A Study On Endings’ Tension Of Saul Bellow’s Full-length Novels

Saul Bellow is one of the foremost novelists in contemporary American literatureand also one of the great writers who have the longest writing time span in worldliterature. His works probed into the intellectuals’ profound understanding and subtleanalysis of human nature. As a writer with much insight into literature and humannature, Saul Bellow tries to employ the letters to reveal everything as long as they arethe most original, genuine, complicated and natural, as well as the process of life andgenuineness to express his understandings of life. Not only does he mingle his lifeexperience into his works, but also he filters it down to the endings of his novelswhich is called Saul Bellow type ending. The endings in Bellow’s novels areingenious and he has established his own style.The ending of Saul Bellow’s novels show great ingenuity and sui generis.Previous critics at home and abroad tended to interpret the ending in his novels fromthe perspective of society and biography. Some critics suppose that it embodies the"must have" ethics of Saul Bellow, or think it is imbued with a kind of pessimisticattitude. And this article will regard the endings of the following novels TheAdventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog, and Humboldt’s Giftas a part of Saul Bellow’s course of lif. Saul Bellow’s endings are ever-changing fromthe integral view, which reflects the process of Saul Bellow’s mental maturity.My thesis is divided into introduction, main body and conclusion. Theintroduction part outlined Saul Bellow’s life and literature creation, the researchreview at home and abroad, the current status of the novel’s ending research and abrief overview of Saul Bellow’s endings. The text consists of four chapters. The firstchapter analyses the uncertain ending with the method of scrutinizing The Adventuresof Augie March. The second chapter, from three dimensions of the changing of psyche,living in harmony and helping others highlighted the ending of running in Hendersonthe Rain King. The third chapter discussed the tranquil ending in Herzog. The fourthchapter tried to explore the symbolic ending in Humboldt’s Gift, which is a kind oflove and hope.The conclusion part summarized the whole thesis with the aim ofemphasizing that Saul Bellow’s endings are open, complicated, ever-changing, whichreflects the process of Saul Bellow’mental maturity and his insight into life.