Saul Bellow's Existential Elements In Literature
This paper reflects Saul Bellow's thoughts in the Modern World. The troubles that exist in Modern period are discussed by many novelists. Many authors were influenced due to the trends that prevailed during that period and used Existentialism as the subject for their novels. This paper shows Henderson's dissatisfied life in Modern America and his transformation in Africa due to the hunting of his existence. This paper proves Bellow's existential element is based on love and brotherhood which is reflected in the character Henderson. Keywords : Existentialism, Kierkegaard, Arnewi, alienation. During mid 1940, a great French Catholic philosopher Gabriel Marcel introduced the term “Existentialism”. Some philosophers like Friedrich …show more content…
The writers in this period have used existential element in their novels. Some American writers, including Saul Bellow used their characters in search of existentialism. Most of Bellow’s protagonists are isolated and frustrated. They fear, in facing death as they …show more content…
They create an artificial world in order to escape death. Donald W. Marcos comments on this situation as follows: "The felt sense of many American intellectuals of the post-war period that communal life and belief were chaotic and irrational and that the valid source of value lay in individual only experience echoed both American naturalism of the 1890s and contemporary French existentialism." (Marcos, 1995: 87) Bellow’s fifth novel Henderson the Rain King is taken to prove the title. This novel is a good example to find Existentialism. Eugene Henderson is the admirer of the novel who loses his individuality in modern America. This occurs due to his avoidance in taking responsibility for his own spirit. In order to design his false identity, he loses his real identity in life. A close observation is brought into the life of Henderson. At the beginning of the novel, Henderson is married and he has five children. He is financially secured by three million dollars, which is given by his father. He leads his life by breeding pigs. Even though he has a family and everything, he is dissatisfied with his life. Karl makes a commentary on American Picaro that correctly sets up in describing the
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1021 Words | 5 PagesScanning through his past several years, he returns to his mother’s death and analyzes her choice to seek a lover at the end of her life. While before he thought it was strange and even somewhat aggravating, he realizes now, being so close to death, that people will enter a desperate search for meaning when their time left is fleeting. But at the same time, he reasons potentially as a coping mechanism, there is no difference whether he dies by execution later that day or in 40 years because he will be dying all the same. Together, these two realizations, though somewhat contradictory, create his bridge to Existentialism. By establishing these two points, he can allow himself to, “open up to the gentle indifference of the world - finding it so much like himself”(122), and apply whatever meaning he wants to life in order to make it as rich and enjoyable as desired, rather than drifting along as a pitiful being waiting for some greater power to guide him along.
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1773 Words | 8 PagesIntroduction Existentialists forcefully believe that one defines their own meaning in life, and that by lack of there being an upper power one must espouse their own existence in order to contradict this essence of ‘nothing-ness’. Absurdist fiction is a genre of literature which concerns characters performing seemingly meaningless actions and experiences due to no found meaning or purpose in their lives, and this prospect of uncertainty is key in both plays Waiting for Godot as well as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Writers Samuel Beckett and Edward Albee use different perspectives on truth and illusion in order to communicate a message to their audience and to make them question the society in which they live in. Truths and Illusions sub-introduction
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