Dilemma In Humboldt's Gift

Saul Bellow reveals “common plight,alienation and self-lost in human existence” in his works and attracts much attention from critics in recent more than half century.No one should simply categorize his works to Jewish literature.Nevertheless,Bellow often adopts Jews as the characters in his works and recalls Jewish history while analyzing the reality and expecting for the future.Bellow's vital work Humboldt's Gift displays the description of the fate of two generations of Jewish writers,the oppression and destruction of spiritual civilization in the material world and spiritual crisis in the contemporary world.With the rapid development over times,however,Jewish culture is not the same as before.In the conflicts with American dominant culture,it is assimilated and deviates itself to some degree.The thesis aims at conducting literary and cultural study in Humboldt's Gift.The cultural connotation will be revealed by understanding the choices of the protagonists in the crash of Jewish culture and WASP(White,Anglo-Saxon,Protestantism)with the guidance of close reading.Although some critics have explored the theme of alienation or Jewish culture in the novel,they just have a touch of it and do not discuss how the protagonists deviate and return to Jewish traditions in a heterogeneous culture.Jewishness in Humboldt's Gift is not as conspicuous as Bellow's other works like Herzog or I.B.Singer's most works.Thus,it is important to notice the metaphoric or symbolic meanings in every detail and analyze discourse and signs with backgrounds.Combining precedent research papers about thematic study on Jewish culture,this paper tries to dig out how the protagonists with double identities deviate and return to traditional Jewish culture in the age of American culture turbulence,including cultural conflicts,assimilation,transference,etc.