Seize the Day DR.

FAHMIDA HAQUE
Saul Bellow
Existentialism

Seize the Day was written

by Saul Bellow in 1956.
Coincidentally this year
also witnessed the
publication of Being and
Nothingness, an
influential yet complex
book, written by Jean-
Paul Sartre, the greatest
existentialist philosopher,
novelist and playwright.
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 Seize the Day possibly best
represents Bellow’s understanding
of life, human nature, and
individuality from the perspective
of existentialism. Similarly, if we
say that Seize the Day is the literary
Existentialism interpretation of existentialism, we
will depreciate the immensity and
complexity of existentialism, but in
it we can find many congruities and
hear the identical voices of two
great thinkers, Saul Bellow and
Jean-Paul Sartre.

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 1. Bellow’s literary interpretation of man’s absurd
existence.
2. Bellow corresponds emotional response -
desperation, anguish, forlornness, regret - such
negative aspects of human experiences as
metaphysically defined by Sartre.
3. Bellow’s approach to self and free individual choice
during Wilhelm’s life trail, spanning from the youth to
his forties.
4. Saul Bellow symbolically treats death to illuminate
and echo with the core of Sartre’s philosophy - to
exist.
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 Alienation
Self & Free Choice
Anguish & Death

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