Feminist Critique of Seize the Day: Psychoanalysis, Relationality, and Embodied Care

Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day offers a compelling exploration of relational failure and existential despair. However, when examined through the lens of feminist critiques of psychoanalysis, the novella reveals its deep entanglement with patriarchal and phallocentric frameworks. Wilhelm Adler’s regression, his longing for connection, and his failure to achieve autonomy echo Freudian and Lacanian constructions of gender, where women are positioned as lack and care is feminized, secondary, and undervalued. Drawing on the work of feminist scholars such as Jessica Benjamin, Luce Irigaray, Nancy Chodorow, Julia Kristeva, and others, this critique seeks to expose and challenge the gendered assumptions embedded in Bellow’s narrative and the psychoanalytic theories it reflects.

Phallocentrism and the Absence of Women in Seize the Day

Freud’s psychoanalytic theories are fundamentally androcentric, centering the Oedipus Complex as the pathway to development and relegating the mother to an object of desire superseded by the paternal law. Lacan amplifies this phallocentrism by theorizing "Woman" as lack, the Other to the male subject’s symbolic mastery. This theoretical framework creates a world in which relationality is defined through male authority and female absence.

Seize the Day reproduces this dynamic. Wilhelm’s mother is scarcely mentioned, while his father, Dr. Adler, dominates the narrative as a figure of judgment and cold rationality. Wilhelm’s estranged wife, a peripheral character, is portrayed as controlling and unyielding, reinforcing the trope of the punitive feminine. The absence of nurturing maternal figures in the novella echoes the Freudian reduction of the mother to an object of early longing, later replaced by the father’s authority. Jessica Benjamin’s work in The Bonds of Love critiques this dynamic, arguing that Freud’s framework perpetuates hierarchical relationships and forecloses the possibility of mutual recognition. In Bellow’s narrative, Wilhelm’s failure to find such recognition reflects a relational world stripped of care and reciprocity, where the mother is conspicuously absent and the father is emotionally inaccessible.

Wilhelm’s Regression and the Fantasy of the (m)Other

Wilhelm’s masochistic tendencies, described by Karen Horney as moral masochism, can be understood as a regressive longing for the primordial unity of the (m)Other—a neurotic fantasy of pre-egoic connection. Wilhelm’s disintegration reflects his inability to reconcile this longing with the demands of autonomy and masculine self-development. Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, explored in Powers of Horror, deepens this analysis, describing how the maternal is both foundational to identity and violently repudiated in the process of subject formation. Wilhelm’s yearning for care and his simultaneous failure to achieve self-coherence echo this dynamic, as he remains caught between dependency and rejection.

Luce Irigaray’s critique of the maternal in Speculum of the Other Woman also resonates here. Irigaray argues that patriarchal psychoanalysis positions the maternal as a site of loss and lack, rather than as a source of relational and creative potential. Wilhelm’s regression, framed as a failure of masculine development, reflects this phallocentric construction of care and dependency as feminized and pathological.

Object Relations and Fragmentation

Melanie Klein’s theories of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions provide a lens for understanding Wilhelm’s fragmented relationships. Klein describes the paranoid-schizoid position as a developmental phase where others are experienced as fragmented part-objects—wholly good or wholly bad—rather than as integrated, whole beings. Wilhelm’s relationships with his father, wife, and Dr. Tamkin reflect this dynamic, as he alternates between idealizing and demonizing these figures without the capacity to engage with their complexity.

Klein’s notion of the depressive position, which involves accepting the ambiguity and vulnerability of relationality, highlights what is missing in Wilhelm’s development. His failure to transition to this position underscores the absence of nurturing, embodied care in his life. Nancy Chodorow’s The Reproduction of Mothering complements this analysis, emphasizing how the relational dynamics of early caregiving shape an individual’s ability to navigate relational complexity. Wilhelm’s fractured relationships and disintegration reflect a broader cultural failure to value the embodied care necessary for relational growth.

Winnicott, Embodied Care, and Transitional Space

Donald Winnicott’s focus on embodiment and relationality offers a feminist alternative to the phallocentric frameworks of Freud and Lacan. His concept of the holding environment highlights the role of the caregiver in providing a stable, embodied presence that allows the child to develop trust and a cohesive sense of self. Wilhelm’s failure to find such grounding is evident in his physical and emotional collapse, which manifests his unmet need for relational care.

Winnicott’s notion of transitional space, where play and creativity facilitate the exploration of self and other, further underscores what is absent in Wilhelm’s world. His relationships lack the liminal, playful space that fosters growth and mutual recognition. The absence of this embodied relationality perpetuates Wilhelm’s fragmentation, leaving him unable to reconcile his longing for connection with his need for autonomy.

Gendered Relationality and Buddhism’s Relational Gaps

Bellow’s portrayal of Wilhelm as a regressive, dependent figure also reflects a broader cultural tendency to feminize care and dependency while idealizing autonomy as masculine. This critique extends beyond psychoanalysis to Buddhism, where the emphasis on detachment and transcendence risks sidelining the embodied and relational dynamics of care. While Buddhism’s principle of interdependence (pratītyasamutpāda) acknowledges relationality in a metaphysical sense, its focus on individual liberation and the transcendence of attachment may neglect the lived realities of relational care.

Furthermore, Buddhism’s dualistic approach to gender and its often rigid sexual roles echo the patriarchal constructs critiqued by feminist psychoanalysts. The absence of an ontology of Mitsein in Buddhism, where relationality and care are foundational to human existence, raises questions about whether its philosophical frameworks inadvertently replicate the gendered biases found in Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

Reimagining Relationality Beyond Patriarchal Frameworks

Seize the Day reflects a world where relationality is fragmented, care is absent, and gendered binaries dominate. Wilhelm’s disintegration, framed as a failure of masculine self-development, mirrors the patriarchal constructs embedded in psychoanalytic theory and cultural narratives. Feminist scholars such as Jessica Benjamin, Luce Irigaray, Nancy Chodorow, Julia Kristeva, and Melanie Klein challenge these frameworks, offering alternative visions of relationality and care that emphasize mutuality, embodiment, and the universal foundations of human connection.

By integrating the insights of feminist psychoanalysis with the relational theories of Winnicott and Heidegger’s Mitsein, we can reimagine care as a universal, embodied dynamic that transcends gendered binaries. Wilhelm’s plight is not merely a personal failure but a reflection of a broader cultural and philosophical gap—a failure to recognize the foundational importance of care and relationality in human flourishing. In this light, Seize the Day becomes both a critique of modernity’s relational crises and an invitation to reimagine the possibilities of embodied care and connection beyond the confines of patriarchal and metaphysical dualities.