A Study Of Memory In Saul Bellow’s Novels

This dissertation attempts to interpret the memory narration and material writing in American Jewish writer Saul Bellow’s eight long novels and one short novel,and uses the cultural memory theory of Jan Assman,Aleida Assmann and Youri Lotman and semiotic theory of C.S.Pierce to conduct an overall study of these works.By a cognitive model of episode memory built in Bellow’s novels,the dissertation explores material memory writing from four dimensions: the memory of the implicit code of the landscape,the archaeological memory among species,the conflict and alienation of modern memory coded in self-individual,and the encounter and dependence memory of diaspora.It aims to explore the role expectations of memory in the development of characters’ identity in Bellow’s novels,and how material memory writing can help characters express themselves and gain their social identity.Thus,it can explain how the language structure of material system in Bellow’s novels is presented in his works under the social and cultural memory program.Based on the close reading of the text,this dissertation analyzes the material memory writing embedded in Bellow’s novels by employing Pierce semiotic theory.From a diachronic perspective,the memory narratives can be roughly divided into ancient historical memory and modern memory,in which,the author Bellow himself is included as well within the Jewish cultural tradition and the American Jewish-Christian cultural tradition.As far as the ancient historical memory,the dissertation focuses on the implicit code memory and archaeological memory of the landscape in Bellow’s novels.Through Bellow’s two early novels,The Adventures of Augie March(1953)and Rain King Henderson(1959),the story of the “God’s chosen” in the memory of Judaism and the story of the early American Puritan “Building a city upon a hill” are used as the root sources of the implicit memory in the landscape,in which the identity confusion caused by “social sugar” civic consciousness and “contract” alliance consciousness will be analyzed.Take the protagonists Augie and Henderson as examples,two kinds of the implicit memory are examined: urban memory and jungle memory.Through the middle and late novels Mr.Sammler’s Planet(1970),More Die of Heartbreak(1987),and the short story Bella Rosa’s Connection(1989),a detailed analysis of the archaeological style is thoroughly investigated,such as the sympathetic memory of animals and plants,the Holocaust in the deep memory of humans,the lost memory of the Jewish community.The purpose is to study the self-appeal within the context of natural space,urban space and human’s spiritual space by adopting the “text-mirror” narrative model.The dissertation discusses Bellow’s unique Jewish monumental speech memory writing and his worries about the lost memory of the Jewish community of destiny.As far as the modern memory symbols in the novels are concerned,the research of the identity index symbol memory of the novel characters is paid to individual memories and collective memories embedded in Bellow’s novels.Through the two novels Henderson the Rain King(1959)and Herzog(1964),the modern coding is analyzed in individual memory,which is mainly manifested in the memory of heteronomy between subjects and the memory of “marginal people.” It tries to illustrate how the reconciliation is achieved between the self and society.Through Humboldt’s Gift(1975),The Dean’s December(1979)and Ravelstein(2005)these three mid and late novels,the object perceptual narratives in the diasporic memory are involved in discussion,such as time-space physical memory,property memory,and self-extension when roads meet.The syntagmatic relations of the material culture and the meaning of life are much explored.At the same time,in the analysis of memory narratives,some of memory descriptions in the previously mentioned works are also slightly dabbled.By means of the interpretation of the related memory narrative symbols,this dissertation contends that Bellow reveals his concerns as a Jewish writer in his works: while American Jews are resolutely resisting fascism,their Jewish identity may be overused and become a control tool of the American state machine.Through the overall investigation of the memory narratives in Bellow’s novels produced in different periods,this study articulates that the initial memory traces of the intellectual protagonists in Bellow’s writing possess the hermaphrodite quality of the Jewish ancestors.They become American Jews after the recoding memory.They psychologically identify themselves as Americans after recalling their life experience.The sense of community with a shared future among American Jews,prompted by collective memory,urges them to strive to become U.S.citizens,but this sense of community with a shared future for Jews began to be slowly lost in the process of assimilation with American society,and the need for identity in American society became stronger and stronger,this became the driving force behind their eventual citizenship in American society.Undoubtedly,this legitimate American social identity helps them understand their responsibilities and obligations,which push them to think about the entire community of human destiny.In this sense,this study contends that Bellow expressed his best wishes in his novels,that is,the American Jews should selectively forget the traumatic memory of the American Jewish people of the Holocaust.Instead,they should insist on the authenticity of modern life.In the long river of historical memory,they should continue to explore their own history and break through the self so that they can make real contributions to writing a community with a shared future for mankind.