On Causes of Wilhelm’s Misery in Seize the Day

ZHANG Ran-ranDONG Xiao-ye

【Abstract】Seize the Day subtly and precisely describes an isolated，lost and helpless state of an Jewish Americans，Tommy Wilhelm in modern times.This novel focuses on a single and dreadful day of Tommy Wilhelm during which he recalls what he has gone through in his former life.Tommy Wilhelm is a middle aged Jewish American who gets cheated by a star scout in college，loses his job as a salesman in middle age，gets separated with his wife，fails in a risky speculation with no money left and gets no help from anyone even from his father.In this thesis，the author uses alienation theory to analyze Wilhelms misery and figures out that alienation from main social value，alienation from his father，alienation from his wife and alienation from his rational self are the main causes of Wilhelms miserable life.

【Key words】lost in modern life； alienation theory； Tommy Wilhelm； Seize the Day； Saul Bellow

【摘要】《只争朝夕》 用细腻和精妙的笔触描绘了犹太裔美国人汤米·威尔汉姆在现代社会中孤独，迷茫无助的生活状态。这部小说着力叙述了威尔汉姆可怕的一天及其对之前生活经历的回想。在这部小说中，主人公汤米·威尔姆，大学时受骗于星探，中年失业，与妻子分居，投资失败，分文无存，并且孤立无援，连父亲也不伸出援手。此论文运用异化理论对威尔汉姆与主流社会价值的异化，与其父亲和妻子的异化，以及与自身理性的异化进行分析，试图得出汤米·威尔汉姆悲惨生活的原因。

【关键词】现代生活的迷失 异化理论 汤米·威尔姆 《只争朝夕》 索尔·贝娄

1.Introduction

Saul Bellow is a prominent Jewish writer in contemporary American literature.In his novels Bellow tries to explore the living state of people in modern society and describes the alienation of Jews.“For the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that combines in his work”，Bellow won the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Seize the Day is one of Bellows representative works which shows the alienation of a middle aged man in American society.He lost almost everything important in his life，including job，wife，children and fathers love.This thesis tries to use alienation theory to analyze why Wilhelm is living in such a misery.In the first part，alienation theory in different periods is introduced briefly.Friedrich Hegel，Ludwig Feuerbach and Marx are three significant people who made a great contribution to the development of alienation theory.Everyone has its spark and limitation.In the second part，four alienations that may cause the difficulties in Wilhelms are introduced，including Wilhelms alienation from main social value，alienation from his father，alienation from his wife and alienation from his rational self.These four alienations all together pushed Wilhelm to that depressing state.In the last part，according to the analysis above，a concise conclusion is made so that readers can get a clear and overall idea of this thesis.

2.Alienation theory

Alienation theory has a long and complex history.At the very beginning，alienation was connected with God.In normal situation，people felt being together with God，otherwise they were alienated from God.In modern times，alienation first appears together with the name of Friedrich Hegel，the German philosopher.He thought human alienation was caused by peoples conflict with the surrounding culture.These people would feel separated or isolated.They could not identify them with the old culture any longer and could also not emerge into the new culture without suffering.Thus they were alienated from society.Hegel also claimed that laws，customs and institutions also hindered people to seek their real need in society.The modernization that frequently employed science and machine leaded to monotonous work for people，which hampered peoples creative capacities.

While Ludwig Feuerbach，another outstanding German philosopher in 19th century put forward a different idea about alienation from Hegels.Feuerbach built its theory on the concept “human being” itself，not those abstract notions mentioned by Hegel.In Feuerbachs opinion，alienation would happen when people attributed their own human qualities to God who was then worshiped as a result of these qualities.So they actually admired themselves without awareness when they worshiped God.Because of the existence of God，people turned a blind eye to their authentic human being.Thus God produced a sort of alienation.For Feuerbach，the authentic human being lay in “species”，that was all the characteristics that human beings had： rationality，emotions and love.But he narrowed alienation theory to only religious alienation which made people find no ways to get rid of alienation.

Another alienation theory was put forward by Marx，who disagreed with Feuerbach.He thought Feuerbachs alienation theory was based on the abstract notion of human race which made his study apart from actual economic and political activities.So Marx combined alienation theory with the real social activities and wrote Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 in order to better understand working classs material life.According to Marx，alienation was “the breakdown of，the separation from，the natural interconnect between people and their productive activities，the products they produce，the fellow workers with whom they produce those things，and with what they are potentially capable of becoming” （Ritzer，22） In capitalized society，although workers spent their time and energy laboring，large part of their outcomes were possessed by employers.As a result，workers could not achieve proudness through their main activities in society.As the development of science and technology in modern times，alienation appears more often in every aspect of life as the by-product of modernism.So people extended the definition of alienation as “ an extraordinary variety of psycho-social disorders，including dislocation，anxiety，states，anomie，despair，depersonalization，rootlessness，apathy，social disorganization，loneliness，atomization，powerlessness，meaninglessness， isolation，pessimism，and the loss of beliefs and values.” In the novel Seize the Day，Tommy Wilhelm lived a miserable life which was caused by alienation of various aspects.

3.Reasons of Wilhelms miserable life

Tommy Wilhelm was born in a Jewish family who lived in America，which made Wilhelm affected by both Jewish and American culture and struggle to find his own cultural identity.He had once quit his college study in order to become an actor but failed and ended to be a salesman.In his middle forties he lost his salesmans job and invested his last money to the wrong place.He had a successful and respectable father who cared about himself only and was unwilling to give any help to Wilhelm except the water and massage advice.Wilhelm got separated from his wife but had to give large amount of money to her and children for their living.Tommy Wilhelm lived a miserable life without anyone who was truly understanding and caring him.In the following part，reasons of Wilhelms misery will be introduced from four aspects： alienation from main social value，alienation from his father，alienation from his wife and alienation from him rational self.

3.1 Alienation from main social value. Seize the Day is a reflection of time that Saul Bellow is living.This book was written in the post WWII.As the high development of capitalism，money was the only criteria to judge whether a person was successful or not.Virtues and dreams were meaningless and worthless if a person didnt have money.Besides those successful people were never satisfied to the things they owned and paid no pity to people around them except irony.Wilhelm chose to make a change by being an actor in college time when he could not figure out his value in college life，so he quitted school and intend to move to Southen California.While his act was against the main value in his family and Jewish society.His mother hoped he could study medicine and became a doctor like his father.She thought his son should be as excellent as his cousin Artie who was an honor student at Columbia in math and language and became a professor.But Wilhelm suspected Arties love towards his language and his happiness as a professor.He thought

“Now that he had a place in the world perhaps he was better.Did Artie love his languages，and live for them，or was he also，in his heart，cynical？ So many people nowadays were.No one seemed satisfied，and Wilhelm was especially horrified by the cynicism of successful people.Cynicism was bread and meat to everyone.And irony，too.Maybe it couldn't be helped.It was probably even necessary.Wilhelm，however，feared it intensely.” （6）

In order to becoming an actor，Wilhelm gave up his college study and got tensed with his family.The scout Venice had once done whatever to convince Wilhelm that he could be a famous actor and that was infallible.But when Venice found that Wilhelm had no talent to be an actor through screen test and could not bring him money，he abandoned Wilhelm ruthlessly，leaving Wilhelm in a difficult situation.Venice only made plans for himself and paid no attention to Wilhelms dream and future.Besides，when Wilhelm came to his father after all kinds of failure in his life，Dr.Adler felt ashamed of his son for Wilhelm was neither rich nor enjoyed high reputation in society.He complained about Wilhelms living styles and refused to give a hand to Wilhelm，no matter emotionally or financially.All Dr.Adler saw was Wilhelms unsuccessful life in financial aspect and took a blind eye to all the efforts that Wilhelm made in the past years.Wilhelm was isolated in the world where money meant everything.

3.2 Alienation from his father.A sons alienation from his father is a typical alienation in life.The novel Seize the Day offers the readers a “complete and dramatic confrontation of father and son” （Rovit 66） Wilhelms father，Dr.Adler was a typical successful Jew in American society.He worked hard and diligently in his whole life and retired as an outstanding doctor，which let him win the respect and admiration from people around him.He stuck to protestant work and moral ethic.He loved him wife and never had any affairs.While after the death of his wife，Dr.Adler turned to only caring about himself and believed he deserved peace in his retired times.

Dr.Adler was largely affected by individualism in American culture in his old time.He refused to give any financial help to Wilhelm and his sister，which was a very easy thing for him.Dr.Adler said to Wilhelm “I cant give you any money.There would be no end to it if I started.You and your sister would take every last buck from me.I am still alive，not dead.I am still here.Life isnt over yet.I am as much alive as you or anyone.And I want nobody on my back.Get off！ And I give you the same advice，Wilky.Carry nobody on your back.” （22）

Besides，as a doctor in the whole life，Dr.Adler was used to treating everything with logic and reason，which made him tend to be indifferent and cold.While Wilhelm doid things with emotion and sought for spiritual comfort from people，especially from his father.When Wilhelm talked to his father about his difficulties in life，Dr.Adler became impatient and angry.He said “I dont want to listen to the details and I want you to understand that Im too old to take on new burdens.And I want you to understand that Im too old to take new burdens.” （50） But Wilhelm believed “It isnt all a question of money—there are other things father can give to a son.” （50） What Wilhelm wanted most from his father may be only the listening，caring，love and other spiritual support.However Wilhelm lived in a world where father was not father and son was not son，he was alone even if he had family.

3.3 Alienation from his wife.Margaret and Wilhelm once had a happy marital life： Wilhelm supported Margaret studying in college financially； they had two cute children； “Margaret nursed him…She sat on the bed and read to him.He made her read for days，and she read stories，poetry，everything in the house”.But after Wilhelm lost his job and his financial condition went down，their relationship changed.Margaret got separated with him.But she refused to divorce，for “No court would have awarded her the amount he paid.” （12） She refused to take any job and depended on Wilhelm totally for her and two childrens expenses.Margaret knew what difficult situation Wilhelm was，but she never offered any comfort and the pressure she put on Wilhelm was fatal.Wilhelm once said desperately to Margaret on the phone that “You dont have to sound so hard I cant get on my knees to them.And really you dont have to sound so hard.I havent done you so harm.”（51） Although Wilhelm was in such a depressing situation，Margaret didnt care and not allow him to see his children.She only asked for money.Although even his father told him never to get someone on his back，he never had the idea to turn a blind eye to his wife and children for he was responsible and cared his family so much and didnt want to treat his children as he was treated by his father.The conflict between the inability of Wilhelm and his desire to be responsible tortured him so much and even forced him to the edge of breakdown.

3.4 Alienation from his rational self.In the novel Seize the Day，Wilhelm acted in a way that he knew it would not lead to success.“He had decided that it would be a bad mistake to go to Hollywood，and then he went.He had made up his mind not to marry his wife，but ran off and got married.He had resolved not to invest money with Tamkin，and then had given him a check.”（9） When Wilhelm met the scout Venice and listened to all his boasting words about his ability，reputation and plans to help Wilhelm become famous，he realized in his deep heart that Venice may be a liar.But he didnt get rid of Venice immediately and even did as Venice required.As Wilhelm met Dr.Tamkin，he doubted about whether he was a real doctor or not and about the story he told of his wife and the old man they met at stock market.At this situation，he still gave his check to him and signed a document that allowed Dr.Tamkin to totally charge his money.Wilhelm knew clearly that his father didnt care him and even felt ashamed of him，however he still chose to live in New York with his father and tried to seek financial and spirit support.From this aspect，it was Wilhelm himself that led him to his miserable life.In all these wrong decisions he made，Wilhelm was able to figure out rationally that these choices might not lead to the results he hoped.But finally he still stuck to the original choice.He lived not in a logic and rational way，but sought what he wanted emotionally without considering results.Thus he was alienated from his rational self.

4.Conclusion

From the above analysis，it can be seen that Wilhelms life was regarded as a totally failure in that society he lived.He was too childish and trusted the wrong person Venice who ruined his career life.He turned to his selfish father for financial help and emotional comfort in his low times which broke down his last expectation and longing for family warmth.He worked hard to support his wife to study in college while all he received in his difficult times was his wifes bills.He commissioned his last wealth to Dr.Tamkin who turned out to be a hoodlum.Wilhelm had once figured out all these miserable results by reason，then why he could not control himself to not make these wrong decisions？ Because although he had felt there existed fraud in society，he did not want to believe and tried to use his action to prove that people could be trusted in our life； although he already knew his fathers coldness，he still wanted to try again and to seek the common love that should exist between father and son； although he might figure out his wife would disagree divorce just because no court would give her the amounts of money he provided，he still tried his best to send the money for he believed people should be responsible for their wife and children.Wilhelm is a loser for in that society where success cannot be achieved by beautiful things such as freedom，trust，love or responsibility.Dr.Adler enjoyed a comfortable life in his retirement by being cold and indifferent to his children； Margaret could live a normal live with his children without working by parasitizing on her poor husband cold-bloodedly.Wilhelm is too good a man to get succeeded and he is not willing to gain money and reputation by sacrificing his beautiful expectations towards this world.So the misery of Wilhelm is not caused by himself but by the cold，indifferent，untrustworthy and evil people around him.

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作者简介：张冉冉（1991.10.21- ），女，河北内丘人，东北林业大学硕士研究生在读，主要研究方向为英美文学。