Leaving Nature,and Living In Society

This thesis discusses Ravelstein,the last work of American Nobel novelist Saul Bellow.This thesis focuses on the mode of existence of Chick,a Jewish intellectual in the work.Based on Foucault's aesthetics of existence,this thesis explores the process of Chick's changing his ways of living from four aspects: the ethical substance(the initial lifestyle of the process),the mode of subjection(the reason for the changing),technologies of the self(the newly adopted practices in the process)and the telos(the aim of the process).Through this exploration,this study aims to provide a possible way of living for the modern intellectual who feels incompatible with the modern mass-culture dominated society,a way of living which allows intellect in adapting himself to but not assimilated by modern society.This thesis finds out that the ethical substance or Chick's initial lifestyle is his inwardness,a way of living that he adopts to live in a self-isolated but self-sufficient life in the country after he is unable to adapt himself to the mass-culture society.Nature in the title of the thesis refers to this self-isolated but self-sufficient way of living in the country.The reason why Chick leaves nature and lives again in society is that he sees the necessity of living around people.To adapting himself to the society,he learns three new practices: true friendship,writing biography sketches,and meditating on death.Finally,the aim of this process is to establish a lifestyle which allows him to live a meaningful life in society for long.Living in society refers to this way of living that Chick establishes in order to restore his strong tie with the human life around him in the city.The thesis concludes that Chick finally leaves the nature and lives in the society again.Even in the mass-culture dominated society,self-isolation is never the only way to protect the integrity of subject,and the intellectual has responsibility and possibility to live a rather independent and meaningful life in the society.Through Foucault's ethical framework,this thesis provides a new possible way to study the modes of living of the intellectuals in Saul Bellow's work.