Psychotherapy via Bellow in Seize the Day Essay -- Seize the Day Essay

Psychotherapy via Bellow in assume the Day The ending of entrance the Day is ironic and revealing about the theme of the entire novella. When Tommy Wilhelm unknowingly attends a funeral for a stranger, he begins to sob uncontrollably at the stilt of the unknown corpse. It is a painful reminder of his own mortality and a cathartic release of emotion he has been building up everywhere the downward spiraling course of his life. However, it is ironic because Tommy is the only one at the funeral who is expressing such emotion and it makes others in attendance believe he essential have been very close to the deceased to be so devastated. In other words, no one is crying for the dead man, not level(p) Tommy, but Tommy is crying for himself. This is not only irony but serves to emphasize the entire theme of the novel-laugh and the world laughs with you cry and you cry alone. Instead of grasping the day and living in the here-and-now, Tommy is torn by anxiety oer the future and reg ret over the past. Because of this, he believes he is in take of some kind of favor, or break, or sympathy. However, he comes to realize that, manage the tears we often shed for ourselves, pity is often a individual(prenominal) exercise of self and seldom forthcoming from others. He recognizes this because he learns that from the post of others, he is the only one to blame for his repeated mistakes and his repeated failures. As he muses at one point when in need of sympathy, And why, Wilhelm gain ground asked, should he or anybody else pity me or why should I be pitied sooner than another fellow? It is my childish mind that thinks people argon ready to give it just because you need it (Bellow 93). Tommy considers himself a failure because he has taken to heart... ...isis helps him to accept the discomforts that come with being free and fully alive, and, as the novella ends, we can only hope from that moment on Tommy lead begin to seize the day each day in the model as he str ives to make something of himself in the here-and-now for the future, his own and others. WORKS CITED Bellow, S. Seize The Day. (9th printing). New York, The Viking Press, 1968. Christy, M. Bellows pleasure in imaginary states. Boston Globe Online. http//www.boston.com/ orb/search/stories/nobel/1989/1989e.html, Nov. 15, 1989 1-4. Stein, H. T. and Edwards, M. E. Classical Adlerian theory and practice. http//ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hstein/theoprac.htm, Aug. 21, 1998 1-19. Stevenson, D. B. Freuds division of the mind. http//landow.stg.brown.edu/HTatBrown/freud/Division_of_Mind.html, Oct. 4, 1999 1-2.