Postmodernist Repositioning Of Bellow’s Herzog

Saul Bellow (1915-2005), a Jewish American novelist in 20th century, is one of the greatest writers after Ernest Hemingway and Faulkner. His fictions, mostly set in the industrial city Chicago, voice the sense of nature and civilization, and the significance of human life. In the novel Herzog, it explores the intellectuals’confused status, complex thoughts, and mental wandering through the description of the protagonist Moses Herzog’s five-day journey.Postmodernist theory, deriving from western art movement, is a fairly broad concept. Postmodernist literature is a continuation and development of modernist literature and it criticizes the grand-narrative. Author of this thesis analyzes Herzog from the perspectives of postmodernist parody, alienation and intertextuality. In light of parody, the protagonist Moses Herzog is a parodic character from Bible; the alienation of Herzog and his restoration are present as well; and the characteristic of intertextuality enriches the novel by using collage and citation. According to the previous study, it can be concluded that those postmodernist features in Herzog just mean to vividly produce the image of the protagonist, and his ultimate purpose is to re-examine the relationship of self and society to find a way out of the absurd modern society.Herzog reflects the state of American people’s lives, distorted values and chaotic society after World War Ⅱ; and at the end of the story, the protagonist finally abandons the alienated state and gets his restoration and harmony in the peaceful natural world. Therefore, author of this thesis points out that it is of great significance to interpret Herzog from postmodernist perspective.