Existentialist Literature Flashcards
Grade 10 · English · Flashcards
Key terms, authors, works, and concepts essential for understanding existentialist literature at the advanced level.
Flashcards
- Existentialism
- A philosophical and literary movement holding that humans have no fixed nature; meaning and identity are created through free choices and actions.
- Absurdism
- Camus's philosophy: the absurd arises from the clash between humanity's need for meaning and the universe's indifferent silence; the correct response is revolt, not despair.
- Bad Faith (Mauvaise Foi)
- Sartre's term for self-deception in which a person denies their freedom, pretending their choices are forced by role, habit, or circumstance.
- Authenticity
- The existentialist ethical ideal of living honestly, accepting full responsibility for one's choices, and not hiding behind social masks or roles.
- Alienation
- A state of estrangement from society, others, or oneself; a defining characteristic of existentialist protagonists who feel disconnected from the world around them.
- Existence Precedes Essence
- Sartre's foundational claim: unlike objects made for a purpose, humans exist first and then create their own essence through what they choose and do.
- The Absurd (Camus)
- The irreconcilable tension between humanity's desperate search for clear meaning and a universe that offers none; not a property of either alone but of their confrontation.
- Revolt (Camus)
- Camus's prescribed response to the absurd: to live fully and defiantly, maintaining the tension rather than resolving it through suicide or illusory hope.
- The Gaze (Le Regard)
- Sartre's concept that being observed by others transforms us from free subjects into fixed objects; central to No Exit's 'hell is other people.'
- Meursault
- Protagonist of Camus's The Stranger; emotionally detached, lives in the present, ultimately accepts the absurd with indifference — he is executed less for murder than for failing to conform socially.
- Roquentin
- Protagonist of Sartre's Nausea; his growing awareness of the brute, unjustified existence of all things triggers existential nausea and a confrontation with radical freedom.
- Sisyphus (Camus)
- In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the figure condemned to roll a boulder uphill forever as a symbol of the absurd condition; 'one must imagine Sisyphus happy.'
- Simone de Beauvoir
- Existentialist and feminist philosopher; The Second Sex argues gender is a social construction, applying existentialist freedom to critique women's 'otherness' in patriarchal society.
- Angst / Anxiety
- The dizzying awareness of one's total freedom and responsibility; for existentialists, anxiety is the authentic emotional response to realizing there are no guaranteed values or choices.
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