''Dangling Man'' is a 1944 novel by

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only w ...

. It is his first published work.

Plot summary

Written in diary format, the story centers on the life of an unemployed young man named Joseph, his relationships with his wife and friends, and his frustrations with living in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and waiting to be drafted. His diary serves as a philosophical confessional for his musings. It ends with his entrance into the army during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, and a hope that the regimentation of army life will relieve his suffering. Along with Bellow's second novel '' The Victim'', it is considered his "apprentice" work.

Reception

Some critics, including

Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publi ...

and

Kenneth Fearing Kenneth Flexner Fearing (July 28, 1902 – June 26, 1961) was an American poet and novelist. A major poet of the Depression era, he addressed the shallowness and consumerism of American society as he saw it, often by ironically adapting the lan ...

, criticized the novel's lack of a definite plot, but praised Bellow's depiction of what they saw as the characteristic features of the generation of American intellectuals raised during the Great Depression. ''Dangling Man'' can be seen as a

superfluous man __NOTOC__ The superfluous man (russian: лишний человек, ''líshniy chelovék'', "extra person") is an 1840s and 1850s Russian literary concept derived from the Byronic hero. It refers to an individual, perhaps talented and capable, w ...

narrative, raising interesting parallels with Turgenev's ''The Diary of a Superfluous Man'' and exploring the 19th-century Russian literary concept through a contemporary American experience. Irving S. Saposnik, in ''The Centennial Review'', wrote that "None of Saul Bellow's other novel's (''sic'') has perplexed his critics more than his first novel, ''Dangling Man''.

References in other works

The title ''Dangling Man'', an episode of the television show ''

The Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

'', references the work. Prince Charles, as portrayed by

Josh O'Connor Josh O'Connor (born in 1989/1990) is a British actor. He portrayed a young Charles III (Prince Charles) in the Netflix drama ''The Crown'' (2019–2020), for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama and th ...

, compares himself to Joseph during the episode.

External links

Summary of Dangling Man on saulbellow.org

References

Novels by Saul Bellow 1944 American novels Novels set in Chicago Vanguard Press books 1944 debut novels {{1940s-novel-stub