EXISTENTIALISM AND POSTMODERNISM: POINTS OF TENSION AND INTERSECTION IN LITERATURE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55640/Keywords:
existentialism, postmodernism, literature, philosophy, subjectivity, free will, search for meaning, identity, deconstruction, insignificanceAbstract
This article explores the philosophical and literary intersections between existentialism and postmodernism, two influential movements that redefined twentieth-century thought and literature. While existentialism emphasizes individual freedom, moral responsibility, and the search for meaning in an absurd world, postmodernism questions the very possibility of stable meaning or coherent identity. This study examines how these contrasting perspectives converge and diverge in literary texts, focusing on their treatment of subjectivity, truth, and narrative structure. Using qualitative literary analysis, works by Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Samuel Beckett, and Thomas Pynchon are analyzed. Findings indicate that although postmodernism often subverts existential certainty, it inherits existential concerns about alienation and authenticity, transforming them into skepticism and fragmentation characteristic of late modernity.
References
Barthes, R. (1977). Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana Press.
Beckett, S. (1953). Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press.
Camus, A. (1942). The Stranger. New York: Vintage.
Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Pynchon, T. (1966). The Crying of Lot 49. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Sartre, J.-P. (1938). Nausea. Paris: Gallimard.
Sartre, J.-P. (1946). Existentialism Is a Humanism. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Waugh, P. (1984). Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London: Methuen.
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