Abstract
Impressing people with the profundity of its content and scope, Saul Bellow’s fiction is often the embodiment of alienation, meaning of life, men’s quest for spiritual discernment, and the possibilities of human awakening. Though the content and form have both shown their distinguishing excellence in his novella <i>Seize the Day</i>, it is always Bellow’s theme that is under vast investigation, while the other charming feature of this story – its way of narration is not often discussed. This paper aims to analyze the narrative of <i>Seize the Day</i> from the perspective of narratology, figuring out how omniscient narrative and temporal structure are disposed to convey remarkable characteristics to <i>Seize the Day</i>. In general, this story is narrated by an omniscient third-person narrator, but the narrative voice is not an exclusive one all the time. Besides, the focalization of the omniscient narrator shifts whenever necessary, which devotes to exposing the instabilities of characters and events in the story. As to the temporal structure, variations existing in order, duration and frequency generate rhetorical effects in the story and make the structure of <i>Seize the Day</i> coordinate smoothly the interlaced temporal references, leading further instabilities and tensions to the movement of the narrative. In <i>Seize the Day</i>, Saul Bellow has showed a mastery of narrative voice, focalization and temporal structure, and demonstrated how incredible the narrative techniques can be in transferring a modified omniscient narrative and the temporal manipulation of acceleration and deceleration into a dynamic narrative progression, which offers readers the option to consider the possibilities of development, motivation and resolution in the entire narrative of the story.
Highlights
Being one of the most distinguished postwar American novelists, Saul Bellow, has been the recipient of many Awards, including most importantly the 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature
In the narrative of Seize the Day, Saul Bellow has worked against the grain of literary fashion and showed a mastery of narrative voice, focalization and temporal structure
Bellow feels free to introduce a new character, Dr Tamkin as a typical example, any time in the course of the narrative, leading a change of focus which is almost guaranteed to be fatal to the working of Seize the Day
Summary
Being one of the most distinguished postwar American novelists, Saul Bellow, has been the recipient of many Awards, including most importantly the 1976 Nobel Prize for Literature. He Jiexia: Modified Omniscient Narrative and Temporal Structure in Seize the Day studies about Bellow’s works include Lee Siegel’s “Bellow’s Lonely Planet” [13], Hooti and Omrani’s modernist study on Seize the Day [2], and Faruk Kalay’s study about personality in this story [4], which all concern the content. Other scholars study this novel by comparing it with other writings like Jesmin’s comparison of Death of a Salesman and Seize the Day [3]. Considering the fact that Bellow’s art of narrative has been inadequately examined, this paper intends to analyze the narrative of Seize the Day, showing how and from where the powerful impact of the novel comes and why Bellow’s narrative techniques, his themes, can be of great importance too
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