American Life and Society in Seize the Day
Saul Bellow has depicted the American life and society as rootless, fraudulence and relation less among the population and financial gambler.
At
first we get footlessness’ in American society in which Tommy Wilhem is a man
in his mid- forties, temporarily living in the Hotel Gloriana on the Upper
West Side of New York City, the same hotel in which his father has taken
residence for a number of years. He is out of place from the beginning, living
in a hotel filled with elderly retirees and continuing throughout the novel to
be a figure of isolation amidst crowds. The novella traverses one very
important day in the life of this self- same Tommy Wilhelm: his “day of
reckoning” so to speak.
The
readers secondly get a picture fraudulence and joblessness due to the lack of
competence. The reader begins to discover through Tommy’s thoughts and through
a series of flashbacks that Tommy has just recently been fired from his job as
a salesman, he is a college drop-out, a man with two children, recently
separated from his wife, and he is a man on the brink of financial disaster.
Tommy, has just given over the last of his savings to the fraudulent Dr.Tamkin,
who has promised to knowingly invest it in the commodities market. Amid all of
this, he has, apparently, fallen in love with a woman named Olive, who he
cannot marry because his wife will not grant him a divorce. Tommy is unhappy
and in need of assistance both emotionally and financially. The chapters that
follow focus on Tommy’s encounters and conversations with Dr.Tamkin, a
seemingly fraudulent and questionable “psychologist”, who gives Tommy endless
advice and thus provides the assistance he had looked for from his father.
Weather Tamkin is fraudulent and questionable as a psychologist, and whether he
is a liar and a charlatan is a question that is constantly being posed to us.
Another
characteristic is relation-less among the
American people. In the first three chapters the reader follows Tommy as
he talks with his father, Dr. Adler, Who sees his his son as ca failure in
every sense of the word. Tommy is refused financial assistance and also refused
any kind of support, emotionally or otherwise, from his father. It is also
within these beginning chapters that the flashbacks begin. The flashback
highlight, among other things, Tommy’s meeting with the duplicitous Venice, the
talent scout who shows initial interest in a young Tommy and his good looks.
Wilhelm, however, is later rejected by the same scout after a failed screen
test but nevertheless attempts a career in Hollywood as an actor. He
discontinues his college education and moves to California, against his
parent’s will and warnings.
There
is gambling in the stock market of the American life. The rest of the novella
consists of Tommy and Dr.Tamkin travelling back and forth to and from the stock
market, meeting several characters along the way. The novel finally illustrates
Tommy’s terrible loss in the commodities in which Tamkin has invested Tommy’s
money. Tommy has lost all of his savings but still has the disappeared. After
an attempt to look for Tamkin in his room at the hotel, the novella comes to a
close with three climaxes—two minor and one large, final climax.
In conclusion, we can say that the picture
upholds the disintegration of family life in (American Society) Western
Civilization. It is indeed a social picture of American life. The emotional
aridity, lack of fellow-feeling has rendered Western Civilization a true Waste
land.
No comments:
Post a Comment