SAUL BELLOW AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HEARTBREAK: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
“‘It’s terribly serious, of course, but I thinkmore people die of heartbreak than of radiation’” (p. 87) says Benn Crader, theprotagonist of Saul Bellow’s 1987 novel MoreDie of Heartbreak. The title can be seen as stressing the power of personalas well as external traumas to shape one’s outlook on l...
| Published in: | IJASOS- International E-journal of Advances in Social Sciences |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
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OCERINT International Organization Center of Academic Research
2017
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| Online Access: | https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/ijasos/issue/28912/309503 https://doi.org/10.18769/ijasos.309503 |
| Summary: | “‘It’s terribly serious, of course, but I thinkmore people die of heartbreak than of radiation’” (p. 87) says Benn Crader, theprotagonist of Saul Bellow’s 1987 novel MoreDie of Heartbreak. The title can be seen as stressing the power of personalas well as external traumas to shape one’s outlook on life. Relationships aresought as a panacea to anxiety but ironically may create the very complicationsthey were intended to mask. This paper will consider More Die of Heartbreak in relation to other novels of Bellow’slater period, namely The Dean’s Decemberand Ravelstein, to examinesimilarities and differences of theme. Two of these novels employ a narratorwith a close relationship with the protagonist; all three consider a variety ofexistential questions through the private reflections or conversation ofcharacters seeking a revelation in typical introspective manner, though notwithout the humour which marks Bellow’s work. Likewise, the novels all involvea search for a strategy to cope with the vagaries of life and the approach ofdeath, with the emphasis moving towards the latter as the protagonists growolder in tandem with their author. MoreDie of Heartbreak, however, chiefly examines, through Crader and thenarrator, his nephew Kenneth Trachtenberg, whether love can provide the meaningoften lacking in society and life itself. Crader, a botanist, is an expert onArctic lichens, his subject providing a symbolic escape route via the minutiaeof scientific research. Away from his plants, he embarks on and fails in anumber of relationships - notably an incongruous marriage to an heiress whosefamily turns out to have ulterior motives for the union - and questions areraised about the potential confusion of love with lust. The novel also featuresdiscussions on topics from the role of the academic to urban violence and decayand to the facing of imminent death, as in TheDean’s December and Ravelstein.However, whereas the latter two novels, despite the darknesses contemplated ineach, respond to the conundrums of life and death with a hint of optimism,Crader’s redemption at the end of MoreDie of Heartbreak lies in his rejection, temporary at least, of women andof human contact in general and his anticipation of the fulfilment he will findin joining a scientific venture to the North Pole. However, this in itself maybe seen as a form of positive thinking and decision-making rather than apassive acceptance of defeat. |
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