Modern Man's Predicament And Salvation

Saul Bellow,a Jewish American novelist who won the Pulitzer,the Nobel Prize for Literature and the National Book for Fiction in the 20 th century,is regarded as one of the most renowned and significant writers of America after Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.Bellow applies his unique narratives in his works to express his strong condemnation of social depravity and convey his profound thinking and humanistic concern about human living conditions and the individual inner world.Winning American National Book Award in 1969,Mr.Sammler's Planet is one of the masterpieces of Bellow,and an important work during Bellow's turning period.The protagonist,Mr.Sammler,experiences a three-day life in New York,which represents a real situation of American society in the 1960 s.Just like most of the modern people,Mr.Sammler and other characters in the novel suffer from serious predicament,but finally get out of it.Based on Erich Fromm's humanistic psychology,this thesis explores modern man's mental predicament and living dilemma as well as subjective salvation in modern society by combining American social and cultural context in the 1960 s to illustrate Bellow's humanistic concern for modern man and his deep thinking about living conditions.The thesis consists of three parts: the introduction,the body and the conclusion.The introduction provides an introduction of Saul Bellow and his representative works,a literature review of Mr.Sammler's Planet both at home and abroad,the theoretical basis and the layout of this thesis.The body is made of three chapters.The first chapter explores modern man's mental predicament by analyzing Mr.Sammler's helplessness in the face of alienation and isolation,his agony of suffering from madness and his anxiety of experiencing moral bankruptcy.The second chapter mainly discusses modern man's living dilemma in social life by analyzing the natural and social environments in which Mr.Sammler lives,his experience of suffering the threat of crimes and violence as well as his experience of alienation and disharmonyof interpersonal relations.The third chapter examines modern man's salvation by analyzing how Mr.Sammler regains inner consultation and identity consciousness,embraces the young generation with love and responsibility,and reconciles himself with the chaotic world.The conclusion part summarizes the main points of this thesis,arguing that as a representative of modern people,Mr.Sammler makes his efforts to seek salvation and gets out of trouble when suffering from mental predicament and living dilemma to reveal that modern man should maintain a positive and optimistic attitude toward life and future,which shows Bellow's humanistic solicitude for modern people and their living circumstances.