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T H E Smoky Red Façades and in the Amplified Roar of Carols

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T H E Smoky Red Façades and in the Amplified Roar of Carols M. A. THESIS THE MISPLACED URBANITEi A STUDY OF THE URBAN EXPERIENCE OF SAUL BELLOW'S PROTAGONISTS UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA DEPARTAMENTO DE LlNGUA E LITERATURA ESTRANGEIRAS. rHE MISPLACED URBANITEj A STUDY OF THE URBAN EXPERIENCE OF SAUL BELLOW’S PROTAGONISTS. TESE SUBMETIDA 1 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA PARA A OBTENÇÃO DO GRAU DE MESTRE EM LETRAS. Dilvo I. Ristoff Maio de I98O ESTA TESE FOI JULGADA ADEQUADA PARA A OBTENÇÃO DO GRAU DE MESTRE EM LETRAS OPÇTXO INGLÊS E LITERATURA CORRESPONDENTE E APROVADA EM SUA FORMA FINAL PELO PROGRAMA DE POS-GRADUAÇXO DA UFSC. Prof. Hilário Ipá^io Bohn, PhD - Coordenador/ro Programa de Pôs-Graduação em Inglês e Literatura Correspondente - APRESENTADA PERANTE A BANCA EXAMINADORA COMPOSTA PELOS PROFESSORES: Prof. John Bruce Derrick, PhD Pr ofa. Nona Fox, PhD Para Maria Aparecida AGRADECIMENTOS Ao Prof. Hugh Fox Ao Prof. John Bruce Derrick X Profa. Nona Fox A todos os Professores do Curso de P5s-Graduaçao em Letras da UFSC, opçcfo Ingl&s e Literatura Correspondente. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introductory Statement of Problem................ 1 Review of Criticism...... ........... 11 Statement of Purpose................ 32 The Dangling Man.................... 34 Asa, The Guilty Urbanite...... ....... 55 Augie March, The Unadoptable Eagle...... 75 Tommy Wilhelm - The Life of The Salesman 102 Herzog - The Bucolic Moses.......... 121 Roots versus Wires versus Telemetry... 136 Citrine - Ihe Chicago Greenhorn..... 153 lying Things Together................ 170 ABBREVIATIONS Dangling Man The Victim The Adventures of Augie March Seize the Day Herzog Humboldt's Gift Henderson the Rain King Mr. Sammler's Planet ABSTRACT The city plays an important role in the works of Saul Bellow. Seven of his eight novels (Dangling Man0 The Victim. The Adventures of Augie March, Seize the Day, Herzog, Mr. Sammler's Planet and Humboldt's Gift) have as their basic setting two of the largest American cities - New York a n d Chicago. But the city is not simply a setting in Bellow's novels. It acts si­ multaneously as a physical, sociological and psychological context, being therefore capable of interferring directly in the life-dramas of its inhabi- tnats. The analysis starts with a brief review of pertinent criticism. Next, each of the seven novels is analysed one by one in detail in order to detect the peculiarities of each of them in their treatment of the urban experience of their protagonists. Bellow's treatment of the city is identified as being essentially sim­ ilar to the treatment given by the urban sociologist Louis Wirth, in that both see the urban experience more as a loss than as a gain. The Romantic approach to the metropolitan milieu makes the Bellowian protagonists highly vulnerable to the urban way of life. They are inextricably attached to the past in all senses and,are, therefore, incapable , and con­ sciously, unwilling, to enjoy the benefits of the megalopolitan system. Furthermore, the level of efficacy of Bellow's protagonists in the ur­ ban environment is sensibly reduced because they lack the protective immunity of authentic urbanites, as described by urban sociologists and philosophers. It is this lack of immunity which makes their behaviour incompatible with the city ways and makes them prefer the country. It is a general rule that Bel­ low's protagonists leave the city either actually or mentally. Even if they happen to stay, they never show any sympathy for the city. In this sense, Saul Bellow corroborates the anti-urban tradition of American intellectuals. RESUMO A cidade desempenha um importante papel na obra de Saul Bellow, Sete de seus oito romances (Dangling Man, The Victim, The Adventures of Augle March, Seize the Day, Herzog, Mr. Sammler's Planet e Humboldt’s Gift) t&n como seu ce­ nário básico duas das maiores cidades americanas - Nova. York e Chicago. Mas a cidade não ê apenas um cenário nas obras de Bellow. Ela age simul­ taneamente como um contexto físico, sociológico e psicológico, sendo, portanto, capaz de interferir no drama de seus habitantes. A análise inicia com um apanhado da crítica pertinente. A seguir cada um dos sete romances 6 analisado detalhadamente para detectar as suas peculiarida­ des no tratamento da experiência urbana de seus protagonistas. 0 tratamento Bellowiano da cidade ê identificado como sendo essencialmen­ te semelhante ao do sociólogo Louis Wirth, no que se refere ao fato de que am­ bos consideram a experiência urbana mais uma perda do que um ganho. A abordagem romântica do meio ambiente metropolitano torna os protagonis­ tas de Bellow altamente vulneráveis ao modo urbano de vida. Eles estão inex- tricaveiraente ligados ao passado sob todos os aspectos e s3!o, portanto, incapa­ zes de, e conscientemente se recusam a gozar dos benefícios do sistema megalo- politano. Outrossim, o nível de eficácia dos protagonistas de Bellow no meio am­ biente urbano ê sensivelmente reduzido por carecerem da. imunidade protetora dos urbanitas autênticos, conforme descritos por sociólogos urbanos e filósofos. Ê esta falta de imunidade que torna seu comportamento incompatível com os modos urbanos e fá-los preferirem o campo. Via de regra os protagonistas de Bellow, quer real quer mentalmente, deixam a cidade. Mesmo quando permanecem na cidade, eles nunca mostram qualquer simpatia por ela. Neste sentido, Saul Bellow cot> robora a tradição anti-urbana dos intelectuais americanos. 1. INTRODUCTORY 1.1. Statement of Problem Some meaningful works have been written about the city in American literature and a lot has already been written about Saul Bellow, but very little has been said about the city in Saul Bellow’s novels, although critics, in general, cannot avoid mentioning it in their studies, no matter what they concentrate on. This dissertation is concerned particu­ larly with the city as perceived and judged by the Bellowian protagonists in seven of his eight novels - Dangling Man, The Victim, The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, Seize the Day, Mr. Sammler’s Planet and Humboldt's Gift. * What does the Bellowian city do to th® protagonists? What is their life in the city like? tfhat changes does the city produce? What sort of behaviour is required from the protagonists in order to survive and be ef­ fective in the city? These are some of the questions this dissertation poses. In the light of the main sociological theory of urbanism, I try to show the social psychology inherent in the urban way of life, the peculiar social relations determined by the urban scene and the effect that this scene may have on the personality of the urbanites that inhabit Bellow's metropolises and, to some extent, cities in general. * The reason why Henderson the Rain King is not included is that, while all other novels refer to a journey of protagonists within the city (and it is this experience which invariably makes them prefer the country), HRK refers to a move from a pastoral environment to a primitive one. It is essentially the story of a pig breeder, Eugene Henderson, who discovers, in primitive Africa, that he can still become an Albert Schweitzer at the age of fifty. Although Henderson does show some rejection of the city, his trajectory only very indirectly can be said to suffer the effects of urbanism. The presence of the city as an environment in which the charac­ ters move is a condition sine qua non for this dissertation. Unhappily, HRK lacks this condition. But the search for these answers is as old as the cities themselves. Throughout history, intellectuals have worried about the effects of urban­ ization upon the the individual and upon society as a whole, its order and cohesion. Although man has lived in cities for only about two percent of 1 his history an earth , the urban explosion that has transformed villages into cities and cities into metropolises in recent periods is a problematic thing and thus many intellectuals, especially in the last two centuries, have written about it. And it couldn’t be different» the numbers which tell us about the growth of cities during the industrial revolution are literally astonishing to the common observer, to social scientists, philo­ sophers and intellectuals in general. The population of London, for ex­ ample, was 86^,8*4-5 inhabitants in 1801. In 1891, less than a century later, its population was ^,232,118, i.e., over four times as large. Similarly, during this same period, the number of English cities which had over 100.000 inhabitants grew from two to thirty. 2 New York experienced an even greater increase in population. In a period of sixty years - 1800 to i860 - the number of New Yorkers grew from 60,000 to 600,000, i.e., exactly ten 3 times as many. Since the industrial revolution this trend continues at an acceler- ated rate. If the present rates are maintained, says Kingsley Davis, by the year 2000 over half of humanity will be living in cities of over 100.000 inhabitants, Ihe projections foresee that by this time 25 percent of the world population will be living in cities of over 1,000,000, three cities will have over 6*4-,000,000 people and one city will have over 100,000,000 inhabitants. The meaning of so many zeroes in a number is ex­ pressed through the writings of thinkers of many nations throughout the world, which today has almost become a science by itself known as the so­ ciology of the city. The nineteenth century cities can hardly be mentioned without men­ tioning names like John Ruskln (1818 - 1900), Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809 - I863), William Morris (183b - I896), Friedrich Ehgels (1820 - I895) Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) and many others who lived during one of the most intense periods of urbanization, only comparable to the recent urbanization of the third world countries.
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