“…Wilky, don’t start this on me [Dr. Adler]. I have a right to be spared” (42). In this quote, the feelings that the father has towards Wilhelm’s problems are clearly stated. Dr. Alder doesn’t want to entangle into any new financial problems, he says that he has already lived that and that his son should start living independently: “There would be no end to it if I started” (51). The father also fears that if he gives his son a loan, his son will then stick with his dad’s loan for the rest of his pensioned life until he dies. This fear is so overwhelming for Dr. Adler that he doesn’t give Wilhelm a single penny although his son is in great financial stress. Personally, I would help my OWN son in an economic stress situation; however, as soon as he gets just above this situation, I would stop completely from lending him money until he pays even half of what he owns me. This I would do, because it not only gives my struggling son an extra boost in his life to keep on going, but it gives me a better relation with him.
Speaking of this, once Wilhelm even tells his father: “Keep it and enjoy it yourself. That’s the ticket!” (51). The ticket to what? When someone refers to a ticket, I usually think of it as a permission to be or participate in something that no everybody can. Applying this meaning into this quote, I would think of the ticket to death; however, everybody has one spot granted for a thing such as death meaning that death wouldn’t fit my definition of a ticket. Concluding, I ended up thinking of the ticket as the way for Dr. Adler to keep living in the “selfish” way he does, since he is the only one with the permission/ticket for living life the way he does.
“Here was a man, like Rubin, who knew and knew and knew” (56). “Wilhelm, in the city of his birth, was ignorant” (56). “A man like Rubin”, here Bellow compares two low-class workers to each other. Both workers, in accordance to the author, “knew” (I believe) about life due to the harsh experiences that, like most low-class workers, they had lived. Then, he continues to show how the people that come from poor backgrounds in comparison for those who come from wealthier economic backgrounds differ from each other. It is amazing, how the low-class immigrant knew more than Wilhelm who was born in that city. This irony is expressed by the author to demonstrate the reality of the economically unequal society which we have created. This event may also represent the author’s feelings towards the father due to the fact that because of him was that Wilhelm ended up knowing less from his city than the manager. This occurs because while Dr. Adler gives Wilhelm everything he needs when little, he became an ignorant worker, while the suffering low-class worker became fully aware of the city in which he lives in. By showing this, Bellow maybe wanted to state that this will be the same if Wilhelm’s father chooses to lend him money. If he does, probably his son will never fully learn how the world revolves.
I kept on reading when I stumbled with the title as a phrase: “Only the present is real—the here-and-now. Seize the day”(62). Here, the phrase “Seize the day” literally means Carpe Diem. Here the Seize the day of which the author is referring is two makes me think of a big event which is no longer suicide for the fact that Dr. Tamkin is directly referring to doing something that will “stop” time due to its great/positive impacts; however, I predict that the meaning of these three words will change, they will mean something else that is not the figurative meaning which is commonly known, but another meaning, a literal meaning. “At the foot of Mt. Serenity/ Is the cradle to eternity” (71). Taking this small quote out of the context of the book I would like to focus on “Mt. Serenity”. This analogy of serenity and a mountain make sense in every sense. Serenity is always the key factor in doing things well and effective. In the context of this book, when they refer to serenity, I really thought how that applied to Wilhelm, although he thought that this was just bullocks. This makes me remember how in every circumstance the winner is the serene one, the person who manages to bottle up their impulsive actions; however, now that I mentioned the bottling up of the impulsive actions, it makes me think that Bellow might have wanted to highlight I big irony about the effects of being serene. Some may argue, as I previously did, that being serene is the KEY factor for coming out triumphant in many stressful situations. But it is these serenity, this tranquility that keeps on pushing bottled up feeling upward until the person finally exploded and something terrible may turn up happening (in Wilhelm’s case, suicide). Maybe, Bellow might have referred to serenity as a negative thing, meaning that sometimes it is better to relief the pressure inside of you by following your impulsive actions. With this, the author may have done the analogy of a mountain and serenity in order to demonstrate their close relation. When climbing up a mountain, many people end up dying, just like the people who, obviously, commit suicide.
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