scholarly journals “The deepest depths of human life”: existential motifs in the novel The Road by Cormac McCarthy

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (16) ◽  
pp. 61-67
Author(s):  
I. Kachur
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Cormac Mccarthy ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Road ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Essential Questions

The implementation of the basic principles of existentialism in Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road” is studied in the article. The author states that this philosophical movement, which explores the problem of human existence, had a significant impact on the formation of world literature and origin of a new literary movement that bears the very same name. The works of American writer Cormac McCarthy are philosophical in nature and cover a great variety of themes such as life and death, freedom, relationship between parents and children, man and nature. The post-apocalyptic novel “The Road”, which brought the author worldwide fame, is considered the pinnacle of his writing skills, as it thematically, compositionally, and stylistically embodies the traditional features of McCarthy’s works. It does not have a large number of characters, which allows readers to pay more attention to the philosophical idea of the novel. The author tries to find answers to the essential questions of meaning and purpose of human existence, which makes it possible to identify a significant number of existential motifs, such as absurdity, forlornness, fear, freedom, alienation, individuality, and so on. The motif of absurdity is manifested through the depiction of an almost completely uninhabitable world, in which cruelty and death prevail. The personages of the novel are devoid of illusions and disappointed in life, especially the older generation; so they just try to survive and keep their individuality. The main characters have a dreadful fear of starvation or violent death, and they are also afraid of losing humanity and hope for a better future. Therefore, fear frees them from the conventions and laws of the hostile world and gives meaning to their existence.

scholarly journals TEORI DIALOGISME BAKHTIN DAN KONSEP-KONSEP METODOLOGISNYA

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 235
Author(s):  
Fadlil Munawwar Manshur
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Universe

This paper discusses the theory advanced by Bakhtin about dialogism and methodological concepts. This theory to formulate the concept of human existence on the other, which is based on the idea that humans judge him from the viewpoint of others. Humans understand the moments of consciousness and take it into account through the eyes of others. According to this theory, the essence of human life is a dialogue. The Method of heteroglossia talks about signs in the universe of individuals because of the word "heteros" means "other" or different, while "glossia" means the tongue or language. In this method mentioned that people are saying needs to be heard, and the author also has the same rights that words need to be heard. A word is born from dialogue to address the problems of life. On the other hand, Bakhtin sees carnival method has spawned a new literary genre, the polyphonic novel. The polyphonic novel is a novel that is characterized by a plurality of voice or consciousness, and the voices or the overall awareness dialogical. Polyphonic essentially a "new theory of authorial viewpoint". Polyphonic appear in fiction when the position of the author freely allowed to interact with the characters. The characters in the novel are freely polyphonic appear to argue with each other and even with the author.

Divine Paraphrase: Cormac McCarthy

2017 ◽  
pp. 40-59
Author(s):  
Brian Willems
Keyword(s):  
Cormac Mccarthy ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Road ◽  
Quentin Meillassoux

In Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road (2006), which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, a boy and his father struggle to survive in a world decimated by an unspecified catastrophe.This post-apocalyptic world is dark, but relatively so because it is perceivable. The pre-apocalyptic world, as represented by the language of the father, is different. The father’s world is full of objects which are known and useful. The father’s world is a place of light and speech, while the boy’s world consists of darkness and silence. However, rather than reading the post-apocalyptic world as one of loss, its darkness is taken as a sign of potential. While this interpretation goes against the grain of most of the novel, it is supported by the repeated figuration of the boy as God. Graham Harman and Quentin Meillassoux are the main philosophers used to develop this argument.

scholarly journals THE HOLOCAUST AS AN ETERNAL LESSON FOR MANKIND (Education of resistance to racism and xenophobia on the basis of contemporary foreign fiction and cinema)

2018 ◽  
pp. 84-94
Author(s):  
Olha Nikolenko
Keyword(s):  
World Literature ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Main Role ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Second World

The theme of the Second World War and the Holocaust is one of the topical themes of contemporary fiction and cinema. Outstanding writers and directors of our time are turning to the embodiment of this tragic topic. They set themselves the task of comprehending the past and giving the third millennium generation spiritual experience that will help young people combat the manifestations of racism and xenophobia in the modern world. The article deals with the novel “Schindler’s Ark” by Th. Keneally, “The Children of Noah” by E.-E. Schmitt, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” by J. Boyne, “The Book Tief” by M. Zuzak and movies that are based on these books. In the genres of a historic novel and psychological story based on the documents, the writers revealed the complicated social processes in Europe during 1930-1940. The writers described the historic events within the life of ordinary people who lived in the terrible circumstances of the totalitarian system. The symbols playedthe main role in revealing the subject of the Holocaust in the novels and films about the Second World War and the Holocaust. Thomas Keneally continued the traditions of romantic irony and added to it some social, psychological and philosophical meanings. The irony in the novel by Thomas Keneally “Schindler’s Ark” plays an important role in the investigation of European society in the tragic period of the 20thcentury. In the novels by Thomas Keneally irony takes place on the different levels such as plot, composition, imagology, time and space, style and language. T. Keneally broadens the meaning of irony and its function in the documentary and historic novel. The irony in the novel “Schindler’s Ark” maintains some main functions: social for explaining the anti-humanistic essence of fascism, war, racial hatred, research in investigating the tragedy of the Holocaust and its consequences, psychological in revealing the psychology of people of different social class, philosophical in discussing the important issues of human life in the word, axiological dealing with the values of mercy, morality, the ability to resist violence. T. Kenealy represents different forms of irony such as the irony of the narrator, the irony of the author, the combination of controversial documentary facts, the contradiction of phenomenon and notions, the comparison of the different points of view, self-irony, irony as inner enlightenment, catharsis. In the novel “Schindler’s Ark” by T. Kenealy the author of the article analyzed the traditions of world literature such as B. Brecht within the motive of personal financial profit from the war, N. Gogol within the motive of buying and selling the dead souls. The writer represented these motives in his own way as the events took place during the real historic time, and he found the inner power in people of past century to keep their life, humanity and culture on the Earth. The irony is a unique feature of T. Keneally’s individual style and it enriched the genre of novel.

scholarly journals THE EXISTENCE MODUS IN THE NOVEL «CHAD» («FUMES») BY YURI KOSACH: THE PROBLEM OF LIFE AND DEATH

2019 ◽  
pp. 132-139
Author(s):  
Halyna Yurchak
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Philosophical Thinking ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Personal Crisis ◽  
Religious Existentialism ◽  
Philosophical Orientations ◽  
Idea Of God

There has been analysed the literary originality of philosophical reflection «Chad» («Fumes»). It is proved that in the context of different influences and philosophical orientations, the prose writer managed to asset his own identity. Creative and philosophical thinking of Yu. Kosach has been studied in the context of the European and national existentialism. The thesis author has interpreted the suicidal motives stated in the novel of «Chad» («Fumes») on the ground of psychoanalysis. She presents the problems and difficulties of an emigrant and gives two different existential views. There is a focus on the originality of the novel and presentation of the vital problems of the 20th century that brightly reflect the era of existential emptiness among the Ukrainian emigration. In the novel of «Chad» («Fumes»), two different existentialisms, religious and atheistic ones, come across. The collision of these views creates a dialogical concept with the essence that a person himself can take the only right decision and make his own choice. In privacy of one’s own mind, being deprived of the idea of God, the person becomes lonely. Thus, he realizes the absurdity of existence, undergoes the transcendence, and finds out the death as the only solution. The atheistic existentialism is represented by hero Sokil, who chose the suicide as a way out of the personal crisis. The religious existentialism is embodied in Apostol, who served faithfully and did not conceive the human existence without God. Keywords: existentialism, death, existence, suicide, emigration, borderline situation.

Speaking in the face of disintegration

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Temko
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Samuel Beckett ◽  
Cormac Mccarthy ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Final Word ◽  
Harold Pinter ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
The Road ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
The Face

In its analysis of Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road, the present article aims to establish that, despite the bleakness of the deathscape portrayed, McCarthy nevertheless did not intend for violence to get the final word. Through a discussion of the dialogues of the novel, this article explores to what extent they may indeed be qualified as dialogical. Moreover, examining the instances in which language as communication becomes a problem in light of both the concerns and the mechanisms of playwrights of the absurd Beckett and Pinter, it intends to show that even though the referents of human culture appear to have vanished close to entirely from the face of The Road’s earth, sociability and empathy nonetheless manage to survive. Keywords: Cormac McCarthy; The Road; Absurdism; Samuel Beckett; Harold Pinter

scholarly journals The suffering of existence in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

Ars Aeterna ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-17
Author(s):  
Martin Šemelák
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Kazuo Ishiguro ◽  
Normal People ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Alternate Reality ◽  
General Experience ◽  
Metaphorical Expression

AbstractThis paper deals with the British dystopian novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, in which human clones are forced to donate their organs in an alternate reality set in 1990s England. Through the characters of the novel, various manifestations of suffering are examined from the viewpoint of existentialism. The whole concept of donation might be understood as a metaphorical expression for human life, as well as the omnipresent consciousness of its finitude. Ishiguro has prepared the ground for disturbing discussion where two ostensibly different groups of people – clones, whose only purpose is to donate their vital organs, and “normal people” as the recipients – suddenly appear to be indistinguishable in terms of mortality and the general experience of human existence. This paper focuses on the concept of existential anguish in the context of the novel’s story. Using an unobtrusive science fiction narrative, Never Let Me Go encourages readers to contemplate the essence, meaning and purpose of human life, and it quietly points to topics that are usually treated as highly sensitive: the inevitability of death and apparent absurdity of human existence.

scholarly journals Role of Nature in Michelle Cohen Corasanti’s The Almond Tree

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
R. Ahalya
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Future Generation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Almond Tree ◽  
Present Generation ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Deep Relationship ◽  
The Relationship

: This paper entitled “Role of Nature in Michelle Cohen Corasanti’s The Almond Tree” represents the relationship man has with nature and vice versa. It also explains that though The Almond Tree is a war novel, Corosanti brings in the tint of nature here and there in the novel. It also talks about certain ways through which nature can be retained and the double destruction on nature due to the man-made causes. The obliteration caused to man and to nature by war has been portrayed in this paper. It is the duty of every human being to look after the well being of nature. When one put in the effort to protect the nature, it naturally attracts others to protect the nature. Unless protecting the nature, it is the future generation which suffers the most than the present generation. In short, this paper stresses on the necessity of protecting the nature. God, the creator of the whole world, creates nature as well as man. He then delivers the nature in the hands of man with a hope that man gives priority to protect his creation. Nature is a mother, nurturer, doctor, teacher and entertainer. It is filled with adventures, amusements, beauty and sometimes even danger. There is a balance within the ecosystem to enjoy the benefits of mutual co-existence. When this balance is maintained, there blooms peace and happiness. But if any one of it tries to dominate, there would be great tragedy. Nature is a best healer in every situations of human life. Though selfishness leads the man to destroy the nature, there are few people who are able to understand the importance of nature. There is a deep relationship between the man and nature. So, it is necessary to look at the relationship between the nature and the man in Corasanti’s The Almond Tree.

scholarly journals Death Existentiality in Philosophical Novels of Aldous Huxley: Culturological Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 22-27
Author(s):  
Iryna Karaeva
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Aldous Huxley ◽  
Attitude To Death ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Anthropological Approach ◽  
Summer Time

Cultural studies cover the genesis and development of culture as a specific human lifestyle. Its universals are representations of human cultural experience, including humans, their life and death. The meaning of human life, death, and immortality became the main objects for consideration and research at all stages of Aldous Huxley’s literary activity.The analysis of his early philosophical novels and novels that offer an anti-utopian model of culture shows his tendency to destroy his characters in order to defend their personalities, a refusal to accept the patterns of ordinary being, when the man’s will is aimed only at self-preservation and reproduction. To identify this tendency, we studied the novels Crome Yellow, Antic Hay, Point Counter Point, Eyeless in Gaza, After Many a Summer, Time Must Have a Stop, Brave New World, Ape and Essence. At this stage of spiritual search, A. Huxley justifies suicide as a way of self-realization.Having reached the level of the philosophical outlook, A. Huxley proposes and promotes the spiritual ideals of self-improvement, love for neighbour as for ‘another one’, the attitude to death as an existential, which is a certain stage of human existence, not tragic but natural. It is reflected in the novel Island. Thanatology is one of the main subjects at school. The yoga of death is promoted: it treats life and death as a single entity, as a kind of art, which should result in Paranirvana.The article proves that A. Huxley’s stance on the problems of purpose of life, death, and immortality had been changing along with the evolution of his outlook. It is shown how this genesis is reflected in A. Huxley’s literary works. Death in A. Huxley’s works is interpreted via meta-anthropological approach as the existential transcendent being of man.

scholarly journals Riviere as identiteitskonstrueerders

Literator ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 51-78
Author(s):  
S. Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Life Goal ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Core Components ◽  
Development Of Identity ◽  
The Relationship

Rivers and the construction of identity The collection of youth memories “Met ’n eie siekspens” (Engela van Rooyen) and the novel “Manaka: plek van die horings” (Pieter Pieterse) complement each other as literary embodiments of the phenomenon that human life and identity are influenced by an aspect of the characters’ natural environment, namely the river. This article focuses on the nature and extent of the influence of rivers on the development of identity in characters in these two works. In “Met ’n eie siekspens” the formative role of the Orange River is connected with a complex relationship between man and river in which elements of devotion collide with those of enslavement. The values taught by the river and its surroundings are core components of the characters’ identities. In “Manaka: plek van die horings”, the main character’s dream of a life on the Zambezi is part of his identity, in that it embodies selfrealisation and has directed his thinking and self-image since childhood. The river and its surroundings, however, later on also play an important role in the re-interpretation of his life goal and the acquisition of a wider understanding of his true identity. This investigation underlines the importance of research into the portrayal of the relationship between man and nature within the broader field of study in which the portrayal of matters of identity in Afrikaans literature is investigated.

scholarly journals In Search of Hope in J.M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-87
Author(s):  
Kinga Jęczmińska
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Artistic Creation

The article discusses J.M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year to argue that although the main protagonist’s views upon social, ethical, political, and scientific matters may be described as rather pessimistic, the novel still portrays artistic creation as a source of solace, hope, and a motivation for improvement in human life. The validity of the protagonist’s despondent outlook upon human life is undermined by the tripartite composition of the narrative, in which his opinions are questioned when juxtaposed with the alternative views voiced by the other characters. It is argued in particular that the story narrated in the novel reinforces the image of the positive role of literature in human existence. W poszukiwaniu nadziei w Diary of a Bad Year J.M. Coetzeego Niniejszy artykuł omawia Diary of a Bad Year J.M. Coetzeego w celu wykazania, że chociaż poglądy głównego bohatera na kwestie społeczne, etyczne, polityczne i naukowe można określić jako dość pesymistyczne, powieść przedstawia jednak twórczość artystyczną jako źródło ukojenia, nadziei i motywację do doskonalenia w życiu człowieka. Zasadność posępnego spojrzenia głównego bohatera na życie ludzkie jest zakwestionowana przez trójdzielną kompozycję narracji, w której jego opinie są podważane w zestawieniu z alternatywnymi poglądami pozostałych postaci. Tekst w szczególności dowodzi, że ukazana w powieści historia bohaterów umacnia obraz pozytywnej roli literatury w ludzkim istnieniu.

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