A Vivid and Multifaceted Female Figure in Saul Bellow’s Herzog

Abstract

Saul Bellow, who has written numerous novels in his career, is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists of the twentieth century. In his masterpiece Herzog, Bellow has been criticized for a strong flavor of “misogyny” view and the portrayal of female figures from the perspective of male angle. Here we take a major female figure, Madeleine, as an example to refute the accusation that Madeleine is biasedly constructed as a devil-type woman and show how Bellow successfully shapes her, with female qualities retained, as a vivid and rebellious woman striving to be the master of her own fate.