A meaningless world: Sartre, Camus, Waliullah, and Badal Sircar

Existentialism is a philosophical theory and a literary perspective. Its central proposition is that the world has no a priori meaning or purpose. Yet life has value. Therefore, human beings strive to discover the meaning and worth of life within their own environment and circumstances. Humans create the meaning of life in their conscious and subconscious minds and apply it through action and freedom.

A somewhat different philosophy is absurdism. According to this philosophical viewpoint, humans seek the meaning of life, but the indifferent world does not provide it, thereby creating a tension that Camus calls the ‘Absurd’, yet one must confront the adversities of a meaningless life. To live through defiance or revolt against an irrational world is the absurdist response. The main contributor of absurdism is Albert Camus.

The most successful in applying existentialism in literature is Jean-Paul Sartre. According to him, existence precedes essence—existence or being precedes essence. We are born; therefore, we exist; we shall determine our essence and the purpose and flow of our lives after birth. I shall apply Jean-Paul Sartre’s above idea to the animal world five hundred and forty-one million years before the emergence of humans. At that time, the complex eye, as preserved in the fossil record, appeared in a kind of aquatic arthropod called the trilobite. Later, it created its new essence— somewhat like the essence of spreading across all oceans. The complex eye-bearing aquatic arthropod, the trilobite, became one of the most successful groups in the aquatic world. Due to catastrophic climate change 252 million years ago, the Earth suffered terrible destruction, known as the Permian Extinction. 90 percent of all creatures, including the trilobite, became extinct. For the once-great invader trilobite, the earth ultimately proved meaningless. Today, countless trilobites lie crushed in rocks and stones across the corners of the earth. Therefore, it seemed to me in my own poetic privilege:

“Now your existence lithified

on the rocks

like billions of other fossils

The destructive decay of eras

covered you and your prey

with a transparent shroud

of Marxian equality

You are now equal to all

Perhaps, you were emperor,

monk, preacher,

liar, cultist, conspiracy peddler

or ordinary lover

There are no signs,

no placards,

no semiotics,

no witness

Nothing preserved

except your naked self

Your existence lithified

over millions of years,

time squeezed

upon your rocky being”

From Abu K M Sarwar’s “Trilobite” (Ellipsis: A Journal of Art, Ideas, and Literature, 2024)

In the unrestrained caravan of the space–time continuum, the human world is meaningless, just as the trilobite’s is, unless the meaning is created by one’s own actions and choices.

At the root of existentialism lies anxiety. And here enters the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Almost a hundred years before Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, Kierkegaard wrote The Concept of Anxiety (1844). Anxiety arises from freedom, not from chaos or the absence of order. Freedom offers a wide spectrum of options, but also the burden of choice. This is natural. Anxiety, guilt, and death— these are bound to human existence. Many have called Søren Kierkegaard the father of existentialism.

In the historical backdrop of literature and philosophy, existentialism is a broader literary and philosophical perspective. Where the contributions of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty are inscribed in golden letters.

Besides Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, existentialism in literature has been applied by Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, Simone de Beauvoir, André Malraux, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, and Harold Pinter. It may be mentioned here: André Malraux, even in old age, wished to join the Bangladesh Liberation War as a soldier. During the Spanish Civil War, he joined the frontline as a fighter.

This is an excerpt. Read the full essay on The Daily Star and Star Books and Literature’s websites.

Dr Mostofa Sarwar is professor emeritus at the University of New Orleans, former visiting professor and adjunct faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, and former dean and former vice-chancellor of Delgado Community College. He can be reached at asarwar2001@yahoo.com.