A Study of Saul Bellow's Dangling Man

Author: Cheng Ho-Chou

Abstract：

Dangling Man, Saul Bellow's first novel, is a story about Joseph, an alienated hero, in quest of a rebirth. The setting is in the city of Chicago. In the novel, he is engaged in a quest for freedom from a state of emptiness of the mind.
During the time when he is waiting for a military draft, Joseph confronts a state of emptiness of the mind. Turing introspective, he becomes a self-centered man, very critical of his friends and his family. Finally, he becomes very much detached from the outside world. His problems, however, is a sort of mental inequilibrium.
The book suggests that what might save him is the knowledge of common humanity and that a change of life does not lie so much in a change of the outside world as in a change of the heart and mind.

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