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.

American Life and Society in Seize the Day

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.