A Comparative Study: Existentialism in No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre and Shadowless by Hasan Ali Toptaş / Karşılaştırmalı Bir Çalışma: Jean Paul Sartre’ın Çıkış Yok ve Hasan Ali Toptaş’ın Gölgesizler’inde Varoluşçuluk
Existentialism has influenced a lot of literary works throughout history. Existentialism can be studied in literary works by means of foregrounding the existential themes and techniques. Some of these themes are being, change, freedom, selfcognizance, isolation, responsibility, free-will, and alien...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cyprus International University
2019-08-01
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| Series: | Folklor/Edebiyat |
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| Online Access: | https://www.folkloredebiyat.org/Makaleler/1822547088_10.%20A%20comparative.pdf |
| Summary: | Existentialism has influenced a lot of literary works throughout history. Existentialism can be studied in literary works by means of foregrounding the existential
themes and techniques. Some of these themes are being, change, freedom, selfcognizance, isolation, responsibility, free-will, and alienation. Traversing the boundary between philosophy and literature, this essay aims to analyse the existential
themes of Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit or Huis Clos (1944) and Hasan Ali Toptaş’s
Shadowless1
or Gölgesizler (1993) with an intertextual and comparative approach. This essay considers Sartre’s No Exit and Toptaş’s Shadowless as postmodern
texts. Before exploring the existentialist themes and techniques in No Exit and Shadowless, this study aims to discuss the tradition of existentialism in literature. After
presenting an introductory review on such existentialist concepts in literature as
existence, essence, freedom, angst, and absurd, some recurrent themes in Sartre’s
and Toptaş’s works will be highlighted and analysed. After a brief exploration of
the influence of existentialism on Turkish literature, the essay will focus on the
textual analysis. No Exit will be analysed from the perspective provided by such
concepts as “being-for-itself”, “being-for-other”, “isolation and claustrophobic existence”; as for Shadowless, “being and nothingness” and “anxiety of uncertainty, emptiness and meaninglessness” will serve as the existential themes reflected
in the novel. Within the framework of existentialism, an intertextual approach to
and a comparative analysis of Shadowless from Turkish Literature along with No
Exit from French Literature is an attempt of situating Modern Turkish Literature
within the broader regional and global context. As a last point, this paper also aims
to contribute both to critical studies on Sartre’s work and scholarship on the woks
of Hasan Ali Toptaş work whose works of fiction have rarely been discussed from
a comparative or world literature studies perspective. |
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| ISSN: | 1300-7491 2791-6057 |