The Relationship Between Saul Bellow’s Creations and the Chicago School of Sociology

Abstract

Saul Bellow was determined to be engaged in literary creation at the age of ten but he majored in sociology and anthropology in university. When he was a postgraduate student, his mentor told him that he lacked suitability to be engaged in social science research because his essays were easily turned into fictional works, and his intellect was suitable for some areas full of creativity and imagination. Surely enough, he was the first novelist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature among Jewish American writers in 1976, hence he became worldly famous as his mentor expected. Researchers had paid much attention to his literary achievement, but few studies tried to contact his accomplishment with his sociological background. In this paper, I will analyze the influence of Social Science in Chicago on his literary creations and the tendency of sociology in his works, on the basis of his academic background of sociological studies.