Tommy Wilhelm’s Deception of Reality
Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day symbolizes the complexity of American culture in the 1950s. During the post World War II era, America is experiencing a rapid economic growth. Also, America is experiencing the beginning stages of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. In Seize the Day, Bellow uses setting, characters and imagery to symbolize the psychological detachment of American’s during the corresponding time period. In Seize the Day, Tommy Wilhelm is portrayed as a middle aged man who is living in New York City. Tommy Wilhelm moves to New York City after being laid off from his sales job and divorced from his wife. In a financial dilemma, Wilhelm decides to invest in the stock market with Dr. Tamkin. Dr. Tamkin proves to be a fraudulent character after he loses all of Wilhelm money and disappears. Despite many failures, Wilhelm makes a final attempt to reach out to his father for assistance. After being denied financial assistance from his father, Tommy has a revitalizing insight regarding the meaning of life during a stranger’s funeral.
New York City is the perfect setting for symbolizing the psychological mindset of America during the 1950s. Bellow describes New York City’s setting as “the great, great crowd, the exhaustible current of millions of every race and kind pouring out, pressing round, of every
age, of every genius…” (111). Bellow describes New York City as a chaotic image to symbolize the lost state of Tommy Wilhelm. According to Gilbert M. Porter, the “setting and time-present form the frame which contains Wilhelm’s reflections on time-past and its effect on his current situation” (107). Through the outlook of Wilhelm, one can picture the detachment he experience...
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...lm with a hippopotamus to suggest another metaphor. Wilhelm is indirectly compared to the semi aquatic mammal to emphasize Porter’s “drowning man” (105). The symbol of water continues to dominate the imagery in Seize the Day throughout different levels of consciousness.
Bellow’s Seize the Day is a work of fiction that represents the perspective of the modern American during the corresponding time period. Like Hemingway’s “Lost Generation”, World War II left the American people feeling a sense of disconnection with humanity. Through the protagonist of Tommy Wilhelm, one can see the failure’s correlated with society. Also, through the character of Wilhelm, one can see the misconception of fate. Wilhelm realizes that correcting external problems requires a direct internal fixation. Through the tears of the protagonist, Bellow provides the reader with hope.
Thus placing the film fully emersed in the old, mysterious, dreamlike settings of the city, they are equally balanced with modern technology and the collective past gives viewers a sense of definite decay, with no sure centre for future (Spotto 277). Through Hitchcock’s films Americans could reminiscence and ruminate about their past-a kind of nostalgia and longingness is created. When Scottie meets Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) in the shipbuilders’ office at the Embarcadero, what he says is striking: “The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast,” Elster complains quietly and referring to the old maps and woodcuts in his office he continues, “I should have liked to have lived here then-colour, excitement, power, freedom” (qtd in Spoto 280-281/qtd from the film). Here his speech echoes urbanisation that has gripped America and he also expresses a typical American sentiment of longingness for the past well expressed. And the sadness of the old things “disappearing past” is deliberately introduced to effect in Scottie and in us who are urged to identify with him, a nostalgia for bygone era (Spoto 281). Hitchcock has taken the film keeping in mind the viewers of postwar America who were nostalgic. Artist should be able to read the mind of the people. Taine has already pointed out the importance of ‘the man, milieu and
Often, we find ourselves facing dramatic events in our lives that force us to re-evaluate and redefine ourselves. Such extraordinary circumstances try to crush the heart of the human nature in us. It is at that time, like a carbon under pressure, the humanity in us either shatters apart exposing our primal nature, or transforms into a strong, crystal-clear brilliant of compassion and self sacrifice. The books Night written by Elie Wiesel and Hiroshima written by John Hersey illustrate how the usual lifestyle might un-expectantly change, and how these changes could affect the human within us. Both books display how lives of civilians were interrupted by the World War II, what devastations these people had to undergo, and how the horrific circumstances of war were sometimes able to bring out the best in ordinary people.
That summer he sweated from the humidity which in 1940 everyone in Brooklyn sweated from; then he sweated from the hot ovens at Carlo Amato’s pastry shop in Bensonhurst four or five nights a week; then he sweated from the hot ovens at a pastry shop Downtown every day of the week except on Sunday, when he usually slept until noon. From Downtown, Giovanni Vitale came home at the end of the workday on the BMT subway to his wife, Lisa, to their three kids Anna, Steve, and Johnny. After dinner they would all listen to the Philco. Then Giovanni and the eldest kid, Johnny, eleven, walked three long blocks and two short blocks, past the old people who fanned themselves on the stoops, to Carlo’s shop on Seventeenth Avenue (4).
Dumenil, Lynn, ed. "New York City." The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History. N.p.: Oxford UP, 2012. Oxford Reference. Web. 8 Apr. 2013.
The 1920’s and 1950’s both shared the optimism that the conclusion of a war brings, and consequently both began very prosperously. While the materialism of the 20’s faded into the economic depression that followed, and the glow of the 1950’s was dimmed by the onset of communist fever, both decades proved to be successful and iconic in the way that they brought about massive prosperity, and because youth found new ways of expressing themselves and inviting progress. Unfortunately not all outcomes were good, and both eras triggered an onslaught of racial tension that would continue well into the future.
After WWII played out, population shifts occurred in the US. With southern traditions, and music, coming into contact with new urban based music, the audience that followed it, and mixing the sounds of the “boogie woogie” of rhythm and blues, the soulfulness of gospel, and throwing a dash of country twang in there, the recipe for Rock ‘n’ Roll was finished, and a whole new genre created. “The sound of the city”. Although an exciting new period for a lot of 1950s youth, “th...
Just look at the quote I gave you earlier: “Brooklyn, New York, as the undefined, hard-to–remember the shape of a stain.” He sees it as nothing but a stain on the map. He goes on to talk about “…the sludge at the bottom of the canal causes it to bubble.” Giving us something we can see, something we can hear because you can just imagine being near the canal and hearing the sludge bubble make their popping noises as the gas is released. He “The train sounds different – lighter, quieter—in the open air,” when it comes from underground and the sight he sees on the rooftops. Although some are negative, such as the sagging of roofs and graffiti, his tone towards the moment seems to be admiration. In the second section, he talks about the smells of Brooklyn and the taste of food. He’d talk about how his daughter compares the tastes of pizzas with her “…stern judgments of pizza. Low end… New Hampshire pizza. … In the middle… zoo pizza. …very top… two blocks from our house,” and different it was where he’d grown up. He talks about the immense amount of “smells in Brooklyn: Coffee, fingernail polish, eucalyptus…” and how other might hate it, but he enjoys it. In the same section, he describes how he enjoys the Brooklyn accent and the noise and smells that other people make on the streets and at the park across from his house. “Charcoal smoke drifts into the
Farber, David, and Beth Bailey. The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
History textbooks seem to always focus on the advancements of civilization, often ignoring the humble beginnings in which these achievements derive. How the Other Half Lives by journalist-photographer Jacob A. Riis explores the streets of New York, using “muck-racking” to expose just how “the other half lives,” aside from the upbeat, rich, and flapper-girl filled nights so stereotypical to New York City in the 1800s. During this time, immigrants from all over the world flooded to the new-born city, bright-eyed and expecting new opportunities; little did they know, almost all of them will spend their lives in financial struggle, poverty, and crowded, disease-ridden tenements. Jacob A. Riis will photograph this poverty in How the Other Half Lives, hoping to bring awareness to the other half of New York.
New York City that is depicted in Taxi Driver seems to be too real to be true. It is a place where violence runs rampant, drugs are cheap, and sex is easy. This world may be all too familiar to many that live in major metropolitan areas. But, in the film there is something interesting, and vibrant about the streets that Travis Bickle drives alone, despite the amount of danger and turmoil that overshadows everything in the nights of the city. In the film “Taxi Driver” director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader find and express a trial that many people face, the search for belonging and acceptance.
The Fifties were a good time to be a white middle class American These years brought an UN-thought of prosperity and confidence to Americans who barely remembered the Great Depression. Popular music of the early fifties mirrored the life of mainstream America: bland predictable and reassuring. Which didn't seem bad after the depre...
Themes in modernism literature focus on the big issues of the early 20th century. Through the themes of the writing pieces the authors are able to convey his or her opinion on the changing world around them. In “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the authors show the rise in violence in the 1920s and the effect it has had. America was changing, many of the ways where for the better, technological advancement, but quite a few were for the worse, like the crime and violence.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a novel following the rebellious life of twenty-two year old Arthur Seaton. Arthur spends his weekdays working at a bicycle factory and relaxes on weekends with plenty of drinks while in the company of various lady friends. The novel was written by Alan Sillitoe who came to be known as one of the “angry young men.” This group of writers was a dominant literary force during the 1950s and was immensely popular due to their accurate portrayal of postwar Britain and the working class. The angry young men produced a number of books (amongst other things) expressing their contempt with the class system, postwar welfare state and the lack of class change post war, the disdain of these issues are very prominent throughout Sillitoe’s novel.
When you associate anything with New York City it is usually the extraordinary buildings that pierce the sky or the congested sidewalks with people desperate to shop in the famous stores in which celebrities dwell. Even with my short visit there I found myself lost within the Big Apple. The voices of the never-ending attractions call out and envelop you in their awe. The streets are filled with an atmosphere that is like a young child on a shopping spree in a candy store. Although your feet swelter from the continuous walking, you find yourself pressing on with the yearning to discover the 'New York Experience'.
The works of the most successful writers of this generation literally became bibles to those who thought they had lost their identity but had rediscovered themselves in these books. To such people, these novels became their defining elements, and by resurrecting their individualism, they had found a point of departure from which they could finally rebuild their lives. In the period following the First World War, one novel emerged as the dominant literary work that best captured the disorder felt by the common man. It is semi-autobiographical, written by an individual who felt as disillusioned and abandoned by society as the rest of the generation