Chapter - VII

CONCLUSION

No doubt, Saul Bellow is one of the most reputed novelists of the

post-war American fiction. In his fiction, Bellow has recorded the human
condition and temper of the period that emerged after the Second World War a
historical sense marked by tension and tedium, social misfits, psychopaths and
absurdity of the post-modern years. He has been also projected the modern
angst in his works. It has been presented decadent culture, dehumanization,
abuse of sex, lust for power, drunks and murderers in the modern American
society. It reveals man’s encounters with the contemporary reality. Obviously,
it is an intellectual enquiry into the basic questions related to precarious human
existence. It is clear that Bellow’s works are the outcome of the modern
situation. His novels are the platforms of the existing intellectual disposition.
They deal with both potential despair and human possibility. They also present
the ills of modern society and dehumanization of personality.

The present thesis makes a thoroughly intensive and critical study of

Bellow’s novels in terms of the modern society. In other words it presents the
disorientated nature of modern society. His novels are a rare document of
present tension and stress, modern anxieties and absurdities. Bellow’s work
also describes the concept of marital love and marital conflicts. They highlight
the factors like male and female insecurity, lack of communication, sexual
dysfunction, extra – material relationships, divorce and single-parent family.
The present study evaluates Saul Bellow as a Post-War American novelist who
has presented a clear picture of his age and commented on the lapses of law
and order in the modern society. His work discovers how the impact of modern
American society on their protagonists is responsible in rendering them
victims, adventures or survivors. Bellow’s fiction is concerned for man, for self
and for individual. It stands for the anxiety at the miserable condition of human

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life in post – modern period. To Bellow, the present attitudes and motions
about society, human nature, class, sex, equality and liberty in the community
of modern society is false.

Bellow has explained in the fiction an analytical account of his times as

regards the human condition and social disorder. He has declined all evil
notions and customs. He knows himself with the rise and fall of mankind. He
regrets how the modern society has severely affected the process of
dehumanization. In such a crisis, Bellow hopes to establish the supremacy of
humanity. It may be perceived in private life, in personal loyalties, in social
contact, in sex habits, in crime and in drug addiction and so on. Bellow
describes the modern situation in his novels and expresses his sympathy for the
neglected backward society. However, Bellow’s novels are influenced by the
face of modern affairs, modern violence and even modern thinking. He further
advocates the modern forces reject not only the self but also the expression of
its vision. The novels project the historical mire in which men live. It contains
transcendental insertions, spiritual intentions which are the significant direction
of his work. Bellow speaks not only of the modern situation but also of human
vision and chaos of the modern life. He takes interest in the historical process
which has the backbone of the American culture in decay. This decay is mostly
found in all American Urban cities chiefly in two American Cities Chicago and
New York. These two cities are the settings of most of his novels. There he
finds hollowness and emptiness of heart. The narrator tries to search for the
self, the inner voice and the identity of the self. Effectively, he does not present
a comic scene. He shows man’s absurdity, madness and perplexed position.
Most of Bellow’s novels have a fictional form which is highly open to
changing historical powers. According to Bellow, all men are indeed suffering
jokers and abused personalities. The novels emphasize the question of their
place in society between the crisis of faith and personal identity. Therefore,
Bellow’s novels are engines of human enquiries and the condition of the mass
society. In other words, they represent the modern American society. As a
result, America has entered into the Second World War and the novelist has

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seen the death and disorder in the war and such incidents has mentioned in his
fiction. Leslie Fiedler has pointed out that Bellow’s hero is the chiefly Jewish
hero, well-versed in suffering and survival persecution and accommodation. In
fact, such a hero has become the model of the modern society. The novels also
portray the Jewish tradition and it gives him with human faith and adoration of
life in the dark world of the post modernism. Such Jewish tradition has made
him the pioneer novelist of the modern society.

The modern novelists-Dreiser, Conrad, Camus, Dostoevsky, Sartre and

Kafka have impressed Bellow. From such writers Bellow has taken peculiar
merits especially he takes a debt to Dreiser for his naturalism which depicted
the chaotic conditions of the American society. He has borrowed several
sources from his predecessor novelists. Such sources are mostly applicable to
Bellow’s works. It presents the fiction of a troubled age and they claim how the
modern man has been converted into a disorientated and displaced person. It
reflects a cultural conflict which contains no humane substance and no moral
bias. It also stress on money, power, murder divorce, anarchy, materialistic
possessiveness and sex. There fore, Bellow’s novels try to rediscover the moral
humanism to reduce suffering and sorrow.

Bellow’s writing is humanist but it is not the humanism of the past. It

expresses an acute modern concern, a concern for searching his object within a
contemporary situation - a situation associated with crisis and loss. The
Bellovia are social and realistic and it is referred to history in individual and
community. The plots have a liberal rhythm and they are hero – centre to a
degree unusual in modern fiction. The hero always gives his name to the novel.
He is a man and often a Jew. He is the most experienced in the life of the
world, like Sammler and Humboldt. He is a well educated writer or an
intellectual. He is too much anxious about self and is mostly to be found
excelling his solitude. He is eager about Mind. Indeed Bellow’s intentions have
always remained very moral. The heroes are generally men of love, dependent
on the world. But they are quite aloof from the existing situation. Bellow

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knows that the novel as a metaphysical or philosophical instrument. The view
of community or civility tends towards metaphysics and transcendence; hence
his version of history tends towards anarchy and chaos.

Generally, in Bellow’s novels the world is a quite material and it has

systematic process referring a high cost of consciousness. The hero is a “man
of suffering joker”. His heroes’ are modern men living in a mental world. He
writes of burdened, alienated and important people. He believes that a man
should have sufficient power to overcome ignominy and he does not reject
conditions of alienation and power. But he stresses on the power of the
imagination. He again emphasizes that we are not gods and beasts but savages
of a somewhat damaged, he feels that he is not struggling so much against the
current of modern life especially the current of modern American society.
According to Lionel Trilling, Bellow as a spokesman against the culture of
what he calls the “second environment.” However, Bellow refuses to involve
himself in the romantic tradition of alienation. He also rejects the denigration
of the ordinary life. The novels are the defense of human dignity and human
possibilities. His humanism is not viable in Chicago but he tries throughout the
novel. He sees the signs of men’s common humanity. So, he defends traditional
humanistic values – individuality, moral integrity, brotherhood and love.
Whitman can celebrate himself and humanity because he makes a poetic
merger and they become one. He says:

“I celebrate myself and sing myself

And what I assume you shall assume

For every atom belonging to me as well belongs to you.”

But Bellow is unable to perform such magic in his novels. The modern
age is an age of superpower, but the post - modern civilization has many flaws
in it. Apparently, it presents capable of fostering madness, materialism and
inadequate knowledge. The new technology has made our life more
comfortable but now a day everyone is facing the disorientated nature of
modern society. Such age has the general features as isolation, loss of moral
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values, alienation, hatred, corruption and fragmentation. The outbreak of First
World War has challenged belief in humanism and uprooted the previous
system and gave rise to alienation. The materialistic world has affected human
relationship. It decays moral values and traditions. Hence, Wasteland and
Darkness became the perfect symbol to describe the modern world. T. S.
Eliot’s remarkable poem ‘The Wasteland’ gives the Vedanta philosophy of
“Datta Dayadhvam, Damyata” to find profound peace in the modern society.
W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming” gives the horrible image of the
contemporary society. Consequently, the Post-War Europen literature is
presented absurdity, fear, pessimism and alienation. The warfare atmosphere
provides a sense of despair and a sense of loss in humanity. Disorder in law,
chaos and Violence are the harsh realities of the modern world. In his novels,
Bellow explains the nature of modern man and the difficulties he has faced.
The conflict between good and evil, desire for power and lust are
preoccupations in all his works. The Bellow hero tries to solve the arising
problems and thinks that life is not full of frustration.

Bellow’s themes and style are found in the social, political, economical
moral features of the modern technocratic society. Mostly his work shed light
on the problems of modern society. He sees the modern society is disorientated
due to the influence of the western world. It is full of complex and perplexed. It
has tremendous fear and disbelief. It lacks the harmony and peace. The social
and economic structure of the society is an absolutely collapsed. The modern
society has lacked the self identity. So, the term of alienation and loss of
identity are recognized as symptoms of modern man’s crisis. It denotes the loss
of self, anxiety, fear pessimism, madness and disorder. Bellow observes that
modern man has become machine. He has been separated from the society.
Hence, the theme of alienation has become predominant in the novels of
Bellow. Such novels present the crisis of man, his alienation from the existing
world but Bellow’s hero tries to live peaceful life.

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 Bellow is fully believes in man’s potentialities. He thinks that human
being has the potentiality to overcome the obstacles and they can become the
masters of their own destiny. He further adds that man’s destiny is within
himself and again believes that the heroes are responsible for their miserable
condition. He mentions their conflict their struggle and their patience to solve
their problems. But the novelist is puzzled because of the materialistic world.
So, he needs to orient to relentless such crucial position. Incidentlly, Bellow
heroes fail to know themselves and cannot understand the truth of common life.
They fail to connect the ordinary people.

The protagonists of Saul Bellow are bold, struggler, sufferer and

survivor. They are victims of the disintegrated world and they have failed to
rise above their fate. They have failed to confront a world where there are
illusion and decadences. There is a secret power in the hands of evil minded,
selfish and irrational creatures. ‘The self’ of the protagonist is always alert to
the historical presence. From Joseph to Sammler, Bellow’s character’s have the
same struggle. Such kind of struggle between the self and the society is
perceived in post-modern fictional works. In the survival novels the
protagonists feel miserable as they are persecuted by their social and political
conditions. Their fear is how to survive amid tragic conditions. They are
victims of nihilism and make a journey from nihilism to meaningfulness. They
face the tragedy of life in a comic spirit and their love and concern to nihilism
which has over powered the modern period. They also face life amidst tortures
and tensions and project the human condition of modern society. Actually, they
are the product of miserable human condition. It means Bellow presents
uncertainties of the modern world.

Mr. Sammler’s Planet is Bellow’s survival novel which unfolds the life
of the whole of mankind. It presents the modern crisis of culture – a – culture
that has associated with drug – addiction, family disintegration, sexual
primitivism, violence, loss of manners and quest for self – identity. He sees in
America a culture in decay. The novel presents an anxious angst and

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apocalyptic conditions of modern society. It describes how a dark history is
connected to the planet in the form of “the privileges and the free ways of
barbarism, under the protection a civilized order, property, rights, refined
technological organization and so on” (Bradburry,22). The setting of the novel
provides the perplexed condition of New York, city. It is the place wasted,
crime – ridden and sexually abused. Here, human consciousness is judged by
force and anarchy. The protagonist, Sammler is a survivor of the World War.
He is an old man who has experienced the promises and horrors of the
twentieth century life. He sees the historical present from a distance. Like
Bellow’s other heroes Sammler trusts for what he knows is a decent life. He
has seen student’s revolt, pickpocket gang, violent mobs and sexual affairs. In
fact, he is a post-holocaust voice. Sammler is faced the existential feeling of
alienation and loss of faith. He is a true experience of the modern apocalypset:
He is a Polish Jew in his seventies and an independent creation. He is too much
experienced to judge the world and observes the external world very minutely.

Sammler is dangled between order and chaos. The world is not too
different from the other protagonist of Bellow. The protagonists are surrounded
by liars, cheaters and even betrayers. They steal money and cheated friends and
relatives. Sammler is caught between human and non - human states, between
full and void and between hope and despair. He walks the streets of New York
with frustrate mood but he is a messenger of ill tidings. He faces reality in New
York city with its noisy streets, foul reckless striking automobiles and
wandering drunkards. As a result, Sammler feels nervous and he a hero who
experiences the America of the Sixties. He is not over powered by his thinking.
Through Sammler, Bellow tries to depict the human condition of the American
society. Sammler is a unique part of society and has curiosity about life.
Because of anarchy in the society he is alienated. In the American World,
Sammler faces many unpleasant experiences. He is troubled by a student
activist during his lecture of the Columbia University. Incidentlly, He expels
the lecture and leave the hall thinking on the new critical standards, the youth
rebels and revolt. The idea of sexual affair is mixed with culture.

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 However, the novel Mr. Sammler’s Planet is concerned with the global
history and it records the human condition of the seventies. Sammler is a
survivor of the Holocaust. He thinks that the earth as his planet and now sees
the changing human ways. To some critics, the moon is as his planet because
he hears of another human settlement on the moon. He knows that there is no
another substitute for the earth and rejects the concept of Dr. Lal and
emphasizes on man’s survival on the earth. Dr. Lal is Sammler’s foil.
According to Dr. Lal life on the moon seems to be problematic. It is a nihilistic
approach of escaping the human condition. He believes if the moon were to be
colonized then the major problem of human population on the earth would be
partly solved. Sammler is not agrees with the writers of culture history which is
connected with past historical conditions. But he is too much sensitive about
the problem of over population. He is optimistic person who believes in
intellectual survival and makes him to consider the earth as a glorious planet.
But he says as, “everything was being done to make it – intolerable to abide”
(Bellow, 215).

Sammler feels that modern life has become planetary and the individual
habitually lives in the modern world. Therefore, the world has wide
dissemination of culture, of information and technology gives new way of life
to the mass – man. These individuals are vanished the children of the youth
culture of America. Elya Gruner’s children, Angela and Wallace express their
ingratitude to their parents. Thus, the American youth culture is disorientated.
To him, morality and human nobility involve in one’s obligations to others. Mr.
Sammler again relates his present experience of modern America. He observes
that the American society is concerned with its egoistic desires without
obligation. This is a universal scene as it is founded on the latest mass
organization. It releases barbarian urges in individuals Sammler believes that
human life is sacred. So, the friends a fellow believer in Elya Gruner who
becomes the icon figure for Sammler’s view of life. He is fully aware of Elya’s
involvement in the corruption of the society. Sammler tries to reconcile with

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the materialistic world and balanced with the spiritual and the physical world.
He feels that there is darkness in the modern world and he says Angela Gruner:

I am not sure that this is the most of all times. But it is in the air
now that things are falling apart, and I am affected by it. I always
hated people who declared that it was the end? From personal
experience, from the grave if I may say so, I know something
about it. But I was flat, dead wrong (Bellow, 278).

Thus, the novel Mr. Sammler’s Planet is the novelist’s dissenting note. It
gives a brief account of the human race and its survival and just apposes past
and present. At the end of the novel, Sammler establishes a human bond with
the people around him. He finds more interest in others. He has purposefully
maintained a human bond with the other people.

Sammler fights with many youngsters whom he does not understand.

Each of them is associated with sex, crime and corruption as their driving
passion. Shula, his daughter steals the manuscript of Dr. Govind Lal. Such is an
act of lawlessness or becoming contemporary Angela takes more interest
variety in sex. Her brother becomes a homosexual and Eisen is obsessed with
modern art. These affairs are experienced by Sammler. The in authenticity of
the protagonist arises out of their boredom of their day to day lives. Elya
Gruner suffers from a fatal ailment and thinks about death. So, the novel
becomes a search for stability and meaning in immoral modern society. In this
novel, Bellow tries to highlight the modern history and Sammler’s search for a
rational to live in this planet. Most of the people are assumed that moon is a
suitable habitant to escape from the earthly problems. The novel gives insights
into understanding of the disorientated nature of modern society.

Bellow’s fiction portrays new consciousness characterized by disaster,

victimization and madness. It reflects a perspective picture of the modern
society. Its form and technique are familiar to those of the preceding age. It is
quite different from its tone, spirit and character. It is not creation of the
socialist and no dividing line between imaginative and aesthetic fantasy. It is

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the exposition of “the basic inequities and inherent selfishness of the human
condition, the human woes and agonies as a result of the ruthless ambition of
the high-ups” (C. Barry Chabot,). Indeed, the novels are melancholic and
morbid because they reveal the previous era. Again they present emotions
which are minutely touched by historical conditions and social victimization.
They are connected with the intellectual tradition of Europe which referred
naturalism to delineate bleak and harmful human condition. The protagonists of
the novels are alienated from the society and lonely explorers of the wasteland.
Their mental state is quite puzzled and skeptics. They try to search no essence
in existence. “They are like an agent who seeks to bring nature and good faith
back to both himself and the outward world by discovering an adequate act or
commitment, self surrender making for self discovery” (Broadbury, 36).

Right from his first novel Dangling Man (1944) to Ravelstein (2000)
Bellow’s work exhibits cultural conflict of the modern society. The heroes are
not aware of the reasons for their alienation from the modern society. They are
also unaware of the social realities in America and that has dragged them to the
point of dehumanize. They are too much sensitive and feel the emotional
discomfort in the modern civilization. Bellow always focuses on the lives of
American cities especially Chicago and New York. The work again stresses on
the basic problems of the modern technocratic society. He is sensitive to the
new developments that are growing in the urban cities. Such cities are become
the living monument of man’s collective actions. In short, the cities – Chicago
and New York are fully crowded with people and noise, smoke and filth.

Saul Bellow’s characters are city dweller because he is a city writer. In

his novels, the novelist depicts a direct relationship between his protagonists
and the city atmosphere. Therefore, the heroes are always search the structural
pattern of the modern society. He again thinks that the modern man is unable to
explain the society because he is revelry suffered from the problems of the
urban society. The city society compels to know the social pressures and
threatens to destroy modern civilization.

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 It is an universal work of post - modern literature which is characterized
by a loss of self, sense of humor, scruple of moral ambiguity and disorientated
position of the modern civilization. Instances of chaos and anarchy, loss of
identity and divorces can be found in Humboldt’s Gift, The Dean’s December,
More die of Heartbreak and Ravelstein. Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift is a unique
work which stresses on the predicament of an artist whose rise and fall in the
professional world has described effect on marital life. The protagonist of the
novel Charlie Citrine is a victim of marital life. His incapability with the victim
wife Denise is rooted in his obsessive idealization of an adolescent affair with
Demmie, Doris, Scheldt and Renata upset their marital stability. In fact, the
marriages of Humboldt and Kathleen as well as Charlie and Denise are
considered as conflict – habituated marriages. Bellow follows the regular
theme of divorce and separation. However, conflict in the Charlie – Dense
relationships does not solve the rising issues. It becomes responsible for
separation and divorce. Denise an acutely accuses Charlie of not maintaining
good relationships and responsibilities to his family. Due to their untruth
relationships they lived meaningful life. Charlie makes a comment on the
American family.

She may think she’s offering me the blessings of an American

marriage. Real Americans are supposed to suffer with their
wives, and wives with husbands. Like Mr. and Mrs. Abraham
Lincoln. It’s the classic US grief, and a child of immigrants like
me, ought to be grateful. For a Jew it’s a step up (Bellow, 41).

As an American poet, Humboldt himself feels like a boy, a comic and a

fool. In this relationship with Kathleen, Humboldt takes the patriarchal role of a
Jewish male. He never opposed the man who loves his wife as much as himself
and treats her more gently than himself. He rarely permits Kathleen to drive to
the supermarket without him. It means there is no loyalty in their relationships.
Actually, the novel deals with the fate of an artist in quest of success. It has two
heroes Humboldt and Citrine. The latter is achieved fame and name. But the

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former is superiors and dies in poverty and frustration. Citrine has great
sympathy to Humboldt but he is related in the world of money, power, violence
and abuse. He is intentionally dragged into a law court by his wife for divorce.
Jealousy and sexual delusions are basic among them. To Bellow, a person who
fails to carryout his marital life will easily end up as a social bondage.
Humboldt becomes a public fool after Kathleen’s disappearance from Rocco’s
Restaurant on Thompson Street. He charges Magnasco of hiding her in his
room at the Hotel Earle.

The novel is Bellow’s commentary on the ill thinking and rationalism

and naturalism of modern thinking. As we know, Citrine is shown in crisis. His
emotional, financial, social and intellectual condition has begun to disintegrate.
Citrine’s wife, Renata is living in an extravagant and fashionable life style. She
has gone on a trip to Europe at his expenses and latter marries an
entrepreneurial funeral director Flonzaley. He suffers because of Cantabile’s
friend Stronson who had made a fraud in federal securities and charges of
murder against him. All these odds are faced and overcome by Charlie.
Fortunately, Charlie is remained at the top of his career earning. He has got
good friends and most power man. On the contrary, Humboldt is facing poverty
and death. Charlie runs away from Humboldt instead of supporting him but he
represents to Charlie free life. Howard Eiland put him to be “an apotheosis of
Bellow’s long standing Whitmanesque desire to be all things” (Howard, 105).
Hence, Humboldt’s falls is responsible Citrine to come in the flash. It turns the
past into the present. The past is connected with Humboldt and his senior is
responsible for his illustrious career. But they have respect for each other and
declared a bond of friendship. Humboldt is not only Charlie’s higher
consciousness but also the unique sources of his materialistic ambitions.

Finding the frustration and disintegration of Humboldt, Charlie knows

that the burden of selfhood is highly in the modern society. The inner miracle
of art is lost into the materialistic world. Charlie claims that love is the
important force needed to battle word’s distractions. He further says that “love

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is a power that cannot leave us alone… because we owe our existence to acts of
love performed before us, because love is a standing debt of the soul” (Bellow,
190). Finally, Citrine concludes that the spirit exists and the physical body is
agent of the spirit and it’s result. So, he emphasizes on a long mediation in a
hotel room in Madrid to drive away his Chicago distractions. In Humboldt’s
Gift, we find the protagonist fails to achieve his mission because of the
perplexed position of the society and tries to transcend them but most of the
individual is compromised with money, sex, power and abuse but they are
subjected to their existing environment of Chicago and New York. They are
also caught among contending versions of history. Charlie, the protagonist is
cheated by lawyers, co-men and common men. Therefore, Bellow remains one
of the major serious novelists, because he tries to reconcile mind in all its
resource and confusion. To him, life is itself absurd, extravagant and connected
with material forces.

Bellow’s mind is based on a sense of humanity. He is to represent the

need in the ordinary and the protagonists keep examining the people around
them. They are mostly flashes of the human condition. He is able through the
different destinities of his various heroes, to project the smells and colors of
urban reality. Again he has been enchanted by the play of movement in
circumstances. Bellow is achieved popularity as a writer in a period when a
stylistic and aesthetic climate was forming. The Jewish writers have the sense
of traditional alienation and exile. Bellows novels are generally moved toward
the salvaging of a liberal form. It records the history of modern and modernity
century. The novels show both the challenge and the indeterminacy of the
solutions. The persistent theme of man’s mortality is found in Demnie’s death,
Humboldt’s death, his burial and reburial in Renata’s husband. Hence,
Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift depicts his feeling for the madness of modern urban
life. He observes the sterile landscape of the modern city. The hero survives the
pain and indifference of this world as he had survived mass shooting and literal
perspectives. Humboldt’s death conveys Citrine to realize the importance of
“inner life”. Citrine triumphs over his inhibitions and is able to go more ahead.

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So, Bellow concludes that human being can be saved from the death of the
soul. The work is soaked in American experience. It is not associated with the
tradition of any of his predecessors in American fiction. He is not only sees
them as the shaping forces of American literature but of American history and
culture. Consequently Bellow rejects both orthodox optimism and orthodox
pessimism. The major characters face the psychological conflicts. It means
Bellow’s heroes contain both the heroic self and the ordinary self.

In ‘The Dean’s December’ Bellow records generally comic and

fanatically detailed record of the human experience and habitat. Albert Corde is
the key figure in the novel. He is the middle-aged Dean of a Chicago college,
journeys to Bucharest with his mistress to see his dying mother –in-law.
However, the protagonist of the novel has published a series of articles about
Chicago describing the corruption of the political and judicial systems and the
scope of inner city – its degradation and criminality. In Bucharest, the
government is tyrannical, but the people are warm and help each other. In
America the government is good but the well-off are corrupt and selfish. The
book has raised many puzzling questions. Bellow again deserves credit for
referring Chicago’s corruption and its destitute black neighborhoods. He
further states that scientists are mostly antihuman. Humanists are ignorant and
radicals are fools. Journalists have no courage to reveal truth. America itself is
facing violence, chaos and anarchy. Chicago is an absolutely ruined. Bucharest
is hideous our and December is cold and damp. The novel is organized many
series of flesh backs especially the decadent culture of Europe and America. In
other words it describes the historical condition of the modern society. The
novel again raises many questions in respect of man’s mortality, man’s real
being and the totalitarian system of the communists. The heroes of this period
face depression, money crisis, fear, uncertainty and even unemployment. They
try in vain to go beyond their social reality and history. Basically, all Bellow’s
novels are set in two American cities, Chicago and New York, the former is the
centre of Dangling Man. The Dean’s December, whereas the latter is the seat of
The Victim, Seize the Day, Mr. Sammler’s Planet. Both the centers appear in

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Herzog and Humboldt’s Gift. But Henderson the Rain King is laid in the
Hundson Valley of America. Bucharest the metropolis city of Romania is
presented in The Dean’s December. All there settings are reputed urban places.
According to Bellow, Chicago is a “cultureless city pervaded nevertheless by
mind” (Bellow, 70). The novel is comic but is portrays the world of crime and
power, fashionable styles, violent sensibility and boredom. The novelist also,
tries to project the post-modern era-specially the modern chaos in the
collapsing Western culture. But he decides to absorb this chaos while
maintaining a basic humanity. The protagonists are become the victims of
nihilism. Through his characters Bellow presents human condition.

The works has demonstrated a basic disparity between action and idea or
between image and symbol. But such disparities become more apparent with
each successive novel. To Bellow, the idea of order, human solidarity and mass
society is so important and he makes some symbolic reaffirmation of that
opinion and idea in the conclusion of his works. He has presented the urban
texture of smells and heats, the humor, the indifference, the brutal movement of
people in crowds and fancy style of the rich people. The heroes are sentimental
at the loss of a remembered landmark, urban blight and the changing ethnic
tides of settlement. As a comic writer, Bellow has establishes a poised balance
between the buffoonery of his heroes and the seriousness of what they
represent.

Bellow develops his realistic style. It becomes more suggestive “unreal”

complex. Actually, he gives the descriptions of the ugly city – the ugliness of
such city is more interesting. The style is concerned with the tensions,
oppositions and polarities of existence moha versus spirit, time versus eternity,
Jew versus Gentle, father versus son, men versus women, and rooms versus
voyages and reflections versus themselves. These styles are organized and
mastered symbolizes deeper message. In fact, the novelist can govern his
problems and internal wars.

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 Again the novels show present uncertainties because every change in the
literature is more remarkable. It remains parallel to the other spheres of life. He
is mainly thinking citizen of his time and has absorbed in himself its meaning,
its despair, its anxiety and its hopefulness. Bellows heroes are very different.
They make an attempt to go beyond their time. The novels emphasize on the
intimate relationship between the self and the society. It mostly deals with
questions of human existence in the world. It also refers the study of the wars
and revolutions.

The novelist’s marital life is reflected in The Dean’s December. The

long year marital disharmony shows the twentieth century urban America. He
thinks that a pragmatic, realistic view of marriage with some rules and
commonsense will keep the marital life happy. But in western marriages, the
concept of marriage is based on lofty and disbelief because such marriage
requires the husband and wife after marriage to adjust their lust and temper. He
does not like the concept of pleasure as stated in Freud’s theory. He also rejects
Freud’s stress on sexuality and hostility to the spiritual temperament. Corde’s
relationship with Valeria is the central theme of the novel. Their relationship
denotes the depth of Corde’s capacity to love. Bellow further describes the
nature of Corde and Valeria’s relationship during a hospital visit.

More Die of Heartbreak focuses on male’s inability to communicate

well with the opposite sex. Male insecurity, lack of passion, marital sex,
communication gap, female frigidity and separation are the main issues under
consideration in this novel. Benn Crader, the protagonist of the novel is unable
to maintain enough relationship with Caroline Bunge and Matilda Layamon.
Similarly, in the Kenneth Trachtenberg and Treckie relationship one can
discern sexual incompatibility. Treckie is sexually more energetic whose
demands are not carted to by Kenneth. Benn is a renowned Professor of
Botany. He admits that he is not handle women properly. Kenneth’s mother
says that Benn “was out of his head with grief, with sex misery. Benn was
backward with girls didn’t understand how to conduct himself” (Bellow, 118).

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Benn’s sense of insecurity makes him frustrated to develop fair relationship
with Caroline Bunge. Thus, Bellow presents the picture of female sexuality as a
important factor male insecurity. Marriage does not maintain Benn’s life. His
unhappiness with his wife Matilda Layamon begins the moment marriage is
leads to a business matter. By marrying the wrong woman Benn entangles
himself in her family. Dr. Layamon is more dedicated to empire building than
to the art of healing. But Benn Carder’s unhappy marriage to Matilda Layamon
results his fall. He has expressed his universal need for love and the heartbreak
brought on by its absence.

The degradation of sex is the another important thread of the novel. It is

a symptom of the devaluation of sex of the modern American society. Kenneth
hopes to transcend the literalness of scientific materialism. He wishes to escape
the closed prison of mere nature and thinks himself a mysterious creature. The
repetition of the statement that more died of heartbreak than of radiation
reflects the novel’s dominant argument of human concerns giving mere
physical existence. The novel is remarkable for its achievement and it is mostly
irrepressible, witty, candid and tolerant. Here, Bellow merges the voices and
perspectives of many characters into one and develops narration. Benn is
chating under the harshness of rational intellect. He dreams that Matilda will be
a kind of Helen who will satisfy his love longings. Bellow through eloquence
and strong images presents a sense of religion. Actually, he is tempted to
become self – righteous, morally secure and pay attention in a political world.
In More Die of Heartbreak, Bellow claims the futility of trying to hold to a
humanist ideology in the modern American civilization. Ken Trachtenberg
remains loyal to his “Project Turning Point.” It means, Bellow’s fiction appears
to be moving further and further beyond and its magnetic attraction. In his
fiction the secret of human being is mostly dedicated to unfolding.

The characters are concerned with the freedom of choice, social affinity
and responsibility, the styles of a good man, the protection of human
individuality. The Bellow protagonists approaches life from the Jewish

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background, has taken a lot of imagery from Biblical background. The work
projects a picture of American Jewish common life. The Bollow’s protagonists
are Jewish and such Jewish background has helped to give moral support and
education for their children. They have devoted their life for the Jewish
community and children have faced ambiguous life. They have associated with
the assimilated and acculturated American life. Bellow’s protagonists try to
function within Old - New World framework and they have no interest in
Jewish affairs. The Bellow protagonists are always beleaguered by personal
problems, laughing and crying and walk at proper times. They think that “life is
a wondrous experience to be enjoyed by the living in the company of others.
All of Bellow’s heroes are in common their rejection of society and they have
limited the life styles of the American society. They are intellectuals who take
more interest in talk and not religious matter. But they are extremely self
indulgent. They love the company of peoples, they are all male. They are
presented as weak but they are good men, intelligent, charming and
affectionate. They played the role of mother, wife or paramour. Generally, in
Bellow’s fiction, the mother figure is usually absent, the wife tries to destroy
her husband, and the paramour hopes to bring him pleasure. But in the Jewish
family, the woman is ruled. She bears to the need of her spouse, domestically
and sexually. She devotes and sacrifices for her family. Bellow follows Jewish
tradition in his presentation of the role of the human. The fricative women are
treated unequally but they are all intelligent, pragmatic women. The wives of
the protagonists are associated with heavy emotions, feelings of inadequacy
and insecurity. It means Bellow’s work depicts the assimilated American
Jewish family. His heroes are weak characters hence they have a fragile
relationship with the world about them. They are very timid and they have not
strength of character. Again, they are not men of action, rather men of reaction.
Here Bellow tries to accurately present the greatness of his characters. He
strongly admits that a weak personality makes for weak relationship with
everything. The protagonists have no family life and they have not presented in
a family situation because Judaism is a family oriented religion. At the present

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time, family life is undergoing a crisis and such social life influences religious
patterns. Incidentally, the family becomes a metaphor for religion. The
protagonists have no sister. The marriages of the protagonists are in the process
of disintegration. They are either divorced or on the verge of one. They loves
their children but failed to influence them. They have strongly motherly ties but
Bellow fails to flourish them.

But Bellow is going to affirm the possibility of meaningful individual

life in America. He is still hopeful to affirm a changed life and an aware of the
cause for despair and sorrow. So, he thinks that the individual must be
redeemed. Through his redemption society will be redeemed. As in so such of
Bellow’s fiction Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Humboldt’s Gift, The Dean’s
December, More Die of Heartbreak and Ravelstein - there is an alienated
heroes struggling to redeem his own life. Bellow is a modern writers, he
believes that a man “should have at least sufficient power to overcome
ignominy and to complete his own life and suffering, feebleness, servitude then
have a meaning. But Bellow believes the power of the imagination should
reveal the greatness of man.” (Bellow, 14).

The novelist knows that modern society has more luxuries than past
societies. He sees an eternal opposition of moha to the spirit. He says that the
only redemption from moha is love. But we are not ready to redeem ourselves
because we ourselves are transformed. Bellow emphasizes the “madness” of
the society and raises several questions about madness. He says “What exactly
is the madness? How does it arise? Later he answers the questions. The basic
factors are narcissism, abstractionism and compulsion because the modern
society does not accept old tradition and customs. He takes a new view of
madness. He looks at it with humour. His major characters reflect the madness
of the entire society. We find madness in Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Humboldt’s
Gift, The Dean’s December and even in More Die of Heartbreak. The modern
society gives more importance to money. Bellow believes that the ‘money’ or
‘style’ means more than love because his characters are failed to accept truth.

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They are an absolutely disorientated and succumb to social regimentation. Now
a day’s people are different. They have no shame. They revolve around money.
Hence, Bellow expresses his bitterness. He cries out: There is no personal
future any more chaos, disorder, war, moha, corruption, sex, cultural conflict,
cultural malaise – these destroy the cyclical flow of time.

The novelist shows his bitterness to the writer who responds by

exaggerating his power to despair. He attracts power and injustice directly and
hotly. But he simply defends his sensibility. His every novel derives from the
conflict between the ideals of a hero and the reality he faces. In recent
American fiction, there has been the victimized child, the lonely youth, the
Negro without identity, the Jew involved in disbelief, self-esteem and self
betrayal. But Bellow does not accept a purely private life; indeed he feels its
shame. He also thinks that the men in power are in some sense barbarians and
refuses to indulge themselves in the romantic tradition of alienation. He is
disgusted with the new literature because he thinks that all persons are same
and they are dismissing characters from novels. He believes that:

Modern literature is not satisfied to dismiss a romantic, outmoded

conception of the self. It rends it, annihilates it. It would rather
have the maddest chaos it can invoke than a conception of life it
found false. But after this destruction, what? (Bellow, 11)

However, Bellow admits that all the distractions of modern life are like
an attempt to think the individual life. He expresses his opinion that the dead is
great, the soul is small and man might be godlike. He is intentionally opposes
the low view of modern man for many reasons and denies to accept the validity
and finality of the agreed picture. He adds that we are a mass society, destroyed
to be shallow and center less. His fiction is to overturn some of realism’s time –
honored traditions. The central idea of Bellow’s fiction appears to be moving
further and further beyond that “magnetic attraction”. The protagonists often
search for a turning point, the quest for a revelation.

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 Bellows works are generally contemporary and are placed among the
directions, tendencies and epistemologies which have given new ways in the
modern novel. The novels press the open fact of American life, the power of
the unmediated and the chaotic force of the American city. As a novelist, he
depicts an urban, mechanical and mass world in which the self may be
displaced or sapped by dominant processes. But Bellow makes his work more
convincing and it touches the classic stock of European modernism. He is a
novelist of different generation and writing is beyond the end of American
pastoral. His novels belong to a new order of American world history and it is
concerned to measure the large questions of human nature against the material
and traditional face of an American life. Bellow developed as a writer in a
period when a peculiar stylistic and aesthetic climate was forming. It was a
period of revived liberalism and raises the reaction against totalitarianism.

Such novels are certainly moved towards the salvaging of a liberal form.
Indeed, they are hero – centered to a degree especially in modern fiction. The
protagonist is concerned with exploring its inward claim and about mind which
is the real source of our suffering. He is associated with the thoughts of
extreme alienation, urgent romantic selfhood and apocalyptic awareness but the
fiction lack of cosmic fit between individual and social mass. It has the endless
proliferation of technologies and system and abstract social relations. Hence,
Bellow novels discover the space and the places. His view about the nature, the
substance and the pressure of historical world has strongly moved toward post-
cultural America and he describes in his own home city of Chicago. Bellow is a
great voice of moral liberalism. He has grown more sensitive and has become a
writer who portrays the contrast between a culturally coherent past and a post
cultural present.

Again culture and corruption are interwoven together in some energetic

and challenging new relationship. Then Bellow has presented an extraordinary
modern gallery of wild wives, sharp intellectuals and men of dubious who are
men of taste. The Dean’s December is a novel of self-dialogue. Its main setting

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is the modern communist Bucharest. It is a Tale of Two cities against
Bucharest and Chicago, a city seen in its wounds, lesions cancers, destructive
fury, and death’ (Bellow, 201).The protagonist of the novel, Corde presents the
worse condition of Chicago. He is one of Bellow’s most muted heroes and He
tries to discover frustrate and angry detachment. So, Bellow’s heroes are ready
to accept such loss as an irremediable condition. They search their freedom in
their adverse situation and the fallen community around them. He attempts to
refuse the new disorder and his heroes have the phonix touch and they modify
their outlook to find reality in the crisis.

Then his fiction tries to tackle the relationship between the sacred and
the profane world and it does not tackle religious ideas but the daily life of his
characters are created on a profane basis. Life is pious and must be protected
from alienation, cultural malaise and chaos. American society is the
wastelands of the modern condition. The heroes discover that the way out of
their tormented intellectual and spiritual wastelands. The protagonists are
ambiguous and these characters don’t get out of their state of becoming and
enter that of being. Everyday they are living in the positive ways. They also
decide to live a worthily life. At the end of the novel, the protagonists fight
against despair, and isolation and frustration. They again make differentiate
between religion and the spiritual birth. The Bellovian characters struggle to
find a way to lead a prosperous life in a society. The modern society is the
doom of the West which means degeneration of life again the modern life is
characterized by physical and psychological violence, poverty, wormless
hearts, spiritual emptiness and discrimination. It has created disintegration with
American social and political system. He believes that each individual is
responsible for his deeds. It is the duty of the every individual is to protect his
fellowman. He further says that every work is important and charged with both
profane and sacred value.

Effectively, Bellow’s Jewish characters are more familiar with the

existence or the non-existence of an American anti-Semitism. Apparently

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Bellow is dealt preciously with the Holocaust in his books and this is reflected
in the Jewish American literature of the 50s-80s. His novels put a romantic
coherence to judge it as a unique work of Post-War American condition. It is
penetrated the author’s commentary on the pessimistic view and the legacies of
Modern thinking. Its main concerns are the corruption, the destructive
rationalism of modern technology, alienation, crime in public life, disbelief and
disrespect and dehumanize. The novelists Bellow attempt to shed light on
modern American society. And his protagonists are feels dangled over the
ethical outrage as he sees dead in the modern society. They cannot escape from
truth and cannot find simplicity within multiplicity, civility within barbarism,
brotherhood within egoistic society.

Bellow’s fiction preciously demonstrates the dead past or dead culture.

He attempts to reveal the self transcending “culture” and its effects. These
novels are densely woven background of historical and social fact. So, the
characters must undergo the terrors of personal and cultural loss. But he speaks
of the modern disintegrated, alienated and distraught consciousness. The
protagonists are constantly suffered from internal fracture and a deep sense of
estrangement, mostly slinked into self doubt. They set out in search of an
authentic self deciding to search the freedom of real being and fall in love with
ideal constructions and tend to live in compulsive, abstract ways. It means,
Bellow’s view of salvation purposes a new kind of greatness for men. The
heroes’ personal life is evaluated, so is the life of each common man and of
society. Man’s life is a thing of dignity of value, of greatness. Bellow’s use of
style is chiefly intended to defend him against the bitterness of life. It is an
expression of love, embracing or celebrating all America. He has mature style
rich in perception and rich in value. It describes concrete images until they find
a place beyond words.

A modern mass society has no open place for improvement No.

vocabulary and dictum for them and ceremony and event which make them
public. As a result they remain private and are mixed with other private things.

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Modern American society has always showed Bellow into making similar
indicament. He has gone through illness and chaos to know his awareness and
fuller recognition of the human life. But life in the modern city is like the three
legged race. However society we are not sure that our ignorance breeds fear
and it wrapped our fear and imagination.

All these five novels of Bellow are consisted of a few events around the
life of the protagonists. They are dominated by a main figure whose life is
concerned with a social order characterized by oppressing and anxieties,
disorder and anarchy and pressures and tensions. All his heroes are victimized
heroes and they live in a world of alienation and mostly the heroes are lived in
the period of 1940s.This was the period of depression, unemployment war,
uncertainty and disbelief the heroes of the novels 1960s and 1970s are silent
sufferers. They cannot endure crime, deceive, defame and tragedy. In Mr.
Sammler’s Planet, the protagonist Sammler strives to bring out modern despair
and he has no way to reconcile with tragedy. Sammler’s interest lies in the
change of the heart. He has the good conduct and the true nature and attempts
to survive in the detached life. He hopes to live a life of disinterestedness,
charity. and civility Citrine admits the weight of ideas and ideals and obey the
advice of his seniors. Humboldt is a genius poet who faces social reality.

As the novel begins Charlie Citrine is seen in crisis. His emotional,

financial and intellectual condition has become verse. His wife Denise has
dragged him of law court of defames him. This was the period of depression
unemployment war, uncertainty and disbelief. The heroes of the novels of the
1960s and his next novel, The Dean’s December expresses the tone of coldness
and extinction of what is moral and immoral. Albert Corde, the protagonist,
presents in the articles the rising crime, the corruption, violence and abuse in
the social life. This act is mounted pressures on Corde. And he is called a
racist. As a result, he has been considered out of bounds in the social circle.
Finally, Corde is puzzled at the loss of ancient virtues from the modern
American society. More Die of Heartbreak is emphasizes in the development of

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character than in the growth of action. Professor Benn Crader, Bellow’s
protagonist in the novel finds the icy wastes of the Arctic tundra more hospital
than an American society in which more people die of heartbreak than of
radiation. Through this novel Bellow severely attack on the rampant
philistinism of American rationalistic and scientific culture in America. So, the
novel explains the futility of trying to hold to a humanist ideology in modern
times. He again claims that there is no cure for the spiritual and emotional
harmony of our time. Ravelstein is Bellow’s final novel. It tells the tale of a
friendship between two university Professors. The main character, Ravelstein is
based on the philosopher Allan Bloom. Ravelstein asks him to write a memoir
about him after he dies, because he has AIDS. Ravelstein is Bellow’s greatest
novel. It depicts celebration of the life of the mind. It again projects the glory
of sensual life. In this novel, Bellow explores the crossing paths of purpose and
truth in the best of remembrance. It again explains two different large and
touchy themes: death and American Jewishness.

Consequently, Bellow’s novels depict human condition of the modern

society. The protagonists have decided to absorb this chaos and anarchy. They
are ready to face the tragedy of life and personages as are victims of their
social, economic and political milieus. The strongly challenge the social order.
This milieu is very depressing and disturbing. As a matter of fact, Bellow
searches new grounds, new conflicts, new ways, new ideas and new fiction and
projects the historical condition of the modern society. It echoed inner voice of
the common people. It is the present – situation of society. It is not associated
with the past and the religious spirit and exhibits the inequalities and
selfishness of the human condition.

Lack of proper communication and rupture of interpersonal relationships

leads to maladjustment which becomes the major reason of conflicts. The
present novel traces the conflict prone areas in marital life-male occupation and
family marital mobility and masculine protest. Conflict between couples
becomes a defense oriented reactions like rationalization, persistent behavior

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and reaction formation which create tremendous anxiety. Male violence is
chiefly presented in his novels. Similarly, women in most of the novels are not
ready to accept their subordination in the home. Employment of the wife is the
basic cause to changes in the husband-wife relationship. Therefore, women
often impose demands upon men to maintain housework. It creates new stress,
tensions and conflicts.

Modern society has lost its spirituality and people are taken to the
materialistic word. They don’t know the value of the real soul. The novelist has
minutely stressed on the struggles of the common men. His protagonists have
suffered a lot. They have the capacity to feel from the heart, to feel sincerely
and even selflessly. Later Bellow’s protagonists get a spiritual enlightenment
when they understand that the pretender soul has died and their real soul has
been born. They are dangled in conflict with themselves and society and the
materialistic life lead to depression. They are unable to live in the society.
Sometimes they hate both society and themselves for not being able to oppose
it. They have accepted their failure and think themselves that deserving
personalities. Their behavior is irrational unacceptable. Obviously they have no
inner strength to oppose the negative forces of their life. They mostly suffer
from a poverty of the soul. Being the lack of spirituality, they cannot live
happily and move here and there to satisfy their spiritual thrust. Then the
protagonists know their personal degradation.

But the novelist regrets the loss of the self in the modern society. The
key thrust in his work is to identify the self, inner self and the real human
beings. He wishes that man should behave like a same man and he should
throw off his pretending soul. His novels present an account of all the
complexities, falsehood and deceptions of the post war era. Bellow’s hero
predicament is how to overcome his adverse circumstances. He opposes
pessimism and defame and suffering. He rises above his odds and knows his
own image. So it is the picture of a victim that shows the truth of death, despair
and loneliness. This historical background paralyzed the common man, his

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hope, faith and ambition. Human life is not simple. It has many flaws. But
intellectual discourse and brain storm debate do not solve real problems.
Bellow believes that there are many threads in the human mind and heart.

To sum up, Bellow’s work is based on the various directions of history.

It is associated with human condition. Therefore, Bellow’s novels written
during the forties, the fifties, the sixties, the seventies and the eighties have
different aspects. His novels of forties are featured as the victim novels. It gives
the details of the Second World War. The novels of fifties present an account
of Chicago Depression with details of sex exploits, labour, corruption, political
regimes and disorder. They record a greater degree of freedom and the novels
of the sixties depict the history of the Kennedy’s age. It praises the presidents,
scholars, generals and political figures. The novels of this era reflect the
protagonist’s mind, the eternal truth and analytical visions of history. The
novels of the seventies bring out a historical process in which ideas are
transformed and redeemed. The endings of the novels show some
transcendental light marked by quietitude. The impact on Bellow’s fiction of
the American cultural tradition is more powerful. It differentiate product of
eighteenth century enlightenment humanism and nineteenth century
romanticism.

I observed through Bellow’s novels, the modern society is

disoriented and it needs to show proper direction. Bellow’s novels include the
old established record of the individual versus society and the individual in self
– conflict. His achievement lies in the portrayal of the individual in a modern
society. He projects the plight of the man and the modern society. The heroes
are aware of the reasons for their alienation from the rest of the modern society.
However, they are unable to think their way. Thinking proceeds to mere
thinking and not to action. Finally, the protagonists search their tormented
intellectual and spiritual land. They try to accept human suffering and are
responsible for their own deeds and fulfill their human being. So, there are
volatile endings in Bellow’s novels. Again it prevents such horrible phenomena

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like the Holocaust and the two words. Thus, Bellow’s works speak to the
disorienting nature of modern society. He has seen new scenes in the modern
society and dares to foster madness, materialism and misleading knowledge.

Finally, I hope that the American society should follow the way of
spirituality which can lead towards mental and physical satisfaction.

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