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Norman Mailer's An American Dream and Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet show polar views on the contemporary American Culture, while in common being concerned with the identity of modern man. Their heroes try to define the problems in the modern society and find the values with which they can endure the modern life. The modern culture is the reflection of the rapid technological development, which has brought not only material prosper but also spiritual hunger. In finding the solutions to the modern problems Mailer directed his way to the field of human instinct, negating the reason. Bellow, however, never gave up his belief in the reason of human being, which he think is over-developed and should be appropriated to keep the balance between human reason and instinct. Despite their differences in direction, both works have very similar narrative strategies and thematic concerns. Both heroes undergo a kind of religious pilgrims and tries to search for the common wisdom of human survival in this century. Their heroes, Sammler and Rojack, may be said to be alienated from the emptiness, but they attribute that emptiness to entirely different things. Rojack is disillusioned about powerful organizations. He insists on " the politics of social reconstruction being superceded by a politics of salvation." An American Dream is a version of that dream and shows a much more private vision. The hero undergoes a redemption by fancy and instinct. Meanwhile, Sammler is concerned with universal issues and is related to the world of which he is a part. He believes in the worth of the social contract and in the existence of the common good. In their narrative strategies, violence, sex and God are the common issues with which the two writers deals, showing the radically different stances. If Elya Gruner's aneurysm is a metaphor for the hidden violence Sammler fears in American life, cancer is the explicit metaphor for Rojack's perception of his country's sickness. Violence is seen by Rojack as the antidote to the cancer of conformity. For Mailer, the pursuit of spiritual fulfillment is best expressed by a sexual metaphor. Sex is something of a physical analogue for a spiritual reality. In contrast, Sammler believes that personal satisfaction should be postponed for long term pleasure, and that there exists a common good we human beings all share. With the pursuit of God, Rojack's quest is radically private, and for Bellow the truly religious goal is somehow to integrate this private self with the suffering public self. Thus Mailer's God is energy and his experience of God orgasm, while Bellow's God is mind, and his experience of it is to recognize others and unite with them. An American Dream shows Mailer's existential view of modern culture. Mailer seems to insist that in order to combat the evil, man must not only acknowledge but exploit and express the evil in himself. He tries to explore the human instinct where he think we can find the solutions to the modern problems: restrictions on the individual's freedom and his conformity to great institutions. Sex is another metaphor to see the character and role of modern woman. What he tries to show through the love of Rojack and Cherry is the harmony of man and woman. He seems to express his worries about the disappearance of differences in male and female in the modern society. On the other hand, Bellow remains firm that humanity must learn somehow to overcome the evil without acting it out. He accepts the animal aspects of human being, but never gives up the traditional belief in human reason and find out new values in the religious emotions which can be found intuitively. Therefore, the meaning of the individual's existence is gained through the battle for his identity with the means of courage and ability for Mailer, whereas for Bellow, it is gained through the belief in the human goodness and the contract with God. We find two approaches in Mailer's An American Dream and Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet: the existential view and the moralistic view of the modern man and his culture.