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happens to Wilhelm. He does not notice that he lacks of skills to start his career at his early age. As a result, he always fails in every job he gets. Wilhelm
’s failures in his careers are presented as follows:
4.2.1.1 As an Actor
When Wilhelm is at the college, his parents want him to be a doctor like his father. His step mother tells him that his father, Dr. Adler, can make it easier for
Wilhelm to make career as a doctor. ―She said, ―Wilky, Dad could make it easy for
you if you wanted to go into medicine Bellow 20.‖ However, Wilhelm feels that his mother’s advice is underestimating him. There is a motivation within him to
prove other people that he can live and make his life without his father ’s support. He
wants other people look at him as a man who is independent. When he is at the college, Wilhelm meets with Maurice Venice, a person who works as a talent seeker
for Kaskaskia films. Bellow 23. Maurice tells Wilhelm that he sees a talent in Wilhelm and asks him to take casting as a prerequisite to be an actor. Maurice tells
that there is a big chance for Wilhelm to be a famous actor someday. Wilhelm thinks that there is a good chance for him to prove his family and other people that he can
make his career without help by his father. From Maurice, Wilhelm finds a shortcut to become rich and be known by a lot of people. Just in one jump, the world will
know who Wilhelm is. ―Here your chance,‖ he said. Now you’re just in college. What are you
studying?‖ he snapped his fingers. ―Stuff.‖ Wilhelm himself felt this way about it. ―You may plug along fifty years before you get anywhere. This
way, in one jump, the world knows who you are. You become name like Roosevelt, Swanson. From east to west, out to China, into South America.
This is no bunk. You become a lover to the whole world. The world wants it, needs it. One fellow smiles, a billion people also smile. One fellow cries, the
other billion sob with him. Listen, bud‖ Bellow 26.
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Wilhelm thinks deeply about this chance. He considers that this chance will not come for the second time. He tries to ask for opinion from his parents. His
parents warn Wilhelm to forget his ambition of becoming an actor because he is still a student at the college. According to them, his chance to make good career is bigger
after he finishes his education. However, young Wilhelm has a different view about his career. He has a motivation to make his career as soon as possible. Murray 7
states that motivation affects someone’s behavior because motivation may function as incentive for someone to behave in a certain manner. The feeling of being
underestimated by his parents is Wilhelm’s motivation to make career at his early
age. Moreover, there is a chance to be an actor. Wilhelm wants to be an actor because he sees that becoming an actor is the shortest way to gain success. His goal
is to prove other people that he can be a successful person without being helped by his father.
―But Wilhelm had been eager for life to start. College was merely another delay Bellow 27.‖ He thinks that college no longer helps him.
This is the beginning of his failures in his careers. Wilhelm makes a big decision to drop out from his college and start his career of becoming an artist.
Wilhelm believes that he can be a famous actor if he moves to California. For that reason, Wilhelm drops out from his school to move to California, against his
father’s warning. However, his decision to make his career at his early goes against his
plans. Early in the nineteen thirties, because of his striking looks, Wilhelm 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 but those seven years of persistence and defeat had unfitted him somehow for trades and business, and then it was too late to go
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into one of the professions. He had been slow to mature, and he had lost ground, and so he hadn’t been able to get rid of his energy and he was
convinced that this energy itself had done him the greatest harm Bellow 11. As discussed in the previous section, Wilhelm goes to Hollywood based on
his own idea. He is too ashamed to admit that he fails in the acting test. ―In those
days Wilhelm had had a speech difficulty. It was not a true stammer, it was a thickness of speech which the sounds track exaggerated Bellow 27.‖ As a result, he
lies to his family and leaves his college to move to California, realizing his dream of becoming an actor.
―He used to pretend that it had all been the doing of a certain talent scout named Maurice Venice. But the scout had never made him a definite
offer of a studio connection Bellow 18- 19.‖ In California, Wilhelm changes his
name from Wilhelm Adler to Tommy Wilhelm. He hopes that by changing his name and removes his family
name, he can get rid of his father’s shadows. ―In California he became Tommy Wilhelm. Dr. Adler would not accept the change. Today he still
called his son Wilky, as he had done for more than forty year Bellow 28- 29.‖ It
takes seven years for Wilhelm to keep on trying of becoming an actor in California. For seven years, stubbornly, he joins casting tests, but he never get role as a main
actor in the films. He only becomes a figurant Bellow 11. As a result, it forces
Wilhelm to find another job 4.2.1.2 As an Employee
Wilhelm continues his life by doing different jobs since he finds that there is a little chance for him to become an actor. A fear of being judged as a failed person
motivates him to find a job to sustain his life. He gets a job as a public relation in a
big hotel in Cuba.
―Once upon a time,‖ said Wilhelm, ―I did some public relation
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work for a big hotel down in Cuba Bellow 44. ‖ Actually Wilhelm has a good
career as a public relation in a hotel, but soon he decides to leave his job to move to Rojax Corporation. It is fitted with Baruch 3 theory which states that career
involves a process of progress and development of individuals, which is sometimes described as the life stories of people. Wilhelm moves to Rojax Corporation because
he finds that there is a better career there. At Rojax Corporation, Wilhelm almost gets everything he wants in his life. He gets a good salary, an apartment, a good
career, and the most important is acceptance from other people that he can be independent.
When he was with the Rojax Corporation Wilhelm had kept a small apartment in Roxbury, two rooms in a large house with a small porch and
garden, and on mornings of leisure, in late spring weather like this, he used to sit expanded in wicker chair with the sunlight through the slog-eaten holes
of the young hollyhocks and as deeply as the grass allowed into small flowers. This peace he forgot that that time had had its trouble, too, this
peace was gone Bellow 49.
Having a good career at Rojax Corporation, he feels proud that he can live and make career without being help by his father. Once, he thinks that his goal has
been achieved. However, his success in his career at Rojax Corporation is followed by another interruption. He leaves his job after almost ten years working there. He is
kicked out from Rojax Corporation because he has an affair with woman who works at the same company. It is too embarrassing for Wilhelm to tell the truth that he has
been kicked out from Rojax Corporation because he has an affair with his workmate, despite the fact that he has already had a wife named Margaret.
To other people, Wilhelm makes a story that he has to share his position with the son-in-law of the owner
of the Rojax Company. ―I was with Rojax Corporation for almost ten years,‖ he said. ―We parted ways because they wanted me to share my
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territory.‖ Bellow 40. Wilhelm makes such a story because he wants to blame Rojax for the mistake he makes which has caused him to be kicked out from that
company. It seems easier for Wilhelm to comfort himself if he finds something to blame to every mistake he makes in his life. Another reason why he lies is that he
does not want other people know the fact which causes his retirement. He is afraid that other people will look down on him. Actually, Wilhelm does not leave Rojax
Corporation by his own wish. However, his father knows this fact and forces Wilhelm to confess.
, ―Why did you lose your job with Rojax?‖ ―I didn’t, I’ve told you.‖
―You’re lying. You wouldn’t have ended the connection. You need the money too badly. But you must have got into trouble.‖ The small old man
spoke consciesly and with great strength. ―Since you have to talk and can’t let it alone, tell the truth. Was there a scandal
– a woman?‖‖ Wilhelm fiercely defended himself, ―No, Dad, there wasn’t any woman. I
told you how it was.‖ ―No one special? Are you sure you haven’t gotten into complications?
He had tried to unburden himself and instead, Wilhelm thought, he had to undergo an inquisition to prove himself worthy of sympathetic word.
Because his father believed that he did all kinds of gross things. ―There is a woman in Roxbury that I went with. We fell in love and wanted
to marry, but she got tired of waiting for my divorce. Margaret figured that. On top of which the girl was a Catolic and I had to go with her to the priest
and make an explanation.‖ Bellow 58-59. After Wilhelm leaves Rojax Corporation, he feels that life is so hard for him
to live. He finds himself jobless and he has to support his family financially. ―Wilhelm was still paying heavily for his mistakes. His wife Margaret would not
give him a divorce, and he had to support her and the two children.‖ Bellow 34. This condition forces him to find another job as soon as possible because he has
only few dollars in his saving.
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4.2.1.3 As an Investor
