SELF AND OTHER IN THE NOVELS OF SAUL BELLOW AND PATRICK WHITE

Abstract

Self-realization, the integration of self, the achievement of selfhood and identity are commonly used notions in literary criticism. However, one often finds that these ideas are assumed to be generally understood and left undefined. Applied to a variety of works/authors the lack of definition might lead one to mistakenly assume similarities leaving the differences between the authors unexplored. The aims of this thesis are two-fold. Firstly, it will examine selected novels of Saul Bellow and Patrick White to show how the achieved self differs quite considerably in their works. Secondly, it hopes to demonstrate how concepts from philosophy might be used to clarify and illuminate literary discussion. The first chapter of the thesis establishes the nature of the alienation of the protagonists of the novels. By dealing with the novels of Saul Bellow and Patrick White in turn, it draws attention not only to the broad similarities and differences between the two novelists, but also to those which exist from novel to novel of each of the individual writers. This chapter closes with an introduction to Martin Buber, the Jewish existentialist thinker, whose ideas regarding the nature of alienation and the possibility of relation will be used as the basis for the analysis of the novels. One of the chief agents of change in the consciousness of the protagonists of the novels is their encounter with the Other. The Other can be people, the natural world or God. The second and third chapters of the thesis examine the relation of the protagonists to the Other in terms of the concepts of I-You and I-It espoused by Martin Buber. In many of Saul Bellow's novels, this Other will be someone with whom the protagonist shares an intimate relationship. Chapter Two considers these relations in three of his novels - The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog and Humboldt's Gift. However, in some of Patrick White's novels, the Other is an immanent divinity. Chapter Three considers the growth of White's protagonists towards relation with a God in The Tree of Man, Voss and The Vivisector. These chapters analyse the process of change that takes place in the protagonists as they attempt to transcend their alienation through their relationships. As previously, these chapters draw attention to similarities and differences between the protagonists of Saul Bellow and Patrick White. The thesis concludes by examining the relation between will, fate and freedom in the novels discussed in the preceding chapters and suggesting that the protagonists of the two novelists differ considerably in their self-realization, that whereas White's protagonists achieve some relation with a God, Bellow' s protagonists realize unity within themselves and only just discover the possibility of purposeful lives.