摘要：

作为美国当代文学中最杰出的作家之一，索尔•贝娄是继海明威和福克纳之后的又一位美国文学大师。因其作品“对当代文化人性的理解和细致的分析，”贝娄成为1976年的诺贝尔文学奖的获得者。贝娄的作品致力于描写犹太人在现代社会的处境与命运，《只争朝夕》是他的一部代表作。
本文通过细读文本来探讨索尔.贝娄作品《只争朝夕》中的犹太寻根主题，探究犹太族裔身处主流文化和客体文化夹缝中的生存状态。论文围绕犹太寻根主题这一主线，分别从犹太人在现代社会中的孤独感与边缘意识、生存危机、身份的困惑和自我追寻、以及主人公的犹太寻根历程四个角度来进行阐述。

关键词：索尔•贝娄；《只争朝夕》；犹太；身份困惑；寻根

Abstract:

Saul bellow is one of the most prominent writers in contemporary American literature and a master of American literature after William Faulkner and Hemingway. Saul bellow won the Nobel Prize for the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture. Saul bellow devoted to revealing the Jews predicament and destiny in the modern society and Seize the Day is his master work.
This thesis aims to explore the theme of Jewish Root-seeking in the novel Seize the Day, discussing the survival state of Jews who were caught in the culture of mainstream and peripheral culture. Concerning with the main theme of Jewish Root-seeking, this thesis is developed from four point of views, including the loneliness and fringe consciousness of Jews in modern society, survival crisis of Jews, the perplexed identity and the pursuing of oneself, and the course of seeking Jewish root.

Key words: Saul Bellow; Seize the Day; the Jews; perplexed identity; Jewish Root-seeking.

1. Introduction
Saul Bellow is a famous writer of his time. He was born in a Russian Jewish family and was raised in Chicago. Many novelists praise Bellow a literature giant as great as Hemingway and Faulkner.
Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day mainly describes a forty-four-year-old man who lost his job. He was fallen into financial instability, separated from his wife and children, deserted by his father, and cheated by his so-called friend Dr. Tamkin. All the miserable things happened in a single day. And the protagonist Tommy Wilhelm, who ends up, after an impossible day, in a Jewish funeral service, manages to wash away in his tears a part—if not all—of his sorrow and to be able to breathe again: the world carries on as before, as cold and indifferent as ever, but there is observable in Wilhelm a subtle transformation which ensures his future survival.