Existentialism Essay -- essays research papers

Existentialism is a philosophy about life that says being is more(prenominal) important than the indispensable everyday occurrences. It acknowledges an individuals freedom to choose and says with this knowing at that place comes an immense sense of responsibility. Despair, hopelessness and anxiety are characteristic of a person struggling with existential thoughts. Nihilism sums up this condition by stating that all values are baseless, nonhing is foreseeable and that life itself is meaningless. The characters in A Clean Well Lighted Place and A twenty-four hour periods Wait show signs of being both aware and unwitting of these elements of existentialism. In the first story, A Clean Well Lighted Place, the aging drunk man represents someone who realizes he has no actual think or fate. His despair is over the realization that theoretically the afterlife does not exist. The drunken man and older waiter share this despair not only because they both realize a mans take for a cle an, well-lighted place but also because they both get by to fill a void. The older waiters acknowledgement of fart in life is evident when he recites the prayer but fills in the perceived nouns God and heaven with nada or nothing. He feels a void with this realization that keeps him awake at night. His assumption that others share his insomnia is some correct but what they, the drunken man and the waiter, actually share is a void. The young waiter has a wife to go home to and a bed, the old drunken man ...