Ronald L Lycette - Cliffsnotes on Bellows Herzog

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Herzog is a portrait of an introspective, troubled hero. Saul Bellow has expressed his fear that the human species is losing its foothold on sanity and that the individual person is losing his capacity to comprehend ideas and to feel genuine emotions. Lacking necessary, justifiable ideologies, we are thrown back upon ourselves only to discover our own emptiness. Without moral certainty or without clear, rational explanations of the meaning of life, modern man is deeply troubled. Herzog is Bellows modern man, exploring the possibilities of the individual in contemporary society. Continually, he is assailed by neuroses and forces beyond his control, and he must struggle to maintain his identity and his humanity. It is this crisis of identity which is at the heart of Bellows novel.

What makes Herzog so overwhelming is its attempt to incorporate so many contrary ideas. Contrasted throughout the novel are nihilism and hope, despair and comic irony, alienation and accommodation. What Herzog is privately conflicts with the mask he wears in public; he is passive and masochistic, yet he tends also to be willful and sadistic. One of the novels major ideas is that people must survive by maintaining a painful awareness of this mixed human condition. Its hero also learns that it is impossible for one mind to comprehend all of human reality, and that the self is destroyed when it submits its destiny to others. Herzog is beset by reality-instructors, those who try to determine his future and to fit him into their lifestyles. He must constantly struggle to assert his individuality. Finally, he discovers that existence involves the necessity of accepting fragmentation, flux, failure, suffering, irrationality, sexuality, decay, and death. The novel offers no answers beyond this recognition of our burdens and limitations. But, for Bellow, it is only through burdens and limitations that we can achieve identity.

Besides exploring humanitys need for individuality, Bellows novel is also about the heartindicated by the German herz in his heros name. The very fact that Herzog endures seems to belie his failure to grasp abstract reasons for survival. Herzog requires of each reader some sort of synthesis which only the private heart can achieve; it insists that each person must accept the burden of being human. This means conscious recognition of evil as well as goodness, failure as well as possibility, hate as well as love, limitation as well as freedom, and the importance of emotion as well as reason. Herzog refuses to surrender, to take the easy way and define himself with labels such as nihilist, romantic, sadist, or masochist. Life is not a system or a list of labels; life is more than mere facts and definitions. Life, Bellow shows us, involves realms of the heart that elude rational understanding.

Moses Elkanah HerzogThe narrator is a Ph.D. and a professor, forty-seven years old. Through him, we are given a highly emotional analysis of memories, events, and other characters. He is listed in Whos Who in America, but he has been unable to work since his wife cheated on him and divorced him. The novel centers around his efforts to purge himself of neuroses and to revenge himself.

Madeleine Pontritter Herzog (Mady)Herzogs second wife has recently divorced him. She is a sensuous, hysterical, extravagant woman caught up in her religious obsessions and her need to be with exceptional people. Her affair with Gersbach was the shock that began Herzogs painful self-examination.

Valentine GersbachHerzog is driven to despair when he discovers that his best friend, a one-legged, flamboyant radio announcer, has stolen his wife. He is one of several challenged people in the story who exhibits romantic, melodramatic emotions.

Ramona DonsellA Jewess of mixed heritage from Argentina, she wants to marry Herzog. She offers him sexual release from his intellectual and psychological problems. Her stability sharply contrasts with Madeleines tempestuous nature.

SimkinThe first so-called reality-instructor in the novel, he is Herzogs New York lawyer and tells Herzog to become more practical and hard-boiled.

Sandor HimmelsteinHerzogs Chicago lawyer, who handled his affairs during the divorce. He is another reality-instructor and another physically challenged person. He too is a realist and preaches pragmatism and pessimism.

Dr. EdvigA psychiatrist who treats Herzog by making Madeleine the center of analysis. He is obsessed with Protestant Freudianism.

DaisyHerzogs first wife, contrasted with Madeleine by her patient, enduring stability.

Sono OgukiOne of Herzogs mistresses. He gave her up for Mady.

Phoebe GersbachValentines stoical, meek, suffering wife.

Tennie PontritterMadeleines long-suffering mother.

Beatrice HimmelsteinSandors pretty, sensitive wife.

Fritz PontritterA Bohemian impresario now separated from his wife and living a garish existence. Another domineering personality, he pities Herzog for his passivity.

Lucas AsphalterHerzogs friend, a forty-five-year-old zoologist, who first told Herzog that he was a cuckold. Lucas once had a morbid affinity for a tubercular monkey.

Geraldine PortnoyAsphalters girl friend, Junes babysitter, and once a student of Herzogs. On several occasions, she is the bearer of bad news for the naive Herzog.

Zelda UmschandMadeleines aunt who takes sides against Herzog, although she sympathizes with him.

Herman UmschandZeldas husband, a Chicago politician with dubious criminal connections. He tries to distract Herzog from the truth about Mady.

Libbie Vane SisslerHerzogs friend, she is twice divorced and nearing the age of forty. She is another woman drawn to the protagonist by pity.