Herzog’s Quest For Individuation

Herzog, one of Saul Bellow’s masterpieces, representatively portrays the imageof Bellow’s typical Jewish intellectual living in American metropolis. The novel wasstudied from various perspectives, most of which focus on the social studies. Inaddition, many critics argued that Bellow foreshadows an optimistic attitude towardsHerzog’s experience, while others do not agree. However, the author of this thesis isfor the former one, with a slight divergence in conclusion from a different micropsychological point of view.As an accomplished college professor, Herzog met his waterloo when he wasbetrayed his second wife and her lover. He then behaved abnormally by writing unsentletters to everyone he could think of. Exposing Herzog’s symptoms of “madness”—hisself-identity crisis, his alienation from people and his disappointment to the society,the thesis attempts to analyze the reasons behind his abnormality through Jung’stheory of individuation, which is a process of integrating the three collectivearchetypes: persona, anima, shadow and reaching the final step of the self. The thesisfinally concluded that Herzog reached his self-realization through the epiphany of theambiguity of the human existence, the appropriate projection of his anima on Ramonaand his overcoming of the dark shadows inside of him.This thesis aims to complement the psychological studies on Herzog applyingJung’s psychoanalysis theory, getting a different argument that Herzog finally choosesa moderate lifestyle—to be an ordinary social member while keeping his ownprofound and independent insight into the modern society. In other words, he lives asan insider in the society, but spectates objectively and deeply the social morbidity, asan outsider. The author of this thesis wishes to offer revelation for some idealisticintellectuals, who detest the materialism and suggests them to accept the reality whilekeep their own uniqueness.