Seize the Day (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
By SparkNotes
()
About this ebook
Making the reading experience fun!
Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, SparkNotes is a new breed of study guide: smarter, better, faster. Geared to what today's students need to know, SparkNotes provides: *Chapter-by-chapter analysis
*Explanations of key themes, motifs, and symbols
*A review quiz and essay topics Lively and accessible, these guides are perfect for late-night studying and writing papers
Read more from Spark Notes
King Lear: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5No Fear Shakespeare Audiobook: Romeo & Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bird by Bird (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As You Like It (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Much Ado About Nothing (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsiders (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRichard III (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tempest (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Measure for Measure (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Autobiography of Malcom X (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Fear Shakespeare Audiobook: Julius Caesar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Years of Solitude (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMerchant of Venice: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet SparkNotes Literature Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHenry V (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tempest: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Winter's Tale (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlas Shrugged SparkNotes Literature Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMerchant of Venice (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Gentlemen of Verona (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDune (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Raisin in the Sun (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsComedy of Errors (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Fear Shakespeare Audiobook: Othello Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Richard II (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Romeo and Juliet (No Fear Shakespeare Graphic Novels) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Lear (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Seize the Day (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
Related ebooks
Literature Help: Seize the Day Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Saul Bellow's Seize the Day Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings“The Marrow of Tradition” Made Easy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mill on the Floss (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBilly Budd and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Garden of Folly: 'Achieving it is the only way to get it'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReady Reference Treatise: A Man for All Seasons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRagtime (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Horton Foote's "The Young Man from Atlanta" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRebels 79: The Iconoclast, the Prophet, the Commando and the Bleeding Heart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStudy Guide to Germinal by Emile Zola Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Upton Sinclair's "The Second-Story Man" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohnny Tremain (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Will: by Will Smith and Mark Manson - A Comprehensive Summary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTommy's Story: The Life Experience of a Salford Man, A British Soldier of World War Two. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlacklisted: A Biography of Dalton Trumbo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sinatra Club: My Life Inside the New York Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Saul Bellow's "Humboldt's Gift" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNine Stories: A Reader's Guide to the J.D. Salinger Story Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Warden (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"Ragtime" Summarized and Analyzed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Day of the Locust (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBelow the Fairy City: A Life of Jerome K. Jerome Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Thief of Time: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Adventures of Tom Sawyer SparkNotes Literature Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Book Notes For You
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence | Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Midnight Library: A Novel by Matt Haig: Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O'Neill: Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The 5 AM Club Summary: Business Book Summaries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by John Gottman: Conversation Starters Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi: Summary by Fireside Reads Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summary of Ichiro Kishimi's and Fumitake Koga's book: The Courage to Be Disliked: Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Workbook for Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy: Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Poverty, by America By Matthew Desmond Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summary of Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Workbook & Summary of Becoming Supernatural How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon by Joe Dispenza: Workbooks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Seize the Day (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Seize the Day (SparkNotes Literature Guide) - SparkNotes
Seize the Day
Saul Bellow
© 2003, 2007 by Spark Publishing
This Spark Publishing edition 2014 by SparkNotes LLC, an Affiliate of Barnes & Noble
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
Sparknotes is a registered trademark of SparkNotes LLC
Spark Publishing
A Division of Barnes & Noble
120 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
www.sparknotes.com /
ISBN-13: 978-1-4114-7750-6
Please submit changes or report errors to www.sparknotes.com/.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Context
Plot Overview
Character List
Character Analysis
Themes, Motifs, and Symbols
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Important Quotations Explained
Key Facts
Study Questions and Suggested Essay Topics
Review & Resources
Context
Saul Bellow was born Solomon Bellows in Lachine, Quebec on June 10, 1915. Nina Steers, a journalist who once interviewed Bellow, said that his birth date was the only piece of information she could be sure of and that everything else was in doubt. The reason for Steer's statement is that Bellow is known for refuting interviewers and has always kept his personal life very private.
Bellow was born of poor, Russian-Jewish parents in Canada. He grew up immersed in the Old Testament and learned Hebrew and Yiddish because his mother desired that her children be Talmudic scholars. Bellow's father, on the other hand, was a business man, a bootlegger, and an importer, who wanted his children to grow up and take advantage of the new world of economic opportunities before them. He wanted his children to either have a profession or to have money. This is significant given that the main character in Seize the Day, Tommy Wilhelm, battles against his own father's idea of success, which, not coincidently, is very much like Bellow's father's idea of success. Money and success becomes a recurring theme within the novella.
Bellow did not remain in suburban Canada, and he moved in 1924 to the Chicago. It is at this time that the urban landscape began to infiltrate his life and would later reveal itself in his writing. Chicago is where Bellow grew-up,
went to high school, and began his college career. Having attended the University of Chicago for two years, he transferred to Northwestern University where he majored in anthropology. He decided after college to continue graduate studies within the field of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin from which he dropped out of and got married. It was then that he decided to write. He procured a job under the WPA writer's project writing short biographies of mid-western writers, and he later achieved an editorial position for The Encyclopedia Britannica. His first success as writer, however, came in 1941, with the publication of his short story Two Morning Monologues,
in the Partisan Review.
During the course of his life, Bellow would be married three times, have children, teach at numerous universities, including the University of Minnesota, New York University, Princeton, Bard, the University of Puerto Rico, and the University of Chicago, and he would be given a number of highly prestigious awards. Saul Bellow has been the recipient of various National Book Awards, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Prix Litteraire International, the Jewish Heritage Award, the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, and, most importantly, the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he received in 1976.
Bellow was born in 1915, thus he came of age during the depression. He lived through World War II, and was even in the Merchant Marines, he saw the wartime economic boom of the forties and fifties, and experienced the Cold War first hand. Given that the protagonist of his novella, Seize the Day, has reached the age of forty-four in the 1950s, all of the above becomes applicable not only to Bellow, but to the protagonist of his novella and to its context. Tommy Wilhelm lives in the America of the 1950's, which means that the backdrop of his life consists of a newly made, strong American economy, and of a country at war
with the Soviet Union that uses the tools of science and technology as weapons. Psychology and science appear over and over in the novella, as does the new urban experience—the big city at its economic height. With all of this in mind, Bellow has decided to place the protagonist of his novel at odds with the world around him. Tommy's inner
world, his feelings and his human needs, are in constant battle with the external world of money and business.
Plot Overview
Tommy Wilhelm is a man in his mid-forties, temporarily living in the Hotel Gloriana on the Upper West Side of New York City, the same hotel in which his father has taken residence for a number of years. He is out of place from the beginning, living in a hotel filled with elderly retirees and continuing