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Character Sketch Of Wilheim In Seize The Day

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The second World War affected more people that anyone can imagine. It was a time period in history characterized by people pierced by loneliness, frustration and anxiety which was perfectly shown as well in T. S. Eliot´s works, previously analysed. Seize the Day by Saul Bellow was not the exception to show this as it recreated the uncertain background of the ¨new post-War America¨ throughout the character of Wilheim. The aim of this paper is to analyze the importance of Tamkin´s character in the development of Wilheim’s attitudes and decisions through the relationship between both and Wilhelm-Dr. Adler and some significant moments in Wilheim´s day of reckoning. To begin with the analysis of Wilheim, it is important to mention how the story starts. The long red carpet and the bird flying away from chains may be trying to express what …show more content…

Tamkin ends up swindling Wilheim out of money, he is a sort of spiritual guide which leads Wilheim to get rid of the “Old America” ideal –care about money, expensive clothes and success- (with Dr Adler as a symbol of this) explaining with this, the reaction of Dr. Adler when Wilheim tell him he follows Tamkin’s advices (“The future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real –the here-and-now. Seize the day. […] Money-making is aggression.[…] People come to the market to kill […] the world is full of murderers. So it’s not the world. It’s a kind of hell. […] a kind of purgatory. You walk on the bodies”) To conclude with the analysis, the end of the novel means the “death” of the old Wilheim (establishes in the stranger’s dead body) and the beginning of the new life with its focus in humanity and forgetting about superficial things. The aim of this essay has been to analyze Bellow’s work with special emphasis in the importance of Tamkin’s character which was done through the elements such as the relationship between Wilhelm and him and Wilhelm and Dr. Adler, as well as analysing some significant moments in the

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