Desire For Dignity "victims"

Saul Bellow's status in the post-WW II period of American literature can only be compared to that of Hemingway or Faulkner in the earlier part of the 20th century. Nobel Laureate (1976), Bellow is undoubtedly one of the most written-about fiction writers of the contemporary American period. Bellow has commanded serious critical attention since Bellow published his first novel. But domestic researches lack macroscopic assurance. The image of the intellectual Bellow had shaped as a whole could be named as the concept the victim . The victim describes the image of the Jewish intellectual belonging to the middle class in Bellow's novels. They pursued lofty life, expressed strong dissatisfaction to the chaos community controlled by the desire for material welfare in the United States, desired to restore traditional moral order, but they were naive and noble thinkers. They had given the inability to extricate the social burden, and born the heavy mental suffering. Herzog, Humbolt, Citrine, Sammler and Benn Crader were represented as the victim. The victims have three characteristics: First, there was a split between the spiritual life and the real life. They took the more importance upon the spiritual life, so their real life appeared confuse contrasting to the real life; Second, they took the humanism as the critique weapon, the victims all deeply were influenced by humanism; Third, they mostly were the Jew. The reason the victim formed mainly discussed from external and internal aspects. One is the external reason: Bellow attributed the serious energetic crisis in American contemporary society to factors such as mammonism which was popular in the society, displayed outstandingly in the intellectual's. The victims were the typical representatives. The other is the internal reason: there were weaknesses in the intellectual themselves. After the victims enriched by the knowledge or the rationality, they inflated rapidly and made every efforts to become the spiritual teachers of humanity. But in the reality the economic status contrast also caused their spirit to be unbalanced. The victim had reflected the humanities intellectual in the contemporary society by the peripherizational status. This was the result that tool rationality ruled the society in the contemporary period.