The Edge Of Mainstream Society - Saul Bellow 's Intellectuals Image Analysis

Saul Bellow is a distinguished master in the world of letters in 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1976"for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work."Bellow completed many a book and never gave up writing in all his life. Under his pen, a series of anti-heroes full of contradictions and desires are presented through Bellow's describing of Jewish intellectuals who inherit the essence of the old Jewish culture, are nurtured by European culture and receive their America-styled education.The intellectuals Bellow created are typical intellectuals in American society. They are wandering between their dreams and social reality, unable to balance the two worlds of their spirit and social reality or find a suitable way to combine them together. At the same time, the intellectuals Bellow created represent the whole group of American Jewish immigrants. The dilemma those intellectuals are undergoing that they hope to blend into American society to a real extent only to find that they are isolated is the actual reflection of the living condition of this generation of American Jewish immigrants.In this thesis, the intellectual images are divided into two types. One type of them intend to hold their intellectual dreams but are not accepted by the social reality. The other type of them compromise themselves by giving up their dreams, thus get so-called success—money,status,honour. These two types of intellectuals both have their gains and loses, by understanding which readers may get the meaning of spirit and dreams clear.In a utilitarian society, what pure knowledge enjoyment and pursuit in the spiritual world can bring is only lost in the external material world. Pursuit of material life flooded the real world, which makes the pursuit of internal enjoyment not as important as before. Bellow's works let us envisage the feelings of lost and oscillated and tell us that the society we are living in is undergoing its transformation, during which process economic value and cultural value are also changing along. Under such a social background, only if intellectuals could confirm their internal beliefs and internal values and test the feasibility, would they realize them to be a set of valid pattern of behavior. This is the exit for intellectuals who are feeling about in such a utilitarian society.