Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day A Journey from Isolation to Self–Actualization

This paper attempts to analyze how Tommy Wilhelm, the protagonist of Saul Bellow‟s masterpiece „Seize the Day‟ (1956), was able to struggle out of his maddening distress and suffering due to the unfriendly forces working against him. This paper tries to show how Tommy, ultimately realizes that, despite being surrounded by too many money – oriented people in a money – adoring society, having done so many mistake in life, he learns how to live in such conditions. He started to see things more transparently than ever before, realizing how he would move on from here. By leaving his former self he realizes his actual self. The paper brings to the conclusion the fact that distress and suffering, alienation, endangered relations, lead to self-actualization.