Saul Bellow's Criticism Of Consumerism In Humboldt's Gift

Humboldt's Gift(1975)is one of the contemporary American writer Saul Bellow's representative works.This novel complies in accordance with Bellow's constant attention to the spiritual dilemmas of the individuals in modern society.Through a meticulous description about the course of lives of writer Von Humboldt Fleshier and his disciple Charlie Citrine,Bellow emphatically points out the oppression upon the intellectuals' mental world exerted by the rapidly-growing materialism in the post-war American society.Through the deployment of French theorist Jean Baudrillard's theory of consumerism and its related theories,this thesis tries to clarify the underlying reasons for the protagonists' spiritual predicaments to throw new light on the interpretation of Humboldt's Gift.This thesis consists of three parts:The first part comprises a brief introduction to the author Saul Bellow and his work Humboldt's Gift,a summary of studies relating to Humboldt's Gift,a briefing on the theory of Consumer Society.The second part is the discussion part of the thesis.The first chapter expounds upon the historical background of the novel and the overall zeitgeists at that time.Chapter two discovers the intellectuals' predicaments of the erosion of identities and the alienated human relationships in consumer societies.Chapter three explicates the intellectuals' survival strategies in consumer societies.In the last part,a conclusion based on the analyses will be drawn.In consumer societies,the individuals are exceptionally confronted with the dilemmas that the outside environment brings about.Only through the consolidation of self-identity through thoughtful introspection and the compromise with the outside world could the masses walk out of the predicaments.