During World War II, German fascists quickly conquered most countries in Western Europe. France, an elegant and romantic country, has not been spared. After experiencing a terrible era composed of dictatorship, massacres and concentration camps, people generally feel indescribable anxiety and hesitation; Unable to get rid of bad luck, people show deep pessimism and disappointment about the existence of life. However, the all-encompassing cosmic system-religion has long been declared dead at the beginning of modern civilization, and people feel homeless, not only having nothing, but also becoming a fragmented existence. Such a tragic existence experience seems to be unable to be dispelled for a while. At this time, existentialism, which emphasizes individuality, independence, freedom and subjective experience, as an irrational trend of thought to solve this tragic sense of alienation, spread widely in the 20th century.

Existentialism is a philosophical trend of thought and a literary movement. As a representative figure of existentialism, Jean-Paul? Since 1938, Sartre has published works such as disgust, wall, fly, confinement, road to freedom, respectable prostitute and dirty hands. "Because his works are rich in ideas, full of freedom and the spirit of pursuing truth, they have had a far-reaching impact on our times." Sartre's work 1962 won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

After the terrible disaster brought by World War II, Sartre's works add an existential heroic pride to loneliness, fear, pessimism and disgusting despair. However, most of the characters depicted in his early works take loneliness, absurdity, decadence, pessimism, fear and despair as their basic experiences. After the tragedy of life melts into this basic experience, the works of existentialism philosophy are displayed through the life experience of the characters. The short story "The Wall" (1939) shows Ibida's cold, uneasy, trance and sober psychological activities with a cold style and a stream of consciousness in the first person. That kind of torture, suffering, loneliness, disillusionment, like a nightmare, delicate and realistic, very infectious.

A wall-the existence of absurdity

In the view of existentialism, people are thrown into this world for no reason, and human existence is the result of many accidents, from scratch. People's existence is even nothing. The existence and nothingness separated by a wall make people's lives full of absurdity, always surrounded by unknowable boredom and fear, and they are "homeless".

Empty and formal interrogation, a doomed fate, was told coldly that life would end at five o'clock the next morning, when a row of cold barrels would be aimed at you. After a few injections, you may lie on the ground and endure convulsions, but in the end you will fall in a pool of blood. From the beginning, Sartre threw the hero into a corner and faced death. These three people all felt anxiety and fear to varying degrees overnight. Since everything ended in this way, why did these three poor people have to experience such great fear?

From arrest to trial, to judgment, to the suffering of loneliness and fear before death, everything seems so absurd and unreasonable. Since life is ethereal and death is doomed, is existence itself necessary? Ibida, the narrative hero of the novel, devoted himself to the anarchist movement in Spain for the freedom of his soul and the liberation of the whole nation, prayed for the people he once cared about, and sincerely looked forward to meeting each other at the cost of his life. Two companions in prison: Tom, are still immersed in his own history of great achievements in murder; Juan, before, she was still living what she thought was an ordinary and real life. She was absolutely religious. However, now they are all thrown into prison. No matter what happened in the past, we all faced the same death: "Five o'clock the next morning". After hard struggle, everything will eventually return to dust. Especially for Juan, who has been living an ordinary and "real" life seriously, he was thrown into prison just because his brother was an anarchist, but when he was young, he was squeezed by death. Fear made him pale and his whole emaciated appearance was distorted. This neat young man looks like an old monster. Perhaps, as the experience of young people shows, existence is full of absurd elements, and the wall between existence and nothingness is even so absurd. Once devoted to this world, loneliness, fear and absurdity constitute the basic experience of human existence, and the absurdity of existence doomed endless emptiness, pain and loneliness in life.

In the evening, under the pressure of extreme fear of death, Belgian doctors were inexplicably ordered to comfort three dying people. How ridiculous and unreasonable it is to hold a person tightly and give him enough warmth before killing him, and then kill him rudely! At this time, he seems to be out of death, and can take care of our poor body in endless fear with an appreciation mentality. He even shamefully took out his watch and darkly reminded us that it was "3: 30"; However, he didn't know that the future of "Death", who is now being played so badly, would in turn tease him again at some point.

At the end of the novel, "Everything is spinning, and I find myself sitting on the ground: I laughed until my tears came out." Death doesn't matter to me at this time, but in the face of that funny trial, I finally chose to fool them, "I know where he is." He hid in the cemetery, either in the underground bone hiding place or in the cemetery workers' hut. "But in the end, the ridicule became the exact guidance. The comrades he has been stubbornly protecting really ran to the cemetery to hide." Go to the cemetery? "..." I "What can I say? In the face of these absurd things (even if it has nothing to do with "I" for a long time), I can only laugh helplessly, for him and for myself.

Second, the insurmountable wall-the existence of loneliness

Existentialism believes that a person's life is a process of constant choice and transcendence, and all choices or transcendence are ultimately a process of individual choice. "If God doesn't exist and everything is allowed, then man becomes lonely because he can't find anything to rely on, whether it's internal or external." [ 1]

The prison was dark and dirty, the poor man was naked, the biting cold wind penetrated, and gradually even the human soul was completely occupied. The encounter of despair, the black hole of fear, the coldness of body and soul, how should people resist? Facing the cold, Tom stood up and did gymnastics to keep warm. In fact, it's just a pile of fat meat struggling in vain. Juan's soul has long been swallowed up by the black hole of fear, and the surrounding cold does not belong to him; Ibida "I" only thinks that the eyes, nose and mouth I am using now belong to another "he". "I" is not the real "I", and the cold does not belong to me at the same time. Everything around me is so dull, both body and mind are numb at the same time. Facing the fear of death, Tom chose meaningless struggle and endless cover-up. Juan's fear and sadness completely overcame him and tried to get the doctor's rescue. Ebida went from suppressing fear to numbness, to completely abandoning others and actively choosing death. "Only ourselves decide our existence" [2]. There is no distinction between good and evil, good and bad, coward and hero in the choice of three different states of existence. "Man is made by himself" [3]. "Cowards turn themselves into cowards, heroes turn themselves into heroes, and this possibility has always existed, that is, cowards can cheer up and stop being cowards, and heroes may stop being heroes. The important thing is that the whole responsibility ... people's fate is completely in their own hands ... "[4]

Since people have been thrown into this world, facing loneliness and fear again and again, we can only limit all our dependence to our own will. Ibida, when I was transferred from the darkroom of the monastery to the cell in this hospital, I was still very relieved to have a companion. Juan didn't say a word, but Tom is a talkative man. I always sympathize with the poor young man, but I hate pity, which makes me very disgusted. "Tom was kind-hearted, and he wanted to shake his arm, but the child jerked it away and put on his clothes and face"; Tom walked away regretfully; He wants to comfort the children to kill time. "On the eve of death, sympathy and care seem unnecessary. The interdependence between people suddenly became pale and powerless. Everyone is still facing death, and others are just meaningless to him.

Existentialism depicts man as a lonely creature thrown into the world, and its only way out is to lead to transcendental death. Since life is "absurd" and an endless "tragedy", and "death" itself is a way out, then "whoever consciously goes to death is free". In the view of existentialism, once a person devotes himself to the world, loneliness, fear and absurdity constitute his basic experience of survival; Loneliness and fear drive him from his daily life without personality to the most profound "self" again and again; "Ego" is a kind of abandoned, desperate, sad, pessimistic and desperate creature. The situation of the Jedi and the threat of death made Ibida more "self", and "I" seemed to be freed from transcendental death in despair. My body, I even just look with my eyes and listen with my ears. "People are dying, and their words are good." Ibida's feelings before his death may seem a little incredible to those who have never really experienced his fears before his death, but death has long been confirmed. What is so certain is that the friendship, love and immortality I was busy with before have nothing to do with me now, and I am the only one who finally faces death. "Before death, any life is worthless", but "I don't want to betray my grace, not that his life is more valuable than mine", but a sense of pleasure invaded me, so I persisted. Death can understand everything; Struggle hard in the journey of life, and eventually everything will return to dust, and life will be like a dream. Here, Ibida seems to have a chance to become an "existential hero", but he is finally conquered by the "absurdity of death".

Summary:

Although the existence and nothingness of life are full of absurdity and loneliness, at the same time, people enjoy absolute freedom of choice. Only those who establish their own essence in free choice, make free choices and bravely bear all the consequences of their actions can find their own essence in this absurd world.

Although death, loneliness, fear and disillusionment afflict us, they also give people more detached strength to face the bleak life. Since life is destined to end in tragedy, there is no need to find a way to get rid of this pain. We might as well treat every seemingly absurd detail in our life as a comedy, so it is enough to act every comedy well and grasp what we should grasp today.

References:

Edited by Zheng Kelu. Selected works of foreign modernism [M]. Shanghai: Lin Xue Press, 2008.

[2] Shen Liyan, edited by Zhang Lixin. Intensive reading of contemporary western literary masterpieces [M]. Tianjin: Nankai University Press, 2005.

[3] Paul Falkie. Existentialism [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1988

[4] W. Kaufman existentialism [M]. Beijing: Published by Commercial Press, 1987

[5] Wang Keqian, Fan Shensen. A review of existentialism [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 198 1

[6] Lu Shizhen. Who am I? What the hell do I want? Faith is the foundation for young people to settle down [M]. Beijing: China Youth Publishing House, 2002