He was true harbinger of humanity.....

1. “Human Predicament in the Fiction of
Saul Bellow”
Saul Bellow was an eminent American-Jewish novelist of the later half of
the Twentieth Century. He was a vertical realist in pursuit of his writings, highly
celebrated, well acknowledged, critically appreciated, and above all he was a true
harbinger of humanity. His shrewd writings drew an attention of mass-people
towards ‘Human Predicament’ during the World Wars (WW-I&WW-II). He
dexterously explored the suffering of modern man and how they were forced to live
an oddity of life-tormenting circumstances, being alienated from the merciless
society in which they lived, in search of meaning of life, meaning of identity and self-
entity. Bellow’s was the prime concern to exemplified the vis-a -vis situation through
his novels.
His novels explored the plethora of human suffering at large in the
transition of worldly affairs in terms of political, social, economical, scientific,
industrial and cultural development. In the age, when Saul Bellow was writing it was
the age of great upheaval and unrest. As he was himself witnessed and
experienced the brutality of wars in his very tender age up to his matured
consciousness. His parents was transmigrated from Russia’s Petersburg to Canada
and then America, due to the intolerable, heinous act and extreme oppression of
NAZIs by their recurring, merciless atrocities towards mankind specially Jews in the
western countries.

2. 2
The leading literary giants of the western countries who took up the issues of
common man’s suffering and agony equivocally. They blatantly criticized the
egalitarian and epicurean culture of highhandedness of politicians who were
responsible for directly or indirectly mass genocide at large in the world wars. That
created an environment of hollowness and vacuum in the contemporary society.
The fearful and gloomy environment had thrown out the humanity at the corner. As
T. S Eliot, a leading poet of the time, composed the great poem The Waste Land
in which he thoroughly explained the actual sense of contemporary age. There is
‘no hope of life, faith, belief and human future in the modern age. As humanity has
been drifted from its basic course of axis, in which, there is neither hope in man
nor in humanity as it was an ambient of time.
The mass migration of common people from their ancestral home to another place
which was unknown and unfamiliar to them as they were forced to lived in a such
bizarre condition like in concentration camp, and some of them lived with the
dignity of refugee across the world wide. The well settled life and rooted order was
disrupted by anarchist culture through horror and mass killing of numerous
innocent people in the wars. That kind of agony and threat-full perception was
overwhelmed in surroundings. Bellow put the real impression through his literary
and visionary artistic pursuit. He took up the existing issues of common man for
due consideration and attempted to ameliorate the existing problem through
literary conception and humanistic approach as to awakening of a new light of
optimistic vision. He tried his best to revert the actual spirit of life with full of vigor,
moral and spiritual contents.

3. 3
Saul Bellow was also noticed and acknowledged the same
issues through his creative writing of novels. He saw the
marginalized part of humanity in common man, in spite of
all that he recognized the vital element of life i.e. ‘ a core
element humanity’ is still alive in the man that core part
will re-back the beliefs and faith to humanity. So he put
forwarded in his literary expression, and, further he
assured that man has his future with immense prosperity.
The characters of his novels are exposing the existing
common dieses of life in which they face day-today,
incongruous and strangulating but they go with the true
aspect of life, for that, they bear the excessiveness of the
society and its born dieses at large but never gave space to
negativism. They struggled but never accepted wrong
conception or practical path in success of life. They had
moral principal to move in life as well as in career.

4. 4
Saul Bellow’s master pieces were award
winning and critically appreciated world-wide.
He had been awarded world’s recognized and
prestigious awards for literary contribution. In
his artistic career he received fellowships,
three time Booker Prize and above all he was
awarded Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt's Gift,
later, over all contribution for English
Literature, he was awarded Nobel Prize in
1976 for subtle analysis of human
understanding and multi-cultural and multi-
lingual of western society.

5. 5
Saul Bellow’s award winning novels are as follows:
• The Adventures of Augie March-1953 (National Book Award,
US)
• Herzog-1964 (National Book Award, US)
• Mr. Sammlar’s Planet-1969 (National Book Award, US)
• Humboldt’s Gift- 1976 ( Pulitzer Prize and later on Nobel Prize
for literary contribution US & Sweden)
RADHE SHYAM SINGH
(RESEARCH SCHOLAR)
Ranchi University, Ranchi