural connotation. This thesis attempts to analyze Saul Bellow and his creation from the perspective of cross-cultural investigation of the comparative literature, and further explain the cultural connotation of Bellow and his creation so as to comprehend his thoughts and creation more deeply and comprehensively. Around the theme of"cultural conflict and convergence", this thesis is divided into three parts. The first part makes a general introduction to the conflict and convergence of the Jewish culture and the main American culture"WASP", and points out that the communication of the two cultures has directly affect Bellow's cultural identity and creation. The second part mainly analyses the two-side cultural identity and style of Bellow. The third part analyses the conflict and convergence of the Jewish culture and the main American culture through a concrete text. This part discusses this point from three aspects. As first, it discusses"cultural conflict". The floating destiny, the cultural distance, the perplexed identity and the pursuing of oneself have made the Jewish people become the marginal men of the American culture. Secondly, this part discusses"cultural convergence". The weakening of the Jewish identity of the characters in this novel has shown the cultural change. Thirdly, this part explores the potential Jewish spirit in this novel and discusses the issue of seeking the cultural roots.The main characters of Bellow's novels are mainly Jewish American middle class intellectuals in the American society. His novels concern the contradiction of human being and the society and the moral crisis in the highly developed capitalism era, and then further explore the western and human civilization, values and significance of human being. The study of the cultural connotation of Bellow and his works has provided some implications. In the constant development of poly-culture, people should consider how to deal with the conflict and convergence of different cultures and pursue a cross-cultural understanding.