scholarly journals The Philosophy of Existentialism in the Magus - the Motifs of Freedom and Suicide

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Ljiljana Pticina

John Fowles’ literary opus is largely based on the philosophy of existentialism, with the motifs of freedom and suicide serving as its focal points, both closely related to freedom of choice and seen as crucial to the existentialist movement, as well as the author himself. This paper analyses Fowles’ novel The Magus through the prism of existentialism, which means that the basic existentialist concepts are identified and located within its text, as well as the influences of the key figures of this movement. The motifs of freedom and freedom of choice in context are interpreted and linked to the theories of Freud and Jung while special emphasis is placed on the role of the anima, that is, the female principle inside the male subconsciousness. This is precisely why a separate section of this paper is dedicated to female protagonists and their role in the novel. In his works, Fowles puts an emphasis on the freedom of the individual, which is portrayed through the freedom of the mind, ideas, choice and spirit. It is cruel, always demanding action as well as acceptance and adaptation. By remodelling our own character, we also remodel the future generations and our visions of the world. The protagonist in this novel is chosen to remodel his own character, to turn from a collector into a creator, to stop depriving people of the content and to bring about a positive creative act instead. Human border acts such as suicide also belong to this field of interest. There are three cases of suicide in The Magus and this paper analyses their role as a symbol of the protagonist’s metamorphosis upon threading onto the mythical ground.

2020 ◽  
pp. 90-109
Author(s):  
Ivan I. Nazarenko ◽  

The study aims to interpret Boris Poplavsky’s novel Home from Heaven (1935) through the prism of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to identify the author’s concept of love, art, and the structure of reality. The novel Home from Heaven contains allusions that refer to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The grounds for comparing the myth and the novel plot are seen in the fact that, in his poetic legacy, Poplavsky uses the metaphor of Orpheus in hell to express his own attitude. Poplavsky’s polemic with the ancient myth, with the understanding of the nature of love and the creative genius is revealed and explained by a change in axiology. The principle of allusions to the well-known myth is determined: it is not a manifestation of collisions of the myth in modern times, but a travesty of the mythological plot. In Home from Heaven, Oleg, the modern Orpheus (aspiring writer), does not descend into the realm of the dead for Eurydice, but he himself tries to return to the earthly reality from the “metaphysical hell”, escapes from God with the help of the female love of Eurydice (Tanya and Katya). Poplavsky’s image of the universe is the opposite of the ordered mythological model of the world: “heaven” is the world of culture and the subconscious, which correlates with the lower, infernal space of eternal torment. It is concluded that the modern man sees “hell” (not Hades) both in the metaphysical sphere of the spirit (culture) and in the earthly reality (in the sphere of eros). The correspondence of the modernist aesthetics to the semantics of the plot of the novel is justified: the modern Orpheus, like the ancient one, cannot save love and be saved by love in the “hell” of being. Poplavsky’s inversion of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice clarifies his concept of love. A harmonious love relationship between people, uniting them into one whole, is impossible because people are prisoners of their consciousness and cannot fully open its content to others. Oleg discovers that, in order to achieve harmony, it is necessary to “build” a house on the “earth” and in the “heaven”, combining the physical with the spiritual. The modern Orpheus, having accepted the fate of the writer, fulfills his mission: having discovered the “hell” of culture and of his own consciousness, having plunged into the “hell” of the earthly reality, he does not succumb to the false art of Eurydice and discovers the true Eurydice—the Word. He returns to God within himself, to culture, but he knows about reality and unites the “heaven” and the “earth” in the “home” of his own creativity, thereby overcoming the total “hell”. According to Poplavsky’s concept, however, the modern Orpheus cannot claim the role of a medium, a prophet, and art is unable to reveal the future. Art does not transform reality, does not grant immortality to the creator, and is itself not immortal, but destroyed by time. Therefore, the epistemological (cognition of being and self-knowledge) and communicative (transfer of spiritual experience to representatives of future generations) functions of art remain.


2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-199
Author(s):  
KATHRYN WALLS

According to the ‘Individual Psychology’ of Alfred Adler (1870–1937), Freud's contemporary and rival, everyone seeks superiority. But only those who can adapt their aspirations to meet the needs of others find fulfilment. Children who are rejected or pampered are so desperate for superiority that they fail to develop social feeling, and endanger themselves and society. This article argues that Mahy's realistic novels invite Adlerian interpretation. It examines the character of Hero, the elective mute who is the narrator-protagonist of The Other Side of Silence (1995) , in terms of her experience of rejection. The novel as a whole, it is suggested, stresses the destructiveness of the neurotically driven quest for superiority. Turning to Mahy's supernatural romances, the article considers novels that might seem to resist the Adlerian template. Focusing, in particular, on the young female protagonists of The Haunting (1982) and The Changeover (1984), it points to the ways in which their magical power is utilised for the sake of others. It concludes with the suggestion that the triumph of Mahy's protagonists lies not so much in their generally celebrated ‘empowerment’, as in their transcendence of the goal of superiority for its own sake.


Author(s):  
Н. Алтыкеева ◽  
Б. Ниясалиева

Аннотация. Макалада романдын мазмунунан орун алган пейзаждык сүрөттөөлөр талкууланат. Пейзаждык сүрөттөөлөр чыгарманын көркөмдүүлүгүн, эстетикалык баалуулугун арттыруу менен катар эле каармандардын образын тереңден ачып берүүдө, окуялардын өнүгүп-өсүшү жана алдыда боло турган окуялар тууралуу окурманга маалымат берүүдө кошумча каражат катары колдонулат. Жазуучу романда пейзаждык сүрөттөөлөрдү өтө кылдат колдонгону байкалат. Алсак, тоо адамдагы улуулук жана бийиктикти айгинелейт, толукшуган ай жан- дүйнөнүн бөксөрбөй толуп турушун көрсөтөт, ачык асмандын алай-дүлөй түшкөн көрүнүшкө айланышы - каармандын ички сезими, уйгу-туйгу ойлонуусу, жан дүйнөсүнүн бурганак болушун ачып көрсөтүүдө маанилүү болсо, чабалекейлердин тынымсыз учуп чабалакташы, жан алакетке түшүп чыйпылдашы – алдыда боло турган кырсыктуу окуя тууралуу кабар берсе, согуштун апааты жашыл шибердин, бак-дарактардын күлгө айланышы, чымчык-куштардын күздү күтпөй кайдадыр учуп кетип жатышы менен түшүндүрүлөт. Tүйүндүү сөздөр: пейзаж. роман, идея, легенда, эпилог, каарман, негизги окуялар. Аннотация. В статье дается пейзажное описание. Пейзажное описание используется в произведении как дополнительное средство эстетических ценностей и помогает раскрыть образы героев, и действия произведения. Писатель в романе тонко использует пейзажное описание. Например горы возвышенное и самое ценное в человеке, а полная луна – счастливое душевное состояние человека, а превращение безоблачного неба в бущующий вид – указывает, как неспокойно в душе главного героя, его беспокойные мысли, как бушует его внутренний мир, а ласточки неспокойно летающие, предвещают несчастье, птицы улетающие раньше времени, превращение зелёной травы, деревьев в пепел предвещают ужасы войны. Ключевые слова: пейзаж. роман, идея, легенда, эпилог, герой, главное событие Annotation. The article discusses the landscape description. The landscape description is used in the work as an additional tool for aesthetic values and helps to reveal the images of heroes, and in the development of the action of the work/ The writer in the novel subtly uses the landscape description. The mountains are the sublime and the most valuable in a person, and the full moon is a happy state of mind of a person, and the transformation of a cloudless sky into a raging view indicates how restless the soul of the protagonist is, his restless thoughts. How his inner world is raging, and the swallows are restlessly flying, foreshadow the misfortune, the birds flying away ahead of time, the transformation of green grass, trees in the forehead the horrors of war. This article describes the idea of the story "Do not kill" which is given instead of the epilogue in the novel "When the mountains fall" which was written by Ch.Aitmatov. It considers the role of a story that calls to live in peace and to end wars that are occurring in the world. Keywords: Landscapе, novel, idea, legend, epilogue, hero, main event.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-197
Author(s):  
Alan Glasper

In light of the emergence in China of COVID-19, the novel corona virus, emeritus professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton discusses the role of the World Health Organization and other public health institutions in responding to potential new global pandemics and deliberates on the role of NHS staff in coping with infectious disease in clinical environments.


2021 ◽  

The COVID-19 pandemic forced physicians around the world to make tragic decisions: Whose life should be saved when it is apparent that available resources are insufficient to treat everyone? Under the heading of "triage" a broad societal debate ensued that also ignited the scientific community. This anthology unites voices from medicine, law, and philosophy for a conversation. It reveals controversies that are deeply rooted in ideas of law, morality, and the role of the individual in the state. Simultaneously, answers are being formulated to questions that have become sadly prominent in the COVID pandemic but could also valid beyond it.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nicholas Wilkey

<p>In Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, reality and imagination are infused in an interplay of narratives. The story is about discovering the identity of Self, using a walled city as a metaphor for the subconscious. The novel weaves the stories of two characters, the external self and the internal self, each chapter flicking between the real and the dream, from conscious to unconscious. Murakami provides the reader with a contemplation on the nature of existence, being versus non-being. Dr William S Haney, Professor of Literary Theory and specialist on culture and consciousness, argues that the shadow in Murakami’s allegory is a representation of the mind. As the narrative unfolds, the shadow—stripped from its owner—slowly dies, causing loss of memory, emotion and desire. The relinquishing of one’s shadow in the allegory suggests a loss of the metaphysical aspect of Self. The Shadow is not merely seen as an immaterial entity; rather it is the sign of full corporeality. The Shadow grants meaning to existence, illuminating the reality that we cannot perceive the light without the darkness.  This thesis is born out of a concern for the dearth of meaning in architecture in an age of uncertainty. In the modern contemporary sphere, we have become obsessed with the image, with rationalistic tendencies; with evermore light and luminosity, architecture has primarily been caught up in trying to order and rationalise the world. In this condition of objectification and reduction, architecture risks falling into a trap of homogeneity, thereby limiting itself to an empty datum of quantification. Thus, the unhygienic, the disorder and the chaos, the darkness that grants life its pungency, have been ‘relegated to the shadows’. Roberto Casati, senior researcher and Professor of Philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientique and an authority on shadow perception, argues that shadows avoid direct reading: “[t]he interaction of the two unequal brothers has been described in different ways, from the notion that shadows are ‘holes in the light’ through to the opposite idea that they are ‘the remaining representatives on earth of the cosmic darkness, otherwise torn apart by light’”. Viewed in this sense, Shadows can be seen as both corporeal operation—bound to the physical cycles of earth, moon and sun—and metaphysical entity, alluding to the primordial darkness before the birth of light and matter.  The allegory of the Shadow in Hard-Boiled Wonderland can be seen as a rumination on the loss of the metaphysical aspect of Self in a contemporary cybernetic age. In Murakami’s novel, the shadow cannot enter the walled Town; it must be left behind in the Shadow Grounds, the threshold between inner and outer realms. The Gateway, as described in Murakami’s novel, becomes the provocateur for this thesis. Interpreting Murakami’s architectural and allegorical program of the Gateway and Shadow Grounds in relation to Penelope Haralambidou’s seminal article “The Allegorical Project: Architecture as Figurative Theory”, this design-led research investigation interrogates the use of the Allegorical Architectural Project as a critical method. Allegory provides a structure of thought whereby meaning is not grasped immediately, but rather through progressive discovery and continual interpretation of its ambiguous traits. Ambiguity in architecture has the ability to appear ever-changing, resist resolution and remain open to interpretation.  The methodology of the investigation explores the spatial realm of the shadow through the critical and creative process of drawing. The principal aim of this thesis is to journey into the darkness, to embrace the shadow of the unknown, searching for a space in-between—between light and shadow, architecture and art, reality and fiction, the constructed and the imagined. Using Haruki Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World as a generator and provocateur, the research employs the notion of the shadow as both mythological entity and corporeal signifying process. Rather than seeking concrete conclusions, it posits a speculative allegorical architectural project that invites critical engagement and interpretation. It argues that architecture occupies the liminal position between darkness and light, the true place of human existence, and as such, the design of Shadow is essential to the meaningful design of architecture.  The thesis investigation asks: how can the speculative architectural drawing be used as a means of interrogating the realm, and enhancing our awareness of, the shadow in architecture?</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.36) ◽  
pp. 983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasia S.Volskaya ◽  
Olga A. Chupryakova ◽  
Svetlana S. Safonova ◽  
Gulnaz T. Karipzhanova

The paper is devoted to the study of semantic and functional features of expressive derivatives, both usual and occasional, in the artistic gist of the novel “Asan” by V. Makanin, as well as their role in structuring the individual-author’s linguistic picture of the world. It has been proven that the derivation of expressive lexemes is the result of improvisation according to established patterns, and that the formation of occasional substantives, adjectives and verbs involved the main methods of the Russian word derivation. It is noted that in the artistic discourse of V. Makanin, in the substantive word-formation, suffixation plays a leading role, which takes place in the sphere of abstractness and includes such lexical-semantic groups as expressive substantives with the meaning of a person, expressive substantives with the meaning of abstracted action or an abstract feature with connotation, as a rule, negative and/or reduced colloquial connotation. While in the sphere of adjectival and verbal word formation, confixation and prefixation, as the formation of expressiveness, is most productive. The paper considers the phenomenon of semantic word formation, describes the formation of semantic derivatives, including in the field of occasional vocabulary. Expressive derivatives in the artistic discourse of V. Makanin are a bright sign of his individual style, an important means of expressing the world view and outlook of the writer.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-259
Author(s):  
Valentina E. Vetlovskaya

<p>The article explores the role of logical connections in an epic text. It is these connections, according to the author of the article, that connect the individual components of the narrative (motifs, complexes of motifs) and make up in the reader&rsquo;s perception for the missing elements. The reticence and failures to mention, common in fiction, appear in the narrative for various reasons. Sometimes due to the aesthetic principles of the writer who prefers ambiguity to a completed statement depriving readers of the opportunity to finish thinking over a vague idea. And sometimes, due to the author&rsquo;s conviction that there is no need to explain the idea implied by what has been earlier said. But it also happens that the omissions in the narrative are engendered by the requirements for the presentation of a chosen topic, for example in crime fiction. But these reasons may go together as it occurs in Crime and Punishment. These ideas are illustrated by the analysis of one of the themes of the novel Crime and Punishment.</p>


Author(s):  
Sten Ebbesen

‘Averroism’, ‘radical Aristotelianism’ and ‘heterodox Aristotelianism’ are nineteenth- and twentieth-century labels for a late thirteenth-century movement among Parisian philosophers whose views were not easily reconcilable with Christian doctrine. The three most important points of difference were the individual immortality of human intellectual souls, the attainability of happiness in this life and the eternity of the world. An ‘Averroist’ or ‘Radical Aristotelian’ would hold that philosophy leads to the conclusions that there is only one intellect shared by all humans, that happiness is attainable in earthly life and that the world has no temporal beginning or end. Averroists have generally been credited with a ‘theory of double truth’, according to which there is an irreconcilable clash between truths of faith and truths arrived at by means of reason. Averroism has often been assigned the role of a dangerous line of thought, against which Thomas Aquinas opposed his synthesis of faith and reason. The term ‘Averroism’ is also used more broadly to characterize Western thought from the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries which was influenced by Averroes, and/or some philosophers’ self-proclaimed allegiance to Averroes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-259
Author(s):  
Hoda Mahmoudi

This paper describes the central role of peace in the Bahá’í Faith. For Bahá’ís, peace begins at the level of the individual and migrates outward to the community, nation, and the world. The article explains how the Bahá’í Faith outlines a covenant – an agreement between Bahá’ís and between Bahá’ís and the world – made manifest in an Administrative Order in which the ascertainment of peaceful principles and the establishment of peaceful practices are developed. The paper explains how concepts like the oneness of humanity, the symbiosis between science and religion, and the unity of religion and God combine with ideals like justice, equality, and consultation to form a Bahá’í approach to the creation and maintenance of peace. Integration and disintegration – broad-structured, dynamic effects that shift societies and the world – will help to usher in two main aspects of a present and future Bahá’í order: the Lesser Peace and the Most Great Peace. The Lesser Peace is defined by the efforts of nations and international actors to form a broad-based, global peace. The Most Great Peace describes the arrival and ascendance of the Bahá’í Administrative Order, which will result in an unprecedented level of global peace and security.


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