The Spiritual Crisis Of Contemporary American Intellectuals In Herzog

Saul Bellow(1915-2005),an eminent contemporary American novelist,won extraordinarily great literary achievements in his life and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.Bellow's masterpiece Herzog(1964)demonstrates the sense of frustration,confusion,quest for the meaning of life and self-adjustment of the contemporary American intellectuals in the society.Many scholars at home and abroad carried out analyses about the novel from the theories of existentialism,feminism,archetypal criticism and other suitable theories,but there have been few analyses to explore the themes of the novel from the perspective of cognitive poetics and Fromm's humanistic psychoanalysis.By closely reading the text,this thesis takes Herzog as research subject,synthetically analyzes the features of Herzog's mental world,the dilemmas in American contemporary intellectuals' life and academic activities,the postmodern schizophrenic phenomenon,and traces the protagonist's journey of soul.The research attempts to analyze the text from the perspective of Mental Space Theory by foregrounding its post-modern context and the protagonist's disjuncture from society,emphasizing that Herzog is a contemporary American intellectual with in-depth thought and independent views.From his pursuit of truth and faith and his own weaknesses,this research sketches the contours of the sense of emptiness,the distortion of human nature caused by capitalist society,and the universal meaning in the image of the protagonist.Drawing on Fromm's humanistic psychoanalysis,simultaneously the thesis traces the ways of Herzog's self-redemption,analyzing Herzog's marital crisis,career crisis,crisis of his self.As the thesis points out,Herzog has a complex spiritual quest.He longs for the community life but is alienated from society;he desires for clear identity but refuses to the fetters of identity;he wants interpersonal equality but pursues to be out of the ordinary.His life is full of helplessness and powerlessness,but he still has a large accumulation of knowledge,profound perception of the society,and strong sense of family responsibility.All the ups and downs in his life just bring out his good qualities and his self-identity.And finally,it proves that Herzog walked out of his spirit dilemma with the release of the Self,the care from his family and friends as well as the spiritual nurture from Nature so that a healthy relationship with the Self,the society and the world is built.The research makes a summary of the features of Herzog's mental space and spiritual predicament of American intellectuals represented by Herzog.It holds the following opinions: First,the text represents the dissolution of the intellectuals' selves by contemporary massive society,tries to find out an ideal way of both being in reality and keeping one's individuality,and embodying the author's quest for the meaning of life;Second,the analysis of mental world shows that the interactions between Herzog,people around him and the society is actually the normalcy of human beings,especially contemporary American intellectuals;Third,it is not easy for contemporary intellectuals to sustain their conscience under the various pressures of self-dissolution.Their efforts are actually the foundation for human bright future.Herzog's spiritual crisis reflects spiritual crisis of social members brought in the process of social economic development.Therefore,this thesis provides reference for the contemporary Chinese who are experiencing the rapid economic development.