“When it came to concealing his troubles, Tommy Wilhelm was not less capable than the next fellow.” (1). With only this small sentence, Bellow tells the reader a huge part of this character’s life. By telling the reader that he “conceals” his troubles, Bellow tells the reader that this person has much to speak of, and that he will eventually explode. I found it amazing how this author was able to do this, to grasp the meaning of intimacy in such as small group of words. The action of keeping your problems to yourself is very common in human beings, and in many cases it has caused people to commit suicide. Due to this fact, I was expecting Tommy Wilhelm to eventually end up his life. Suicide will directly relate to the title of the book Seize the Day, where literally he seized/took the day with him, with his life.
“…out, out, out to attend to business. The getting out had in itself become the chief business” (2). Here the author clearly expresses how business had turned against Wilhelm. Going out had become “the chief business”, this meant that he had nothing to do, that the mere fact of getting out of the hotel and try doing something was basically everything now. This fact also made me speculate on a future suicide to be committed by Wilhelm.
Some people argue that the meaning of the word cynical refers to a person that shows contempt for other people’s actions, or a person who is distrustful or pessimistic. This definition of the word cynical placed in the context given by Bellow “Did Artie love his languages, and live for them, or was he also, in his heart, cynical?”(13), made me think back on the compilation of poems written by T.S. Elliot The Waste Land. In some poems, Elliot without notice changes the language in which he is writing. In previous blogs about this abrupt change of languages, I mentioned that he may be doing this to show contempt; however, it never occurred to me, up till now, that Elliot was cynical, and that he did that because he distrusted the single language Anglo-Saxons. Was Elliot trying to do that? In this sentence given by Bellow, clearly he states that the usage and knowledge of many languages may be just an expression of a cynical person, just like Elliot in the case of The Waste Land.
“Let me out of this clutch and into a different life” (22). This line made me remember about a story I once read which really influenced me. The story was about a little girl who threw all of her problems into a bag, and went of looking for other problems in other bags; however, every other bag was heavier than the other until she found one which was as light as a feather. Then when she opened the bag, to her surprise, the bag had her problems. This story is very true about me. I often get mad at myself for not using my time wisely and pray for another life; however, in the end I remember this girl’s little story, making me realize that I am not the worst.
“Each of those crowns represented a tooth ground to the quick, and estimating a man’s grief with his teeth as two per cent of the total…” (28). Why does Bellow compare such things like teeth and grief. In my opinion, grief would be better expressed by the expression and state of the eyes. You can easily tell by the look in someone eyes if they have been in insomniac, nostalgic, or even stressed. So why would Bellow compare such a thing? Maybe, although this book seems serious, it is a satire about a human’s life and all of its absurdities during one simple day. One absurdity may simply be how Wilhelm easily criticizes the state in which the gentleman sitting besides his father is, while he doesn’t realize how the expressions in his face so easily “unconceal” his troubles.
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