Spiritual Crisis Of American Jewish Intellectuals In More Die Of Heartbreak

Saul Bellow,an American Jewish writer,is a great cross-century writer.During his lifetime,he created a large number of modern novels with Jewish cultural flavor,showing the unique life experience and spiritual crisis of Jewish intellectuals in American society.More Die of Heartbreak is a novel written by Saul Bellow in his later period,which describes the plight of two Jewish intellectuals,Benn,a professor of botany,and his nephew Kenneth.Benn is not recognized by the society because of the addiction to botany.And Benn loses in the spiritual crisis because he falls into the trick of marriage and loses the intimate connection with plants.Kenneth,struggling between two different women,loses in the spiritual crisis because he could not protect Benn from harm or realize his desire for love and family.The novel depicts the spiritual returning process of American Jewish intellectuals in modern society under the predicament of anxiety,rootlessness,contradiction between love and career,and conflicts between desire and morality.This thesis adopts the method of close reading.Based on the social and cultural backgrounds,starting from two levels of spiritual wandering and escape,this thesis analyzes the image of intellectuals who are confused between American mainstream culture and Jewish culture,as well as their escape from the failure of marriage and love and career stagnation,which deepens the understanding of the spiritual crisis faced by Bellow’s intellectuals.At the same time,this thesis explores the way Benn and Kenneth get rid of their spiritual predicament.By returning to nature and society,they protect the ideal kingdom and seek the missing beauty of human nature.Finally,the thesis comes to the conclusion that the spiritual crisis faced by Benn and Kenneth reflects the ideological reality of the whole American Jewish intellectuals,and their life course provides useful reference for contemporary American intellectuals to seek the meaning of life.