Remembering Or Forgetting

Saul Bellow is one of the most well-known and outstanding American Jewish writers,having won the Nobel Prize,the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Award.This thesis,based on Jan Assmann's “cultural memory” and the postwar social background of the United States,aims to revisit the Holocaust memory in Saul Bellow's Mr.Sammler's Planet and attaches great importance to revisiting different groups in the postwar American society,such as the Jewish Holocaust survivors,the second generation of the Holocaust survivors and the outsiders of the Holocaust,who focus on the different aspects of the Holocaust,accept different Holocaust memories and take advantage of the Holocaust out of different reasons,hoping to prove that different embodiments of the Holocaust memory have shown the specific demands of different groups by exploiting the Holocaust as a discourse for power or rights or privileges,which are closely related to the complex situations of the postwar American society,and that Saul Bellow's multidimensional representations of the Holocaust memory reflect his careful and meticulous observation of and profound thinking about the complex situations of the postwar American society.Mr.Sammler,the protagonist,is the witness,victim and survivor of the Holocaust.The Holocaust causes him such great pains that he cannot get rid of his Holocaust memory and he cannot help recalling the Holocaust.Although Mr.Sammler lives in America after WWII,the haunting Holocaust memory makes it difficult for him to integrate into the American society.Although people around him respect him and take good care of him,they pay more attention to pursuing a better material life.No one really cares about his Holocaust experiences,let alone feeling the same way about his painful Holocaust memory.Confronted with this situation,Mr.Sammler is separated from the outside world,even from himself.It is a great relief that,despite experiencing the loneliness of estrangement from the outside world,he always keeps a positive attitude and spares no effort to seek redemption.Mr.Sammler eventually walks out of the shadows of the Holocaust memory and gets rebirth through his firm belief.As the second generation(including Mr.Sammler's daughter Shula,his son-in-law Eisen,and his nephew Dr.Gruner)of the Holocaust survivor,their elder generation's Holocaust memory subtly influence them so that they inevitably experience or know the Holocaust spiritually.After WWII,the American society was full of violence,chaos,and radicalism.And the existence of anti-Semitism makes them caught in a dilemma between preserving the Holocaust memory,admitting the Jewish identity and forgetting the Holocaust memory,giving up the Jewish identity to integrate into the American mainstream.However,the Jewish values are deeply rooted within their hearts.The more they want to get rid of the Holocaust memory,the harder it is to release their Jewish nature.When the global community increasingly pay attention to the Holocaust and grant certain privileges to Jews,the second generation of the Holocaust survivors speculatively embrace their Jewish identity and reach a reconciliation with the Holocaust memory.The outsiders of the Holocaust do not pay attention to the Holocaust memory that has nothing to do with their own interests.The black group(represented by the black pickpocket)compete against the Jewish group(represented by Mr.Sammler)for seeking the identity of the victim and certain privileges,thus the conflicts between these two groups are becoming more and more obvious.The white Americans(represented by Feffer)keep the attitude towards anti-Semitism secretly and publicly,all they care about is to take advantage of the Jewish victim identity to seek privileges for themselves.Mr.Sammler's rescuer Cieslakiewicz keeps very different attitudes towards him during and after WWII,reflecting the mentality of the ordinary people who want to return to a normal life after the war.All in all,the Jewish writer Saul Bellow multi-dimensionally presents the Holocaust memory that the Jewish Holocaust survivors,the second-generation of the Holocaust survivors and outsiders of the Holocaust choose to preserve,which reflects the actual appeal hidden in their attention,acceptance and utilization of the Holocaust memory in the postwar American society,showing the complex situations of the postwar American society and providing a reference for understanding the identity construction of different groups of the postwar American society.