Self Discovery in Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King
Have you ever felt like a complete social out cast? Some one who has trouble fitting in and has never quite found their true calling. Being shunned by those closest to him and being unaccepted by society, the character in this novel is a perfect example. Saul Bellow's character Eugene Henderson, in, Henderson the Rain King, (1959), is a man who struggles to change his ways and find out his true calling.
In this novel, a 55-year old man, tries to get through a mid-life crisis. The millionaire decides to go to Africa in an attempt to find himself. He meets two tribes while there. The first one he nearly destroys in an attempt to rid their watering hole of frogs. The next tribe helps Henderson the most on his quest. He unknowingly participates in a ritual to bring rain to the tribe, the success of which leads to his acclamation as Sungo, or Rain King. This experience with the tribe helps him to realize that his true destiny is as a healer. He returns back to America, planning to enter medical school.
Eugene Henderson starts off the book as a unpredictable man, with little conscious to guide him. It seems as though he almost intentionally hurts those closest to him. After telling his wife that he has had enough of everything, and that he was going to "blow his brains out," he explains that this hurt his wife for more than one reason. Perhaps the most apparent reason was that "Her father had committed suicide in the same way, with a pistol (11)." Throwing tantrums like these, cause him to be very unlikable in the beginning of the novel.
Once he has arrived in Africa, you start to see a different side of him. Then after leaving the first tribe and staying with the second one for a while, his personality really begins to grow on you. He explains that, "At one time, much earlier in this life of mine, suffering had a certain spice (263)." I feel that this shows how he is growing as a person and being able to find out more about who he really is.
Towards the end of the novel, the change that has come over him becomes really apparent. After a conversation with the king, he says, "For his sake I accepted the discipline of being like a lion.
2. Explain how a character in the book changed or is starting to change in the part you are reading?
His perceptions change from seeking for opportunities to unrealistically believing that he can acquire wealth by becoming a traveling salesman, and later in the book, he is defeated by the Great Depression and goes back to home; his perception of the reality becomes increasingly difficult to dealt with since he tries to escape from the reality and never really solves the problems, and although he later tries again to become successful during the war, he becomes insane and loses all of his perceptions.
He makes connections between himself and an African woman carrying a vase on her head when he performs a similar action, “My only option was to carry mattress on my head, like an African woman gracefully walking with a vase of water balanced on her head…” This isn’t the only time he makes a reference to African culture: he points out the difficult to pronounce African name of one of the neighbor’s sons and goes on to identify him by said description. When he is shunned, he draws a parallel to American explorers on foreign land, emphasising how much of an outsider he feels himself to be, as quoted above. He even calls himself “pale”, as if his light skin is a negative, unsightly
he was able to come to the realization that he is not as honest or brave as he
Black history month is an observance in the United States that is celebrated in the month of February to remember all of the important African Americans in history. This observance is still celebrated annually and brings forth a debatable question such as is there still a need to celebrate black history month. I strongly believe that Black history month still should be celebrated for several reasons one being that children need to know how African Americans contributed to society. Young African American children need to know their ethnicity background. The legendary icons who fought for whom was considered “colored” people need to be acknowledged. If were not for them the children in today's society would still be faced to deal with segregation. They need to have an understanding of what our ancestors and important African Americans had to go through to get us where we are today. We should celebrate black history month because it represents African Americans as a whole. By celebrating this month it shows that we fought for our rights and never gave up. It shows that we went through ...
Despite its prevalence, suffering is always seen an intrusion, a personal attack on its victims. However, without its presence, there would never be anyway to differentiate between happiness and sadness, nor good and evil. It is encoded into the daily lives people lead, and cannot be avoided, much like the prophecies described in Antigone. Upon finding out that he’d murdered his father and married his mother,
it. At the end we find him that he had changed his old corrupted moral
(3.883.89). This shows he is beginning to mature into a young man. Towards the end of book
Raymond Carver utilizes his character of the husband, who is also the narrator, in his short story "Cathedral." From the beginning of the story the narrator has a negative personality. He lacks compassion, has a narrow mind, is detached emotionally from others, and is jealous of his wife's friendship with a blind man named Robert. He never connects with anyone emotionally until the end of this story.
Negro Achievement week was placed in February in order to commemorate the birthdays of two men who helped pave the way for African Americans: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas. Both of these men’s birthdays were already being celebrated in black communities, thus increasing the possibility of success for Negro Achievement Week. But Woodson didn’t want this celebration to just be about these two men; however great, neither one of them single-handedly abolished slavery. Rather, Woodson wanted Negro Achievement to celebrate and appreciate the great accomplishments and history of the whole entire African race. Woodson’s Negro Achievement Week received a lo...
...e time television depicts Black Americans as people who do not know how to speak proper English, live in the projects and ghettos, and procreate beyond our existence so that all we can do is rob the system and depend on welfare for our sustenance. These depictions are very stereotypical and negative. Martin R. Delany, a renowned Black American who wrote a book that discussed the attributes of a black man said that Black Americans should foster a sense of pride because of our complex and unique history. We need to bind together and “Lift up Every Voice” (Black national hymn) to make sure our past and future histories are not forgotten, not just by us but by every American. The legacy of Black History Month is an achievement we all should be proud of, but for Peace’s Sake do not let others undermine your past and accomplishments and do not forget your own history.
How has your character changed in the book? What main events those lead to this change? How does the author show this change in writing?
and by the end of his tale and the novel, we have gradually learnt to
Google defines distraction three ways, but before I could read through them all, the google image of the 2016 Doodle Fruit Games caught my attention, and I had to click on it. Distractions are everywhere. From phones to computers to televisions and the Internet, disturbances make up daily life. The real question is not how to avoid these disturbances as they surround our life. Rather, the question is: Can these distractions be defined as hysteria and madness, as interruptions and hindrances, or as amusement and entertainment?
This symbolizes his intense insightfulness of the capacity of human emotion the ability to feel different from what ones ap...