Existentialism & Absurdism in Literature
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Existentialism in Literature
Introduction
Existentialism is a movement of 20th-century literature that focuses on the individual and his or her relationship with the universe or God.
This existentialist tag has been applied to writers, philosophers, visual artist and film-makers; the movement flourished in Europe.
Existentialism Examples
There are two ways of looking at society:
One is a Secular way of looking and another is a religious way of looking. If I start with the self then when somebody asks us who are you? Then our answers must be like this that I am John or David or any other name. But who said this that my name is so and so?
Then our next answer must be like this that my parents or relatives. Apart from this, we don't know much about ourselves. Our names are related to our physical appearance only.
But this is the not appropriate answers for who am I? When we think about all these questions then we find that everything is meaningless.
Why? The answer is because our ultimate destiny is death. GWF Hegel, Soren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, Kafka, Sartre, Beckett, Beauvoir, Camus these are the well-known names in the field of existentialism. Basically the existentialism questions about our existence in this universe.
Why are we here? Who am I?
The basic consult is a search for the self. That is why the existentialist critics often say that our birth is out of our power so at least our death must be in our hand.
It means the way I want to die I must be free to do so. And that is why other critics say that Existentialism is negative criticism. That is why many critics would say that Existentialism is Nihilism.
There is a minor difference between existentialism and nihilism. It is true that Existentialism talks about the death idea but here death in the sense of the philosophical death.
Every day we wake up in the morning, do our routine work and the end of the day goes to our bed. Apart from this we never tried to think about existence that why I am here? What is my purpose in this human world? Who am I?
Among the most famous and influential existentialism propositions is Sartre's dictum. "Existence precedes and rules essence", which is generally taken to mean that "there is no pre-defined essence to humanity except that which we make for ourselves."
For Sartre humans are fundamentally different from the things like a car, fan etc. before making a car we can say that what will be the work of the car but about human, we can't say, and still we try to bind ourselves in different identities. i.e. religious identity, family identity, community identity etc. and then we see the clash between all these identities.
Absurdism in Literature
Introduction
Absurdism means the internal conflict between human tendency to find the inherent value and the meaning of life and his inability to find any.
In other words, absurdism refers to humans struggle to find the region in his life and his inability to find it due to humanly limited constraints.
Explanation
The absurdism rose during the period of world wars. These world wars had shaken the whole world. The mass killings of millions of people made the writers of the age believe that the world is meaningless.
Everybody has his own way of finding meanings. If we use the concept of Absurdism in terms of War it can be interpreted that nations indulged in the wars in order to achieve something for themselves through the war means, "though the brutality" is against humanity.
The two important writers Kierkegaard and Camus have tried to give solutions in their works with The Sickness unto Death and The myth of Sisyphus respectively. According to Camus, there are 3 solutions to absurdism
- Adopting or creating a meaning Framework like religion the exists consider it as philosophical suicide because by submitting to an idea or being which is considered to be beyond the observed limits once freedom.
- Suicide: it is a solution in which a person considers life meaningless boring or painful and that ends his life according to Camus, death is not observed but once attempt to kill himself is.
- Acceptance of the Absurd: it is the solution in which a person accepts the absurdity of life he needed submits to any religious or moral constants know as his life and lives at his greatest extent of freedom.
Absurdism is different from existentialism and Nihilism as explained below:
“Nihilism holds that there is no meaning of life and creating a meaning is useless. Existentialism holds that do the world is observed one can create the meaning of his own to it. Absurdism, on the other hand, believes that world is meaningless and one should accept as well as Rebel against it”.
Characteristics
- Absurd dramas are lyrical, like music: they describe an atmosphere and an experience of archetypal human situations.
- Life is essentially meaningless, hence sorrowful.
- There is no hope because of the inevitable futility of man's efforts.
- Reality cannot be borne unless relieved by illusions and dreams.
- The absurd play includes conventional speech, slogans, technical jargon and clichés in order to make people aware of the possibility of moving beyond common speech conventions and communicating more authentically.
- Objects hold a more significant position than the language.
- Man is fascinated by death which permanently replaces dreams and illusions.
- There is no action or plot. What happens is very little as nothing meaningful can happen.
- The final situation is absurd or comic.
- Absurd drama is not purposeful and specific as it solves no problem. It is like an abstract painting which does not convey a particular meaning.
- It negates rationalism because it feels that rational thought, like language, only deals with the superficial aspects of things.
- It considers language a failure to express the essence of human experience, not being able to penetrate beyond its surface.
- There is no dramatic conflict in the absurd plays.
