The Decline Of The Traditional Jewish Community And The Protagonist’s Identity-Reconstruction In Mr.Sammler’s Planet

Known as the literary successor of Hemingway,Faulkner and Fitzgerald,Saul Bellow(1915-2005)is the first American Jewish writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature.As one of Bellow’s masterpieces,Mr.Sammler’s Planet is imbued with Bellow’s thoughts on major issues such as human nature,history,religion,human past and future,with interior monologues full of thinking and critical power,presenting us with a panoramic view of American society in the 1960s,an era that easily makes people feel being marginalized and alienated,with the interweaving of the old and the new,the prevalence of radicalism and individualism,chaos and turbulence.Due to the diversity and complexity of the novel’s theme and style,critics hold mixed views,but in general,the positive attitude still prevails.In light of community theory,by analyzing the decline of the community consciousness among the American Jews in the 1960s against their dual cultural background and the reasons behind it,this thesis aims to explore the protagonist’s identity crisis in relation to the decline and the corresponding strategies he adopts for identity-reconstruction.The analysis reveals that,as a result of modernization and encounter with the American culture featuring individualism and materialism,the traditional Jewish community delineated as spatially bounded,tight-knit networks that serve as support for friendship,kinship and place attachment has significantly declined in America of the 1960s,turning to be disperse,decentralized and diverse.Consequently,many Jewish Americans,including Mr.Sammler,suffer the fracture of traditional culture,spiritual confusion and psychological alienation.To balance these negative forces,Mr.Sammler actively plays the role of the Jewish intellectual,endeavoring to influence the younger generation in the chaotic era.By means of memory and discursive strategies,he maintains the continuity and stability of his own identity,showing his inclusive attitude towards people of different colors and different nationalities,conveying his humanitarian concern about the trend of the whole human community across the boundaries of race and nation.The findings are not only conducive to enriching the research perspective of Bellow’s novels,but also to promoting the research from the perspective of the community theory in the domestic literary circles and expanding the academic value and practical value of literary research.