Dangling Man
by Saul Bellow
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See Also
- Saul Bellow (Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition)
- Saul Bellow (Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century)
- Saul Bellow (Identities & Issues in Literature)
- Saul Bellow (Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition)
- Saul Bellow (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Saul Bellow
- First Published: 1944
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: 1942-1943
- Setting: Chicago
- Characters: Joseph, Iva, Kitty Daumler
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Novel
- Subjects: 1940's, World War II, Alienation, Chicago, Existentialism, Draft, military
- Locales: United States, Illinois, North America, Chicago, Illinois
The Novel
Dangling Man takes the form of a journal kept by the protagonist, Joseph, between December 15, 1942, and April 9, 1943. All the action is retrospective, filtered through the troubled mind of Joseph, and committed to his journal. Introspective and tentative, the entries record Joseph’s increasingly desperate quest for self-knowledge.
As the novel opens, seven months have passed since Joseph resigned from his job at the Inter-American Travel Bureau to await army induction. Because of snarled bureaucratic red tape, he dangles between civilian and...
(The entire page is 3097 words.)
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