Seize the Day Essay Questions

How does Bellow undermine the American dream?

Bellow expounds, “Early in the nineteen-thirties, because of his striking looks, he had been very briefly considered star material, and he had gone to Hollywood. There for seven years, stubbornly, he had tried to become a screen artist. Long before that time his ambition or delusion had ended, but through pride and perhaps also through laziness he had remained in California. At last he turned to other things.” Wilhelm’s Hollywood desires are superficial because they are founded on looks instead of ingenuity. Perhaps, if he had a distinctive talent he would have amplified his odds of making a career in Hollywood and grasping the American dream. Additionally, his resolution to remain in California after the collapse of his Hollywood prospects infers that he is still intent on trailing the barren American dream which California incarnates. His tenacity does not yield the material American dream because it is not feasible.

Provide a psychoanalytic assessment for Wilhelm changing his name.

Bellow elaborates, “By that time Wilhelm too had taken his new name. In California he became Tommy Wilhelm… Wilhelm had always had a great longing to be Tommy… Yes, it had been a stupid thing to do, but it was his imperfect judgment at the age of twenty which should be blamed. He had cast off his father's name, and with it his father's opinion of him. It was, he knew it was, his bid for liberty, Adler being in his mind the title of the species, Tommy the freedom of the person.” Tommy is an archetypal "alter ego" which bids Wilhelm the illusion of achievement and autonomy. Embracing another identity is a motivation which arises from the unconscious desire to be unrestricted by his father’s sentiments which mostly do not support his resolutions. Wilhelm yearns to be a different persona other than the one that his father endorses; hence, altering his name is a signal of defiance which confirms Wilhelm’s resolve to craft his identity without his father’s stimulus.

Why does Wilhelm no longer like the city?

Wilhelm tells himself the city is too exhausting, too cruel. He wishes for the idyll of the countryside where he spends time with Olive, seeing it as a reprieve from the rat race. Manhattan is noisy and busy and hostile, overwhelming in its magnitude and the pace of its people. Since he is not at the top of the heap, he does not feel like it is a place for him. It is assumed that he was fine with the city when he was working for Rojax, but now his straitened circumstances have him craving something different where he can take a breath and live a different life.

What will Wilhelm's life be like after this day?

While it is impossible to know for sure, of course, there are two possibilities.

One possibility is that Wilhelm is transformed by all of this. Having no money and no one to help him, he will have to figure things out on his own. He will recognize that love is what really matters, and strive to be a good father and hopefully marry Olive. He will set better boundaries with his father. He will stop blaming others and focus on himself. He will acknowledge that the pursuit of the American Dream is destroying him, and focus on living a more authentic life even if he is not wealthy or successful.

Another possibility is that he will wipe away the tears, and the next day he will continue to pester his father for money or for a connection for a job. He will be the long-suffering husband whose shrew of a wife will not divorce him, and he will drag Olive along as long as possible. He will continue to harbor resentment against others who have things he does not.

There are arguments to be made for both of these possibilities, weighing the sincerity of Wilhelm's grief and the seriousness of his new penniless situation with the weight of the twin behemoths of capitalism and culture bearing down on him, precluding any real change.

Why does Wilhelm dislike old men so much?

Wilhelm is a young man (comparatively) and even though it seems like society generally privileges the young over the old, in this novel it is the young who suffer and the old who triumph. Wilhelm resents his father, Mr. Perls, Rappaport, and Mr. Rowland because they are financially comfortable and he is not, because they give him advice and talk about him, because they get to live as they wish and say what they want and he cannot. He thinks old people ought to behave a certain way and ought to look out for their dependents (the irony, of course, is that Wilhelm rues the fact that he has dependents), and that they consolidate their power and relinquish none of it to the younger generations.