Fundamental human similarities in motivation are at the heart of novelist Saul Bellow's works. Bellow was a Jewish author born in Chicago, and as such his protagonists often belong to a similar demographic, namely young Jewish men from Chicago. Despite the uniformity of Bellow's protagonists, his minor characters fit into a much larger demographic. In The Adventures of Augie March, the bildungsroman narrative follows young Augie as he ventures from Chicago to Mexico and beyond, meeting a diverse cast of characters. In Dangling Man, the protagonist Joseph is a Canadian-born man living in Chicago, having left his job to await the draft and enter World War II. The novel recounts his experiences with his wife, the members of his building, and his wealthy brother, Amos. Bellow's uniform protagonists have a similar background experience due to their shared demographics, but their experiences and opinions are also shaped by the variety of characters they encounter, who represent a wide range of social, political, and economic segments. Saul Bellow uses the juxtaposition of socially and economically stratified characters to expose that everyone has universal motivations for humanity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In his books, Bellow often uses feelings of pride to show similarities between characters of different social or economic positions. For example, the disagreements and quarrels between Joseph and Amos show the pride they both possess, despite Amos' obvious social and economic superiority. When Joseph visits Amos' house, they argue over Amos helping Joseph financially by giving him a $100 "Christmas present." Amos insists that his brother, who refuses the gift, put an end to his obstinacy by saying, “Why can’t you accept it? This is absurd, you can't refuse it. I tell you, it's a gift. He took the bill impatiently. “Be a little more stubborn, will you?” You're still up in the air. Do you know what I paid in income taxes alone last year? No? Well, that's not a drop in the bucket. I don't deprive myself of anything to give it to you. …'You're the most stubborn idiot I've ever seen. You can't stand to be helped, even a little, by anyone. (Below 48) Nevertheless, Joseph continues to refuse. “But what am I going to do with it, Amos? I don't need it. » (Below 48). Both men possess a similar pride, despite their juxtaposed economic differences, revealing that pride as a motivation transcends these differences. Pride appears again as a unifying factor in The Adventures of Augie March. The first instance of pride unifying the characters in the novel occurs when Augie and Thea feel great pride in Caligula, their bald eagle, and express this pride even in more sophisticated company. In the presence of a well-respected newspaper editor, they demonstrate great pride in Caligula. At first, the editor of the successful newspaper does not want to write about their bird and dismisses them: “Yet here he was dressed to kill, with a new convertible and this beauty who was supposed to be an actress. And he was actually the editor of Wilmot's Weekly. Of which he now says: “We are mainly interested in political articles. » » (Below 390). Despite the importance of the man in front of them, Thea and Augie's pride in the bird leads them todefend it and its importance, and they do their best to explain its importance, even to someone of higher social status. In "The Adventures of Augie March" by Robert Dutton, Dutton speaks of Augie's abundant pride, saying, "Be that as it may, we wonder about Augie's 'better fate' and his enthusiasm , on its high ideals concerning the potentialities of man, on its generous acceptance. of all living beings, and certainly of its pride of opposition. (Dutton 56). Augie's pride is shown once again when he turns down an adoption offer from a wealthy family, the Renlings, even though they are relatively poor. Augie is opposed to the idea of ​​adoption because, although it would help him greatly both economically and socially, he believes it would remove his individuality. He expresses this fear of repression in the novel by saying: "Seeing that I could not stay with the Renlings unless I became their adopted son, which, I now knew, would suffocate me..." (Below 169 ). This discussion of "suffocation" shows that despite Augie's lack of wealth, he too is driven by a deep, universal, innate, human desire for individualism, and has too much pride, another universal quality, to accept their offer. uses feelings of pride to show universal motivations by showing a fear of death and an obsession with inheritance in various characters. While waiting to be cast in Dangling Man, Joseph stagnates and thinks about what he's doing with his life. He also questions whether his life will have any impact and struggles with the idea of ​​his own mortality. While walking through his apartment, Joseph comes across an old photo of his grandfather and sees himself and his own mortality in the photo. “Later still, I came to believe (and it was no longer an impression but a dogma) that the painting was proof of my mortality. I was standing on the bones of my grandfather and the bones of those who came before him on a temporary loan. But it was he himself, and not the future past, that weighed on me. Over the years, he would take me back little by little, until my fists dried up and my eyes glazed over. (Below 84). Here, Joseph struggles to realize his own mortality and the evanescence of his life, as he sees how he is slowly wasting away as a borrowing from the lives of previous generations, and will soon die too. Joseph's realization is one that preoccupies him for the rest of the novel and shows the universal nature of humans fearing and worrying about death. In Ralph Beret's "Repudiation and Reality: Instruction in the Fiction of Saul Bellow," Beret explains how having Joseph at home while awaiting the draft allows him to dwell on the subject of his future and legacy. “The relevance of Joseph's position is thus underlined, because he has the possibility of devoting all of his energy to deciding the nature of his future commitment. » (Beret 1). Beret shows how Joseph's isolation allows Bellow to show the universal human concern for the future and legacy, and to critique it more clearly by creating the best possible scenario for it to manifest. The idea of ​​a universal human preoccupation with death is also present in The Adventures of Augie March, when Augie is seriously injured, leading him to reflect and realize the nature of life and death . As he recovers from the accident, Augie is near death and contemplates the brevity of life and his legacy. “Death discredits. Survival is all success. The voice of the dead goes away. There are no memories. Established power fills the earth and destiny is all that survives, so all that is is right. (Below 556). Here,Augie realizes that his only inheritance is life, and that he must survive and live rather than worry about death, even though he sees that it universally motivates his peers. Despite his seemingly critical view of mortal concerns and his new revelation, Augie's reflection on this firstly shows that it affects Augie just as it universally affects all humans. Arguably the most important unifying factor that Saul Bellow shows to be universally motivating to humans in his novels is money. The most important example of how money is universal, regardless of socioeconomic class, is when Augie watches people go about their daily lives in Mexico. Observing them, he realizes how universally they are motivated by common goals despite superficial diversity: “Here was the vast humanity that meshed or dug, or transported, gathered, held, served, returning each day to his occupations and being honest or joking or weeping or hypocritical or hypnotic, and the money, if not the secret, was in any case next to the secret, as a relative, or associate or representative of the secret before the people" (Bellow 427 ). Augie realizes that money is both an opportunity and a sin and that all people are attracted to and affected by it, despite differences in social status, economic prosperity, or even geographic location. A second example of money as a universal motivator is when Joseph goes to have his coat repaired and is surprised when a service that is usually free is now charged for. When he realizes the price increase, Joseph has a revelation about the nature of money itself and its importance. role in society. He explains how money motivates everyone, even those who don't have it, and prevents unity while providing it through universal pursuit, saying, "Life is hard, Vae Victis!" 81). Although he has enough money to support himself, Joseph is against the principle of sharing with those who don't have it, motivated by a universal desire to keep his money which motivates him and the wealthier members , and even the poorest in society. The final example that shows Bellow's use of money and economic inequality to show universal human motivations is when Augie is taken to see a prostitute by Einhorn on his 18th birthday. After the experience, Augie reflected on what it really meant beyond the simple sexuality of the act. “I knew it was just a transaction. But that didn’t matter…. Paying didn't matter. Nor use what others have used. That's what city life is all about. And so he had not the luster that he should have had and there was no epithalamium of gentle lovers” (Bellow 133). The prostitute does not have the shine that Augie expected because she is a symbol of the entrapment of the city of Chicago itself. Just as the city, associated with the need to have and earn money, forces Augie to resort to immoral methods of earning money, such as crime, and to lose his innocence, Einhorn, the human personification of money in the book, forces Augie to lose his innocence in the prostitute. Einhorn represents money through his and money's loss of innocence. This loss of innocence due to the desire for money is shown to be universal and innate in several places, such as in Augie's crime out of need for money and Einhorn's pressure on Augie to use a prostitute. In Martin Amis' article "A Chicago of a Novel", Amis explains the many odd jobs Augie is forced to do in search of money, much like how he is forced to use a prostitute by Einhorn ."Parentless and penniless: the basic human material. Penniless, Augie needs a job. If the novels of another great Chicagoan, Theodore Dreiser, sometimes resemble a long succession of job interviews , so Augie March often seems like a surreal catalog of apprenticeships During the course of the novel, Augie becomes (in order) a flyer distributor, a paper delivery boy, a dime store packager, a salesman. newspapers, a Christmas extra in a toy department, a flower delivery man, a butler, a shoe seller, a saddler, a workshop worker, a rubber paint seller, a dog washer, a book collector. , a coal yard helper, a housing surveyor, a union organizer, an animal trainer, a gambler, a literary scholar, an office machine salesman, a sailor, and a middleman for a war profiteer. (Friends 1). The many odd jobs that Augie does show the universal desperation he feels for money, as well as the loss of innocence in the pursuit of money that some of these jobs cause. Another thing Bellow uses to show universal human motivations is a universal pursuit of money. the identity and purpose of its characters. At the end of Dangling Man, Joseph is finally recruited and finally finds a purpose for himself. In the last line of the book, when Joseph is drafted, he is happy to find a new purpose in the military after living so long as a "hanging man", stating: "I am in other hands, relieved of the self-determination, freedom canceled. Long live the usual hours! And for mind monitoring! Long live regimentation! (Below 143). Joseph had been living aimlessly throughout the book, having just left his job at the exhibition. He spends the novel desperately searching for purpose, and his obviously extreme and incredibly enthusiastic optimism toward the regimentation of the army shows how innate the search for purpose was in Joseph, and how deeply he was desperate to find one. Augie also spends a lot of time searching for an identity and purpose in his life. He uses his adventures to try to find a niche in which he can find his individual purpose, without relying solely on the niche. Augie also talks about super-individuality and how it can be the same as nothing at all. "But I also had the idea that you should not adopt such a broad position that would make human life impossible, nor try to bring together irreconcilables who destroy you, but first try with what human you can live” (Below 283). ). Augie explains that while it is necessary to have a stance and be an individual, having an extreme stance just for the sake of shock factor, or simply having one, is not individual in itself. In his Soul Bellow review, Craig Raine discusses how being surrounded by wildly diverse characters, those who have succeeded in the universal quest for personal identity, leads to Augie's quest for individuality. On the other hand, there are the unrealistic aspects of pure feeling, of idealism, which are first embodied by Brother Simon, on whom "Tom Brown's school years had for many years a influence that we were not able to exercise.” Even the Mexican eagle conforms to this pattern – proving, after all, to be less than one hundred percent ruthless; “Well, it was hard to get out of the wilderness that there was humanity mixed in with it.” Augie himself finds himself between the two poles, although there is no doubt that his final destination will be in the camp of those with feelings. (Raine 32) See all these characters who have found their identity and succeeded in their universal quest, whichtranscends their social and economic differences and concerns them all, encourages Augie to continue the search for his own identity. Bellow also uses Antagonism and competitive behaviors in his characters to show that competitiveness is a universal human motivation. Motivation is demonstrated in Dangling Man when Joseph confronts his old friend in a restaurant. Joseph is ignored by an old acquaintance, and this neglect irritates and angers him. When his friend asks Joseph why he is so angry, Joseph stubbornly replies: “Because I want to cause trouble. » (Below 19). Joseph is unable to fully explain why he is so angry because what he is experiencing is innate to humanity and cannot be properly put into words. He further justifies his anger by suggesting that the person he is in conflict with has violated his personal human rights. “I’ll tell you what that entails. I have the right to be spoken to. It's the most basic thing in the world. Simply that. I insist on this. (Below 20). Joseph's personal defense is further evidence of the innate nature of the competitiveness he feels. The universal motivations of antagonism and competition are also found in Joseph's fight with Amos' daughter. While visiting Amos' house, Joseph argues with his brother's more successful daughter. Amos' daughter, who was raised in wealth and accustomed to it all her life, does not like Joseph, the poorer one, and they fight. “Despite our antagonism, I had until recently tried to influence the girl, by sending her books and, on her birthday, recording albums” (Below 41). Their differences, in age, gender, social status and life experience, show that the feeling of competition they experience is a truly universal human motivation. The last universal human motivation that Saul Bellow shows in his works is love. Love unites many of Bellow's characters, both platonically and romantically. One of the clearest examples of the former is Augie's relationship with the wealthy Einhorn. Despite his extreme wealth, Einhorn needs Augie to keep him company. Augie works for Einhorn, but also develops a special bond with him and is his companion over the years. “But it was my only position among hundreds, some even more subordinate, more personal, others requiring intelligence and training, secretary, deputy, agent, companion.” (Below 124). Bellow shows that Einhorn, the very personification of upper class and money, needs companionship and love, and that these are universal motivations in humanity. Another example of love unifying diverse characters is found in the relationship between Augie and Thea. Their love for each other despite different socio-economic backgrounds demonstrates the universality of love. Thea grew up in a much "better" family in terms of socioeconomic status, but they are still deeply in love with each other, regardless of those differences. “She thought she understood everything about me, and it was amazing how much she knew; the rest she caught up with confidence and relied on closed eyes and quick movements. (Below 345). Their love is shown not to be greatly inhibited by their socioeconomic differences, and they are still able to understand each other as human beings, since love is a universal motivator of humanity. In “A Chicago of a Novel” by Martin Amis, Amis explains how Thea is very different from the other characters in the novel. “Thea is both lover and mentor, a perhaps untenable combination. Augie has now become accustomed to the eccentrics, just like the. 2016.