The Images Of Chicago In Saul Bellow’s Novel

Saul Bellow (1915-2005) is an important writer of America’s postwar literary. In1924, Saul Bellow and his family immigrated to Chicago in the United States. At that time, Chicago was in the booming period of American industrialization, materialistic Chicago had strong impact on Bellow. Bellow was a writer with strongly autobiographical account, he grew and worked in Chicago for nearly three decades, so city life in Chicago became the creation background in his novels. He wrote many works, and his short novels, novels expressed the existential and spiritual state of the city dwellers in Chicago. Based on the analysis of "The City in Literature", this paper presents the images of Chicago in Bellow’s novels that reflected his values and aesthetic personality.There are six parts, which include four chapters in text.In the introductory remarks, on the one hand we discuss the studying situation of domestic and international research, on the other hand this paper based on the theory of "The City in Literature"The first chapter is "Saul Bellow and Chicago". Russian culture, British culture, Jewish culture intertwined in Bellow’s value system, he became the marginal man of Chicago and the whole of American culture, this status gave him an unique perspective to look at city life of Chicago. The life of Chicago had an important influence on Bellow to take the road of literature in different aspects.The second chapter is "a rough city". Chicago is well known for its rough, which is different from other cities in the United States. Reactionary gang warfare, murder and other crimes are the performance of the rough Chicago, and this affected the shaping of the protagonist in Saul Bellow’s novels..The third chapter is "an immigrant city". Chicago have many immigrant communities. In Bellow’s novels, it shows different kinds and processes on Americanization of immigrants.The fourth chapter is "city of desire". Chicago’s pragmatic style consisted with money-mad American values.At the same time, Chicago had been submerged by sexual desire like New York. In epilogue, Bellow was not a confined geographical writer in Chicago, his works had a unique breadth and depth.