Seize the Day

by Saul Bellow
KEY LITERARY ELEMENTS
SETTING
The first five chapters are set in various parts of Hotel Gloriana in New York. The main
character of the novel, Tommy Wilhelm, moves through the twenty-third floor, the
fourteenth floor, the lobby, the mezzanine, the dining room, and the newsstand. In
Chapter V, the setting shifts to Broadway and the crowded theatre of the brokerage office.
Chapter VI has several locations, including a cafeteria, a market, a shop, and the stock
market. Chapter VII is set in the street, a massage parlor, the lobby of Hotel Gloriana,
Broadway, and a funeral parlor.
LIST OF CHARACTERS
Major Characters
Tommy Wilhelm - a middle aged man who exhibits neurotic symptoms. Those who are
close to him - his father, his estranged wife, and Tamkin - systematically punish him.
Their betrayals evoke the memories of earlier betrayals and humiliations. He is denied
any successful adult accomplishment of masculine self- sufficiency and self-esteem. He
is deprived of the ability to have good relations or to pursue anything real.
Minor Characters
Dr. Adler - Wilhelm's father who lives in his tight, tidy, old man's world of money saved.
His entire philosophy of life is based on stinginess. For him, to love means to spend
money, which he is unwilling to do. He wants nobody on his back, including his son.
Dr. Tamkin - a pseudo-philosopher and a pseudo-psychologist. He is a shrewd charlatan
who cheats Wilhelm, seizes his money, and disappears. During part of the novel, he is

Wilhelm's surrogate father. Tamkin's unbelievable tales of self-glorification represent a

fulfillment of Wilhelm's own unrealized fantasies
Mrs. Tamkin - the deceased wife of Dr. Tamkin who is described as an alcoholic, yet
Tamkin calls her the most spiritual woman he has ever met.
Mrs. Adler - Dr. Adler's deceased wife who is remembered and spoken of by Adler and
Wilhelm. Wilhelm feels that he has inherited his sensitive feelings from her. She wished
that Wilhelm would study for the medical profession.
Catherine - Dr. Adler's daughter and Tommy Wilhelm's sister. She held an important
position before her marriage. She is very fond of painting and seeks financial help from
her father to start an art gallery.
Maurice Venice - a man who dupes Wilhelm by giving him false hopes about his
chances to become an actor in Hollywood. He also organizes a ring of call girls and is
later arrested.
Nita Christenberry - a beautiful model with whom Maurice Venice falls in love. She
gets arrested because of her involvement with prostitution.
Mr. Perls - a resident in Hotel Gloriana and a friend of Dr. Adler.
Margaret - Wilhelm's wife who creates problems for Wilhelm by demanding money
again and again. They are about to be divorced, but she does not allow the divorce to
come through.
Estonian lady - a woman who is well known to Dr. Adler and many other people in the
hotel. She lives with her pets and is considered eccentric.
Rubin - the man at the newsstand who does not talk much. He does, however, make
certain remarks which set Wilhelm thinking about the mistakes committed by him in the
past.

Margaret's mother - the deceased lady who has aggravated Wilhelm's financial
problems by investing money in educational insurance policies for her grandsons
(Margaret and Wilhelm's sons).
Artie - Wilhelm's cousin. He is a well-educated man who becomes a professor.
Wilhelm's sons - Paul and his elder brother. They live with their mother Margaret.
Wilhelm supports them financially. He says that Margaret has turned them against him.
Scissors - Margaret and Wilhelm's dog. Wilhelm is very attached to it, but Margaret does
not allow him to take it when they separate.
CONFLICT
Protagonist:
Tommy Wilhelm, an over-sized ex-salesman, is the protagonist of the novel. He is
portrayed as a character on whom the world's burden and agony fall heavily. He is a man
who has been "stripped and kicked out". He is spurned by his father, persecuted by his
wife and victimized by crooks. They all exert a real and sinister power over him. By the
end of the novel he is genuinely exhausted, bowed down, and totally deprived of his inner
and outer resources. Through him the novelist explains the problems and sufferings of
humanity at large. His emotional crisis and final catharsis is his symbolic death by
drowning.
Antagonist:
Wilhelm's antagonist is really himself. Forces within him make him commit mistakes at
every stage of his life. Several people in the novel aggravate his problems, including
Maurice Venice, his father, Dr. Tamkin, and Margaret.
Climax:

The climax of the novel is reached in chapter VI, when Wilhelm loses his last 700 dollars.
He is frantic and desperately searches for Tamkin, who has disappeared without even
informing him. This heavy blow shatters him completely, for he is stripped of dignity and
without financial means. He also has nowhere to turn as proven by his father and his
wife's indifference to his situation.
An anticlimax is also reached in the novel. Wilhelm is inadvertently pushed by the crowd
into a funeral parlor. As he stands next to the coffin of the unknown dead man, Wilhelm
cries softly for the loss of another human being, he sobs for himself and his wasted life,
and he weeps for the cold and uncaring humanity at large. He symbolically drowns in his
tears; but it is also a baptism for him, a rebirth into a life of possibility and responsibility.
Outcome:
The outcome of the novel is tragic. Wilhelm loses everything and feels he is totally alone
in life. He feels financially, physically, and emotionally bankrupt. When he is swept up in
a crowd and shoved into a funeral parlor, his pent-up emotions are released. He weeps
bitterly at the sight of an unknown dead man, drowning in his tears. This catharsis is the
only positive sign in the whole novel. The reader is left with the hope that Wilhelm has
truly been baptized into a new and better life.
PLOT (Synopsis)
Seize The Day is a novel about Tommy Wilhelm's failures. He is an unemployed middleclass, middle-aged man who is waiting for a divorce from his nagging wife. He is "out of
place" among the old inmates of Hotel Gloriana, where he and his father live separately.
He desperately wants the help of his father, both emotionally and financially, but he can
never obtain it. He invests his last dollar in the commodities market through Dr. Tamkin,
and loses it all.
The main action of the novel's narrative is confined to one day, but the movement
towards the climax is heightened by several flashbacks into Wilhelm's past. One
flashback explains his stock market investment with Dr. Tamkin, the pseudo-

psychologist, who convinced Wilhelm to invest his savings in commodities. Now he

justifiably fears for his investment, for it is his last money on earth. Wilhelm also reflects
on his relationship with his father, Dr. Adler, who refuses to be kind or helpful to his son.
Wilhelm recalls that when he left college to go to Hollywood, he had changed his name
from Wilhelm Adler to Tommy Wilhelm. He thinks this is what has caused his father's
anger towards him. Finally Wilhelm remembers the way that Maurice Venice misled him,
making him believe he could become an actor in Hollywood.
There are two major pressures that are pushing Wilhelm under -- the estrangement
between Wilhelm and his father and the estrangement between Wilhelm and his wife. In
the dining room of the hotel, Wilhelm approaches his father, who is seated with Mr. Perls.
Although he attempts to please his father and impress Mr. Perls, Wilhelm condemns them
both in his mind for their transparent greed. The conversation turns to Dr. Tamkin and his
dubious credentials. Wilhelm has foolishly allowed Tamkin to invest all his money in the
stock market.
When Perls leaves the table, Wilhelm begins to gorge himself on the remaining food. It
makes Adler reflect on his son's obesity and slovenly ways. Wilhelm feels "congested" as
his father criticizes him. Wilhelm is genuinely concerned about his emotional condition
and his father's indifference to it. Dr. Adler accuses Wilhelm of victimizing himself by
allowing his wife to dominate him and by foolishly expecting perfection from his
marriage. Wilhelm feels the pressure of this unjust accusation and struggles for breath,
again becoming "choked and congested."
Wilhelm is also worried about his investment in lard. He has listened to Dr. Tamkin's
philosophy about the real and the pretender soul. He has also followed Dr. Tamkin's
advice to invest his money in the stock market, for the pseudo-psychologist told him that
"only the present is real, the here and now. Seize The Day." Now Wilhelm senses
fearfully that he is "in the water" deeper than he had anticipated.
After breakfast with his father, Wilhelm, bewildered and frightened, accompanies Tamkin
to the brokerage house to watch the market returns. It is a foreign and fearful world to

him of bright lights, machines, and whirring tumblers. His fear, of losing his savings and
from not understanding the market, sparks off two reflections. First, his mind escapes to a
peaceful moment on a farm he once owned upstate, near Roxbury. It is the kind of
existence he longs for again. Second, he recalls an experience he had in an underground
corridor beneath Times Square, where Wilhelm had felt a closeness to and a tremendous
love for all people. These are the kind of emotions he wants to feel again.
Over lunch, Tamkin increases Wilhelm's fear and isolation. He makes Wilhelm realize
that his father has totally turned his back on him, his sons have been turned against, and
Margaret has deserted him. He has no one to turn to and fears the worst. When he returns
to the brokerage house, he learns that both his commodities, lard and rye, have
plummeted, wiping out his investment and his last penny in the world. In desperation he
tries to find Tamkin, who has fled town; he also approaches his father and phones
Margaret, both of whom reject him. He is truly alone in the world and drowning in his
suffering.
Rushing out into the street in total panic, Wilhelm encounters "the inexhaustible current
of millions of every race and kind pouring out". He is swept along by the crowd and
pushed into a funeral parlor. When he looks at the unknown dead man, he cries softly for
the loss of another human being; he sobs for himself and his lost opportunities; and he
weeps for a lost, sick humanity that cannot connect with one another. Fortunately, the
tears are a catharsis for Wilhelm, a baptism into a new life of hope and possibility.
THEMES
Major
Affirmation of human life is the first major theme of the novel. The novel shows that the
'salesman' need not go to his death, need not live a life given to him by others, and follow
a masochistic strategy to preserve his childish self. By "seizing the day" - living each
moment to the fullest - life can be rewarding and meaningful.

Another major theme of the novel is the meaningless of life when it is ruled by the love
of money. The world's business, by its very nature, is centered upon the buying and
selling of goods and services with money supplying the purchasing power. But the
world's business is very different from the business of life, which involves being
connected to humanity. Throughout the novel, Tommy Wilhelm struggles to understand
the difference between the two kinds of business and to know how he relates to both.
Minor
Among the minor Themes of the novel is the theme of deceit. Maurice Venice gives
Wilhelm false hopes. He is deceived in marriage too. Dr. Tamkin, who encourages him to
speculate in the stock market, later deceives him.
Another minor theme in the novel is the conflict between father and son as exemplified in
the relationship between Wilhelm and Dr. Adler.
A third minor theme in the novel is the conflict between husband and wife as illustrated
in the estrangement between Wilhelm and his wife Margaret.
MOOD
The prevailing mood throughout the novel is that of somber tragedy. Wilhelm tries hard
to achieve something in life, but he tragically fails at every step. Maurice Venice, Dr.
Tamkin, and Margaret, his wife, exploit him. He unsuccessfully tries to gain money
through some fair means. When he fails, he unsuccessfully pleads with his father for help.
He is miserable and feels throughout the novel that he is suffocating, that life is being
choked out of him by his troubles. It is only at the very end of the novel that one small
note of hope is given.
Author Information
Saul Bellow is one of the most distinguished American novelists of the latter half of the
twentieth century. Born of Russian immigrant parents in Lachive, Quebec on July 10,
1915, he grew up in Montreal. He was a bright child and learned Hebrew, Yiddish,
7

French, and English. When he was nine, his family moved from Montreal to Chicago, a
city that he loved. He first attended college at the University of Chicago. After two years,
Bellow shifted to Northwestern University and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in
1937. Four months after enrolling as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, he
gave up formal education forever.
During the next decade he participated in a variety of jobs, working with the WPA
writer's project, serving in the editorial department of Encyclopedia Britannica, teaching
at Pestalozzi - Froebel Teacher's College, and participating in the Merchant Marines.
Most importantly, he published two novels, both with autobiographical overtones.
Dangling Man (1944), in the form of a journal, concerns a young person from Chicago
waiting to be drafted into military service. The Victim (1947), a more ambitious work,
describes the frustrations of a New Yorker seeking to discover and preserve his own
identity against the background of domestic and religious conflicts. Neither of these two
novels was judged to be exceptional by critics.
After the Second World War, Bellow joined the University of Minnesota in the English
Department. He spent a year in Paris and Rome as a Guggenheim fellow. He taught
briefly at New York University, Princeton University, and Bard College. Above all,
however he concentrated on writing fiction. With the publication of The Adventures of
Augie March (1953), Bellow won his first National Book Award. It is the story of a young
Chicago Jew growing up absurd. In 1956, he wrote Seize The Day. It is a tightly written
description of one day in the life of a middle-aged New Yorker facing major domestic
crises. Some critics feel that Bellow has never surpassed this novella.
In Henderson the Rain King (1959), Bellow returns to a more free-flowing style as he
describes an American millionaire's search for understanding of the human condition. His
next novel, Herzog (1964), won him a second national Book Award and an international
reputation. Doubtlessly based on personal sources, it portrays Moses Herzog, a middleaged University professor, who battles with his faithless wife Madeline, his friend
Valentine Gersbach, and his own alienated self.

In 1962, Bellow became a professor at the University of Chicago, but he continued to

write plays and fiction. The Last Analysis had a brief run on Broadway in 1964. Six new
short stories (1968) and his sixth novel, Mr. Sammler's Planet (1969), furthered Bellow's
reputation.
LITERARY/HISTORICAL INFORMATION
When Bellow published Seize The Day in book form in 1956, he included with it three
short stories, "A Father-to-Be," "Looking for Mr. Green," and "The Gonzaga
Manuscripts;" all three of the stories deal with the terrible power of money. In Seize The
Day, Wilhelm suffers from a lack of money and his father's unwillingness to help him,
even though he has saved a fortune in his lifetime. But Dr. Adler has lived through the
Depression of the 1930's and knows the fear of losing everything.
Seize The Day shares affinities with Herzog. Both Herzog and Wilhelm are in the midst
of a serious domestic crisis when they approach their fathers for money. Both also have
extra-marital affairs with catholic girls. Seize The Day also shares some similarities with
Dangling Man and The Victim. Bellow extends in Seize The Day, the experiment with the
first and third person points of view that he had made in the earlier two works. All three
books also present several images of crowds with "imploring, wrathful, despairing" faces