Resource from J. Brachenfeld 2013 Existentialist Themes:
Absurdity
Meaning/Meaninglessness
Responsibility
Authenticity
Alienation
Influence
Other
The Look (Observation)
Boredom
Freedom
Individuality
Existence
Essence
Actions
Definition
Despair
Religion
Definition Existentialism: the attempt to define ourselves or give meaning to our lives despite the
influence of a world in which we experience despair, angst, alienation, absurdity, and boredom.
(1800s to post World War II)
Concepts:
Existence: “Existence precedes essence,” so we all exist at the beginning, and our essence is
determined through our life choices, and yet we exist within a world that is distant from us, that
alienates us, that is absurd, but that constantly influences us.
We are often faced with the possible breakdown of meaningful things in our world, and this
causes us angst about the meaninglessness of the world, and yet we must continue to give our
lives meaning.
The human being, through his consciousness, creates his own values, morals, and meaning to
his life.
1. Each person defines themselves through their actions
2. Each person is responsible for their own actions
In other words, they reject that someone or something else is responsible for their actions or
for the meaning of their lives. A person chooses how to act or be, and they are responsible for
the results of those choices. In doing so, they are responsible for creating themselves, and by
extension, all humanity; therefore, each individual has a responsibility for all of mankind in our
choices, and this can lead to anxiety, angst, and despair.
Angst: anxiety or concern over what can possibly happen or what will happen in the world
Freedom : freedom to choose to live an authentic life and the refusal to live an inauthentic life.
Authenticity: If you define yourself by how others see you and you live your life and make
decisions based on others’ definitions or rules, you are not living an authentic life. To live an
authentic life, you must live true to yourself, how you define yourself, and what choices you make
for yourself.
Example: your parents want you to go a certain college; because they went there and they’re
paying, you decide to go, even though you’d rather go to a different college. This would be an
inauthentic decision.
Despair: the breakdown of meaningful things in your life as a result of the world, which leads to
a breakdown in your identity.
Alienation : the act of being isolated or estranged from society and feeling alone in the universe.
Typically, this is due to perceived differences between the individual and the group. Individuals
can alienate themselves from the group or society, the group or society may alienate the
individual, or both.
The Other : anything outside of your existence which influences the meaning of your life. This
could be any parents, friends, boss, job, government, church, dogma, principle, schema, etc. that
exerts influence upon how you define yourself and give meaning to your life.
The Look : you perceive others, they perceive you, and you perceive yourself. Sartre uses the
allegory of looking through the keyhole (you perceive others); you think you hear a creak of the
floorboards behind you (you think others are perceiving you); you turn and find no one there (you
perceive yourself).
Absurdity : the sense that the world is ridiculous or illogical.
Boredom : feeling weary with the world because there is nothing to interest you in the world.
Reason : existentialists are opposed to reason, since it would be an imposed form of structure
which is unreasonable in a world which is inherently irrational and absurd.
So! You You exist, and therefore you attempt to create meaning for your life through your
actions for which you are responsible. In creating meaning, you attempt to live an
authentic life, despite the angst of feeling despair because you are constantly exposed
to the influence of the Other, or the influence of a world in which you feel alienation,
absurdity, or irrationality. Yet, you still attempt to find that meaning.
Albert Camus: saw the nature of people (although he rejected himself as an existentialist) as
existing within a world that is pointless and absurd, a world in which there is futility of existence
yet we try to find meaning. He was essentially an absurdist, although many considered him an
existentialist or nihilist.
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer of short stories whose works,
some of which were published only after his death, came to be regarded as some of the major
achievements of 20th century literature.
He was born to middle-class German-speaking Jewish parents in Prague, Bohemia, now part of
the Czech Republic, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Kafka's work, which includes his novels, The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and Amerika (1927),
and his short stories that include The Metamorphosis (1912) and In the Penal Colony (1914), is
now considered among the most influential in Western literature. Much of his work, unfinished at
the time of his death, was published posthumously.
His father was described as a "huge, selfish, overbearing” and he was a very authoritarian,
dominating and domineering presence in Kafka’s life. His mother was often away helping Kafka’s
father with the business, and Kafka and his siblings were mainly raised by a governess and
servants.
Franz had two younger brothers who died in infancy, and he had two three younger sisters. His
youngest sister, Ottla, later became his caretaker, much like Grete takes care of Gregor in The
Metamorphosis. His sisters would all eventually die in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1943.
Kafka spoke German and Czech. He wasn’t very religious and had a very basic relationship
with Judaism. He attended school and later the University, where he met Max Brod, who would
become a close friend. Kafka obtained his law degree in 1906.
He worked at the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute, which was mostly to pay the bills. He
hated the job, but he was described as a “diligent and capable employee.” This was very similar
to Gregor. He always wrote his short stories and fiction, though, and together with his friends
Max Brod and Felix Weltsch, he became part of the Prague Circle of German-Jewish writers and
intellectuals.
In 1917, he began to suffer from tuberculosis, a disease where the tubercules in the lungs swell
and cause difficulty in breathing and swallowing. His sister Ottla came to be his caretaker. He
described himself as being repulsive, but others found him charming, witty, and attractive. He is
believed to have suffered from clinical depression, social anxiety disorder, and migraines. His
tuberculosis worsened, and in 1924, he died from starvation as a result of the tuberculosis. It is
widely believed that his short story “The Hunger Artist” was based on his medical condition.
His friend, Max Brod, published his works posthumously to critical success. Kafka never knew.
His works are characterized by characters who find themselves in absurd situations beyond their
control. Alienation and aspects of existentialism pervade his works. Critics also see a Marxist
influence in his work.
The term “ Kafkaesque” describes a situation, concept, or idea which is similar to Kafka’s novels
in that it is absurd, senseless, disorienting.
Camus
The Stranger: know the characters, the events of the novel, and the general themes and
philosophy at play, especially the attempt to live an authentic life despite the fact that the
world is absurd.
Albert Camus (Nov. 7, 1914 – Jan. 4, 1960) was born in French Algeria to a poor family. His
father died when he was young, and Camus went to work right out of school, much like his
character Meursault. He was very involved in socialist causes for workers’ rights. Camus
moved to Paris, where he became friendly with Sartre. Camus didn’t consider himself to be
an existentialist. Instead, he believed that life was meaningless and absurd, and ultimately,
any attempt to find meaning in the universe will ultimately fail; in other words, he appeared to
be a nihilist. His characters, though, attempt to live authentic lives despite the absurdity of the
universe. This tendency, as well as several essays against the nihilism of writer Andre Breton,
has led many to see Camus as an absurdist, not a nihilist. Although he exhibits traits of all three
philosophies, he is best known as an absurdist.
During the time when Camus lived in Algeria, Algeria was a colony of France (French Algeria).
The main governing party weakened in power, and four other factions, including an Algerian
independence party fought for power. Riots broke out in Algeria, and these protests and riots
occurred in Paris, as well. The Paris Café Massacre of 1961 took place when protestors for
Algerian independence were attacked by the Paris police, beaten, and thrown unconscious into
the River Seine. By this time, Camus has already written publicly for the rights of workers, native
Algerians (both Arab and pied-noir French-Algerian), and socialists, while he wrote against capital
punishment, which won him the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Camus ultimately had a falling out with Sartre and de Beauvoir over communism (Camus was
socialist but not communist), which he never repaired. He was killed in a car crash in 1960.
From T H E G L E N C O E L I T E R A T U R E L I B R A R Y BACKGROUND Franz Kafka and “Isms”
Kafka’s fiction is so rich and ambiguous that his short stories and novels can be interpreted in many different ways. Because of these many different interpretations, his work has been “adopted” by different schools of critics as especially appropriate to their beliefs and theories. Ultimately, no one way of interpreting Kafka seems broad enough to stand alone.
The early nineteenth-century movement known as expressionism was based on the belief that inner
reality, or a person’s thoughts and feelings, are more important than the “objective” reality outside the person.
In short, the response of an individual is more important than the object or situation that causes the
response. Expressionist writers, painters, and other artists tend to portray this inner reality through the use of symbolic rather than realistic characters, exaggeration, distortion, nightmarish imagery, and fantasy.
Expressionism grew out of the paintings of Vincent van Gogh and the dramas of Swedish playwright
August Strindberg. It was most popular in Germany in the early 1900s.
Another movement that has claimed Kafka as one of its own is surrealism. Surrealism, or “super realism,”developed in France in the early 1900s as a reaction to realism and stressed the power of the imagination and dreams over conscious control. Surrealist painters like Salvador Dali depicted objects as they could never appear in reality, such as his famous drooping watches.
Another philosophical, religious, and artistic movement that has its modern roots in France and Germany is existentialism. Although it dates to the early 1800s, existentialism gained its most popular form in the writings
of French writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in the years following World War II. While existentialism has many different forms, one of its most important elements is a belief that people are “created” by the experiences they undergo. It is action and making choices that give life meaning. Many existentialists did not believe in God, but rather felt that human beings were free to make their own moral choices in life.
One final movement that has claimed Franz Kafka is Freudianism, a theory of psychology based on the ideas of Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud. Freud believed that every human action is influenced by the unconscious mind. Early experiences, such as one’s relationship with one’s father, have a profound effect on the development of the unconscious. Kafka’s complex relationship with his own father and the ways in which he addressed their strained relationship in his fiction have especially appealed to Freudians.
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