Seize the Day as an Ethnic Novel

An Ethnic novel contains stories whose central characters are Native American, Italian-American, Jewish, Appalachian or members of some other specific cultural group. Ethnic novel usually deals with a protagonist caught between two conflicting ways of life: mainstream American culture and his ethnic heritage. Seize the Day is an ethnic novel because it deals with a Jewish problem, mental conflicts, and American materialistic culture. 

First and foremost element of an Ethnic novel is to deal with a Jewish problem. War creates disorder everywhere and in many cases dislocation because of forced immigration. During the war many people, Jews especially, were escaping the Germans and, thus, fleeing, when they could. This dislocation results in alienation, materialism, frustration and anxiety. 

Another element of an Ethnic novel, mental conflict and isolation is found in the book. Tommy is an idealist surrounded by the pressures of the outside world. He is isolated and, thus, is forced to turn inward. The urban landscape is the symbol that furthers his isolation, for he is always “alone in a crowd”. Tommy feels cut off not only from his father and from the rest of his family—his sister, his dead mother, his estranged wife and their two sons—but he also feels alienated from himself and from everyone he meets. Tommy Wilhelm is shown in desperate loneliness and life annihilating alienation and he is in dire need of an understanding heart. This isolation and inner struggle is the predicament of modernity. Dr. Adler, a symbol of professional success, is reluctant to play any part that may bring consolation and comfort to Tommy’s heart. In respect of emotion and feelings, father and son are ocean apart. 

The materialistic American culture which is an important element of an Ethnic novel dominates the modern city. Dr. Adler and Mr. Perls are materialistic and appear to worship money. It is a postwar, post-depression, cold war, technological world. Adler believes in power and “success” and in rationalism. He is the “self-made man.” In fact, Bellow has given Adler the name of a psychiatrist whose teachings were based on ideas of “power.” Everywhere he goes he encounters the materialistic spirit. The old, shrivelled, men he meets in the brokerage office have dedicated their lives to making money on the commodities market. But Wilhelm senses something inimical to life in the way the secretive, uncommunicative Mr. Rappaport has made his money, in the “chicken business.” He imagines the appalling conditions in which the animals live on chicken farms. Then, when he notices that Rappaport will not let anyone see what he has written on his notepad, he thinks, “This was the way a man who had grown rich by the murder of millions of animals, little chickens, would act.” 

Bellow’s themes namely alienation, hard world of money, anxiety, deception and selfishness not only depict the Jewish life but also the complexity of modern American society. Saul Bellow generalizes his theme. So from this point of view we can say that Seize the day is an ethnic rather than an American novel.