Victims of Ideology: Bellow’s Characters in Humboldt’s Gift

Abstract

ABSTRACT The present research is a probe into the ideological predicament of the characters, Humboldt Fleisher and Charles Citrine, in Saul Bellow’sHumboldt’s Gift. They feel alienated because the social ideology limits them to the particular definition of subjects. They are cynical subjects and know what they are doing by getting involved in the socio-economic activity of their society but they still keep on doing it. Their social ideology regulates their behaviors and conduct. They are notconformists on the ideological belief of their society. Rather than loosing themselves in the status quo, they take recourse to alternative ways to come out of the crisis of the Western capitalist ideology and live a self-determined life. For this Charliepractices Yoga and meditation, reads Anthrosophy, and goes for erotic relief. Humboldt, as a rebel challenges the society by the way of irrational resistance. He takes shelter in drinks, pills, insanity, book reading, and locks himself in a loony bin. Ironically besides their desperate efforts to free themselves from the social ideology they are enslaved by its ritual practice either knowingly or unknowingly. In the novel they are doomed to live under the ideologies as put forth by the American capitalismvia Chicago society. In the eye of their society their vain efforts seem insubstantial illusion and they themselves are proved nothing more than the heroic daydreamers.