The Decentered And Uncertain Self In A Postmodern Context

Saul Bellow is one of the most prominent novelists in the postwar America. As a Jewish writer, he distinguishes himself in the American literature by his profound analysis of contemporary culture and his insightful exploration of the urban man’s inner conflicts. He constantly concerns the self and mentality of contemporary man in his novels and observantly elaborates the defects of the society and the effects upon human’s mind in his novels.Focusing on two post-war novels by Saul Bellow which are particularly compelling for their contribution to the crisis of self identity and taking Fredric Jameson’s theories as a basis for interpretation, this thesis intends to study the postmodern decentered and uncertain self in Bellow’s Herzog and Humboldt’s Gift. The decentralization or fragmentation of self is regarded as the cultural pathology of postmodern times by the postmodern theorist—Fredric Jameson. The traditional wholeness and autonomy of self is dissolved in the postmodern context. The erosion of commodification, the depthlessness and the waning of affect in the postmodern culture greatly affect the stability of self. Incorporating these postmodern cultural conditions into the exploration of self, Bellow probes into the individual confusion and the relations between man and society in postwar America. Herzog and Humboldt’s Gift describe the heroes’loss of self with their inability to reconcile themselves with aspects of the late capitalist culture.Through the analysis of the postmodern characteristics of the selfhood in Saul Bellow’s Herzog and Humboldt’s Gift, this thesis also aims to illustrate that Bellow opposes the decomposition of self in the postmodern thinking from the point of humanism and optimistic hope. Saul Bellow affirms the integration of self and leads his heroes to realization of self and reconciliation with reality. They finally reclaim their wholeness of self through their return to brotherhood and community and turning to art and love, which serve as the antidotes to the postmodern cultural pathology by Bellow.