WAR, IDLENESS AND HUMANITY IN SAUL BELLOW–S DANGLING MAN

Abstract

Dangling Man is a diary written during the Second World War; Joseph is expecting his draft papers and has entered a critical period of idleness. This article starts by considering the close relationship between war and opportunism, which situates Joseph‟s alienation in a precise socio-historical context. It then draws a parallel between the hero‟s crisis and the rise of Sartre‟s existentialism before examining the question of the young man‟s approach to reality as a writer and a reader.