Example Of Literature Review On Focus On Existentialism: Essay Commentary

If death is really real, based upon the animistic quality of our five physical senses, then how do we know that we are truly alive and breathing, not in a dream? It has been proposed that our dependence upon our five senses is extraneous at best, and totally illusory at worst. When thinking about the quote ‘existence precedes essence’ the concept lends room for credibility that Morrie was right in suggesting that the fundamental truth of human existence rests upon happiness. In Mitch Albom’s non-fictional piece, Tuesdays with Morrie, the college professor’s life, recounted during the last elderly, dying days of his life, provides philosophical fodder as an instructional basis for a curriculum in wisdom. The ethereal, yet grounded, theory of existentialism provides the landscape for a more positively identified pathway which reaches across the chasms of the continuum post-death.
Lessons for living, uncovered in conversations with Morrie, reflected his attitude as a contumacious offender against the societal values of being selfish for material or financial gain only, and staid thinking that life has no meaning. Morrie’s awareness of human existence taking precedence over the everyday mundaneness of ignoring the love between others, which is the ultimate of what matters, can be summed up in at least one statement quote from the book. That is, “You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too.” By placing a loving responsibility on his shoulders to share his lifetime-gained pearls of wisdom with Albom, Morrie has contended with the very depths of his soul in a willingness to share that all we are, and all we can know – is in constant motion. And this is being impressed upon our minds and hearts because existentialist patterns of reality demand it. The doubts, however of existential doubts were clearly rendered with an altogether different tone from Morrie’s style, when perusing Franz Kafka’s work of fiction, Metamorphosis.
Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis has left many literary scholars and philosophers of existentialist theory, much less effulgent than they would care to be remembered – thus, scratching their heads, while making noble attempts to delve into super-deep regions of existentialist thought. When Kafka’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa awakened to find himself transformed into a grotesque insect, this yanks the thread of existential angst off its spool of complacent assumptions that all is well, when we mindless drag through daily chores in acceptance of the materially apparent. However, the fact is, according to the thesis of argument that existentialism is a grounded – yet ethereal proposition – its landscape usually can be identified when people encounter desperate or extreme situations. Consideration of, and contemplation about certain ideas on existentialism, naturally attach to a greater more illuminated awareness when death is staring you in the face.
While it is true, that a mirage appears to the human eyes and brain as a watery reality just ahead in the road when driving a car on a hot day, Descartes understood the need to enter the foundations of the concept more seriously, with an explorative attitude, devoid of any wastefully jocular intent. This is demonstrated in the craftsmanship of Kafka’s literary ability in the Metamorphosis, when the wild circumstances showed that Gregor Samsa would not be able to any longer work at the factory. But being stripped of his outward physical manifestations of humanity paints a picture of the difficulties in sometimes communicating existential ideas, when the character noted, “He felt a slight itch up on his belly” just prior to trying to reach his hand to touch his legs, or former legs now replaced with an insect’s grotesque stem-like extrusions (Kafka 7). As the nasty truth came to light in the fictional story, Samsa recoils with disgust when discovering the replacement of his legs, thus “because as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold shudder” (Kafka 7). The profundity, in terms of existentialism in Kafka’s literary work, has constantly been reflected upon because existentially cornered notions force a person to deal with what really counts. What really matters is targeted in existentialism, as Kafka wrote “He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love.” The symbolism in the story’s plot of how a human being could experience an unwanted metamorphosis enlists, and executes the horror of what it must be like to lose our humanity, and that our essential core of humankind encapsulates all that we care about in terms of our shared love for the ones in our closest circles. The symbolic birth of the insect, symbolized humanity’s struggle with death, and being able to be cognizant, and simultaneously intuitive, accept the existential value of looking beyond the mere aspects of ‘good and evil.’ Not every creative expression of existentialist literature or artistry would agree, because in the Donnie Darko film, is exhibited a clear feeling of utter death and doom, using the caricature of a malevolent-felt appearance of a rabbit named Frank.
The film, Donnie Darko, was captivatingly interesting as it was profound on many levels. The story revolves around a young man’s premonition of his family’s death, of an airliner crashing into their residence. Meanwhile, plagued by visual appearances of an odd-looking demonic rabbit that seems to portend of death and doom, Donnie struggled to accept the life given to him, and the life every human being has the duty to create, in terms of digging for splinters of gold that stab the brain with thoughts of impending death. Heaven or hell is rarely entertained in existentialism, even though according to many, nothing would exist without God anyway, and to think otherwise would be more obtuse than dumber.
Yet in the end, Donnie’s character played by Jake Gyllenhaal is forced – by circumstances – to decipher the true meaning of life. This symbolism occurred when Donnie challenged the validity presented to by a positive-thinker-speaker, who idiotically simplifies an interpretation of what human behavior should look like. Donnie quipped, “Good morning! How much are they paying you to be here?” By exercising his free human will, coupled with the dark impending, symbolic use of death-omens by the rabbit, his personal doubts that life is meant as a spectator sport, disappears. If everything is approached with doubt, then we can expect to find out what really happens once our bones rot in the grave. Thus, the loquacious rhetoric that society offers, contrasts to the multi-faceted dimensions of existentialism.