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Gandhara Journal of Research in
Social Science
ISSN: 2415-2404
Volume 1, No. 1, Spring 2016
2016 Gandhara Research
Society, Pakistan Alia Bashir Tanauli Lecturer, Department of Humanities, COMSATS, Abbottabad, Pakistan
The emergence of Existentialism as a Literary Theory in the Backdrop of Colonialism: A Comparative Study of Metamorphosis
and The Stranger as Postcolonial Existentialist Texts While sifting the individual out of 20th century Existentialist philosophy as the crux of existence and placing him in the larger context of post colonialism, the purpose of this research paper is to situate the emergence of the Existentialist philosophy in the 20th century European colonization process. The emergence of Existentialism as well as its connection with the postcolonial market economy in Europe, and the subsequent exploitation of individualism, have been studied through the lens of postcoloniality. This paper attempts to study the effects of post colonialism on the 20th century Existentialist philosophy in Europe in the light of postcolonial European Existentialist literature. The Existentialism found in The Metamorphosis and The Stranger is the manifestation of the struggle of individualism in the constraining forces of postcoloniality, the ground where on the Existentialism nourished, as against the contours of the absolute personal choices and free will of an individual.
Gandhara Journal of Research in Social Science (ISSN: 2415-2404, Volume: 1, No. 1 Spring 2016) _____________________________________________________________________________________
36
The emergence of Existentialism as a Literary Theory in the Backdrop of Colonialism: A Comparative Study of
Metamorphosis and The Stranger as Postcolonial Existentialist Texts
Alia Bashir Tanauli*
Introduction
Existentialism as an elusive term is difficult to define, for there are as many
interpretations of it as there are different writers. However, in spite of the various
complexities associated with it, this philosophical term is mainly related to human
existence and its experiences in the immediate environment from a subjective point of
view, that is to say as to how far an individual’s life is livable in the timeframe of life and
death, as a free human existence, observed Michelman Stephen (2010). In fact, the 20th
century existentialist philosophy emerged out of the reaction against Plato’s idea of
essence as contrasted with the existence. According to Plato, existence is only the
manifestation of the ideal or the universal abstract ideas and the concrete things in this
universe are the faces of those ideal objects; hence the immediate reality, the existence,
derives its meanings through essence or forms which are abstract and beyond the grasp of
reality, observed Passmore John (1957). All these forms, according to Plato, exist outside
the limits of time and space, observes Soccio, Douglas (2012).
The Metamorphosis and The Stranger are existentialist novels wherein the
protagonists Gregor Samsa’s and Meursault’s characters develop through their personal
choices, arbitrary decisions, as against the transcendental involvement into the human
affairs; Meursault’s ultimate suffering starts from his killing of the Arab and Samsa’s
suffering in becoming a vermin (although transforming into a vermin is not intentional on
Gandhara Journal of Research in Social Science (ISSN: 2415-2404, Volume: 1, No. 1 Spring 2016) _____________________________________________________________________________________
37
Samsa’s part but somehow he desired to escape from his immediate affairs of life which
is expressed in his intense dislike to his office job, in other words he might have desired
to be inhuman or the animal in order to escape from the reality). If this making and
breaking of their individual characters is interpreted in the existentialist philosophical
terms, it becomes clear that it is the ultimate result of their personal choices, their
individual decisions or the freedom which they profess and sacredly adhere to, as
according to McCarthy (2004) Existentialism as a philosophical theory maintains that
man is confronted with a hostile world where he gives meanings to his life through his
actions.
However, if, according to the existentialist philosophy, an individual is himself
responsible for his life then why do the characters of Samsa and Meursault have been set
in the postcolonial scenario by Kafka and Camus? Do the constraints of postcolonialism
have something to do with the fate of individual’s life? Does an individual live in a void
wherein his deliberate actions, picked out of his personal choices, are the sole causes of
his downfall or the otherwise? If the mood of pessimism and nihilism, the influence of
Nietzsche, Ponge and Blanchot, the political unrest caused by Hitler and the economic
Depression, define the historical context of Existentialism, then paradoxically
Existentialism as a literary and philosophical theory is celebrating its own demise; for an
individual freedom is curtailed by social forces around him.
Literature review
McCarthy (2007) observes that The Stranger is an existentialist novel as
Meursault refuses to meet the chaplain several times. According to him, Meursault
prefers to cherish the memories of his sensual past rather to dwell on the idea of God.
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38
Meursault, as depicted by McCarthy is not ready to categorize his life into one thing or
the other, doing one thing and regretting the other, being not done; living a life in one
way and resenting for the unlived; Meursault as an existentialist rather perceives life as
an existentialist whole, devoid of past regrets or future concerns. It is in this context that
McCarthy (2007) observed that the mood of pessimism or nihilism in The Stranger is to
be located at the tensed period of 1930s when Gide’s and Claudel’s views about life were
rejected by Camus and Sartre when the Depression created economic difficulties and the
Fascism brought hatred in the world. Therefore the concept of Existentialism and the
absurd emerged in the works of Camus who as a child of his age presented the problems
of a common man in the economically and politically depressed period of European
history.
This overview of existentialism found in the present novels under study, i.e. The
Metamorphosis and The Stranger, provides the background for postcolonial scenario and
the market economy which has been the driving force for colonizing agenda of European
politics. It is in this perspective that Snodgrass (2010) observed that Kafka was prophetic
enough to predict the forthcoming collapse of Russian empire building and reintegration
of Europe into modern age and therefore interpreted the universe in the existentialist
terms and defined the human’s existence in the light of European politics. Added to this
environment is the bureaucratic tampering presence and the denial of citizenship under
Franz Joseph which culminated in Hitler’s persecution of Jews in the forthcoming
Holocaust. It is in this perspective that Kafka makes his character Gregor transform as a
symbol of the loss of humanity. In fact, as Wellbery, Rayan, & Gimbretch (2004) have
observed that The Metamorphosis is to be studied in the context of the historically tense
Gandhara Journal of Research in Social Science (ISSN: 2415-2404, Volume: 1, No. 1 Spring 2016) _____________________________________________________________________________________
39
period when the Austro-Hungarian empire was about to crumble in the ever present
conflict among European nations. Therefore, as Patke Rajeeve (2013) has connected the
allegorical literature of Modern era with its postcolonial problems, Kafka’s The
Metamorphosis becomes the offspring of modern existentialist problems. Kafka’s
existentialist literature is to be studied in the light of history of the empire and the colony,
Patke (2013).
Analysis and Discussion
To begin with, whether a German or a Czech, determining Kafka’s belongings is
difficult for, he had been a member of Austro-Hungarian Empire and this feature has had
a far reaching influence on his individualism than any sense of belonging to a certain
nationalism could have aroused. Kafka’s writings, according to Patke (2013), had been
under the influence of that empire. In The Metamorphosis the protagonist transforms
without any explicit reasons but at the outset the readers are introduced to the Gregor’s
emotions of dislike towards his job when he says, ‘Oh God, what a grueling job I’ve
picked! Day in, day out - on the road. The upset of doing business is worse than the
actual business in the home office…’ (p. 4). The text indicates that the protagonist is in
the constraining forces of time and space, each day struggling to get up for the boring job
wherein he is no more than a clerk, eating at odd places and at odd timings,
accommodating himself to a domineering boss. His missing the day’s train, the business
and the work, all in the fleeting time shows that Gregor’s existence is in the constraints of
time.
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40
Viewing this precarious position of Gregor in the larger context of capitalist
market economy of the Prague, the then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire, would be
helpful, as the postcolonial, capitalist market economy is largely responsible for Gregor’s
metamorphosis. Schleslinger (2013) describes the social and political situation of Austria
as the time of crisis wherein Brno Congress of Austrian Empire demanded national
programme in 1898 for safeguarding the cultural issues as well as protecting minority
rights. Austrian labour movement, in the backdrop of Russian Revolution of 1905, also
triggered the changes in the policies of Francis Joseph which later on culminated in the
Austrian Marxism. The point relevant to this study is that the Czechs were already in the
grip of capitalist economy in Austria and the strict economic policies chalked out under
Francis’s rule. So the character of Gregor in The Metamorphosis symbolizes the
precarious economic and political conditions of Pre-World War I era, the time of the
publication of this novel by Kafka.
This situation, i.e. the economic exploitation is strikingly similar to another
existentialist text, The Stranger by Camus. Set in French Algiers, post-colonial effects are
visible from the very start of the novel, the constraints of time and space in the post-
colonial market economy where the protagonist is dwindling between the ‘yesterday’,
‘today’ and the ‘tomorrow’ time or thinking of the time as to when his mother died, when
would he run for the carriage and above all, for how much time would he take his time
off for his mother’s funeral ceremony (p. 4). This constraint has also been set in the
postcolonial market economy where Meursault’s boss is unhurt to the death news of
Meursault’s mother’s death and instead reluctantly allows him a negligible time to attend
to his mother’s funeral ceremony. These are the circumstances where Mausault as an
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41
employee of the capitalist economy has to excuse himself for his absence; however, it is
the moral responsibility of his boss to pay him sympathy and condolence at the mother’s
loss. These directives show that the boss is only concerned for the business which would
be missed during Meursault’s absence. McCarthy (2007) observed that the capitalist
designs of Meursault’s boss, i.e. the work, the business and the progress in commercial
profits are evident of his lack of sympathy for the dead mother. His matter-of-fact style,
his counting on business and calculating Meursault’s mother’s age altogether, reveal him
to be a stern capitalist working to safeguard the capitalist economy, implying that an old
death should not be considered as a big loss. Added to this is Meursault’s lack of
ambition or his disinterestedness towards his promotion to Paris is to be analyzed in
terms of his working class background as against his boss’s attitude toward work ethics,
which is ambitious. This contrast shows the tension between the capitalist forces and the
proletarian wage earning attitude.
However, if the existentialism as discussed earlier, is the transference of meaning
into one’s life through personal choices, self-will and individual decisions, then, how far
the economic forces in the form of impersonal forces are responsible for the change of
one’s character or destiny. Economic conflicts are easily traceable from Camus’s early
writings and this economic tension is also discernible from the text of The Stranger,
which, as a piece of existentialist writing might also be read as French Algerian, social
and economic conflict. The economic conflict between the Arabs and the pied noir were
intensified by 1930 owing to agriculture slump. The Arab nurse in The Stranger,
employed to attend to needs of the dead woman before the funeral ceremony, is sick
herself, showing the general plight of Arabs who are unemployed, impoverished and sick
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42
in the colonial world of French Algeria, observed McCarthy (2007). The hints of the
narrator at the old house ‘the Home of Aged Persons’ where Meursault has admitted his
mother, as there is nobody at home to look after her, is another pointer which pins at the
constraints of economy or the social structure for which the economy is responsible. The
rise of Existentialism and the absurd in French writing, associated with Sartre and Camus
came forth in the same decade, i.e. 1930s, when the economic tensions were on the rise in
the French Algeria. Algeria being the colony of France was merely being used as gold
mine. France was keen on taking the expensive resources from Algeria and little
investing in Algerian population, hence embittering the people, the pied noir, the
indigenous, and the Arabs alike, creating a wide economic gap among the businessmen,
farmers and the masses, observes McCarthy (2004). Camus’s association with the FLN,
the Combat, Alger Republicain and his stance for the Arabs manifests that he raised his
voice for equality between the settlers and the local population, if not for the
independence for Algeria, Evans & Philips (2007). This concern is predominant in
Camus’s writing in The Stranger, while he takes up the cause for the Arabs as they were
being marginalized at the hands of the French authorities. He championed the equal rights
for the local population while also wrote in the Alger Republicain, the agricultural crisis
in Kabylia, McCarthy (2007). Camus, according to McCarthy (2007) was entering a
dangerous political arena while speaking against the French government’s inability to
bring essential services in the country, bringing economic crisis in Kabylia and implying
local self-government for the Arab population and this was the limit for Camus for he
could never articulate such a demand on behalf of the local population as it would be an
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43
interference in the exploits of French colonialism. Hence the murder of the Arab takes
place in The Stranger, McCarthy (2007).
Historically, by 1881, until 1940, at the fall of the Third Republic, Algeria
remained the integral part of French government under the 1875 Constitution, although it
was good news for the settler population, the Muslims remained marginalized as they had
no right to vote which indicated that French politics in Algeria was race specific.
Muslims were living on the fault line of social and political inequality which was
segregating Europeans, Jews and the Muslims from each other, observed Evans (2012).
While depicting the context of the novel, i.e. the murder of the Arab at the hands of a
pied-noir hero, Meursault, MaCarthy (2007) observed that the criticism of the novel
mainly rests on an individual’s struggle against the hostile world while ignoring the
working class issues, the economic conditions of the times and the effects of post
colonialism on Algerian population. It is in this context that Boahen (1990) recorded the
history of African economy under colonial rule, including French West Africa, which
was made to be dependent on the capitalist world of the colonizers, i.e. the relation of
producers and the consumers, African and The colonizers respectively. It was an
extension of the colonial power through economy. The War and the Depression struck
hardly on the African economies as the labourer became powerless under the new
constraints as the wages were being slashed down by the capitalists in order to meet
challenges in the Depression. So it was mainly the conflict of economic structures,
French being the capitalist while the Algerian, the agrarian society; indigenous labourers
were employed on low wages in order to promote the colonizer’s capitalist agenda.
Confiscation of local property at the hands of French colonizers, withholding the local
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44
business of Algerian Muslims increased the tension between the colonized and the
colonizer, Bennoune (1988).
In fact, the reasons for Meursault’s reaction to his boss indifference to his
mother’s death and the labour which would be missed during his absence should be
located in the market economy prevalent in Algeria. The fact of the matter is that The
Stranger presents the conflicting forces of capitalism and socialism wherein Camus
pleads for liberal values, social justice and economic reforms in the French Algeria.
Camus, according to Orme (2007) had been influenced with the political ideas of Jean
Grenier, who believed in socialist values of, building a nation on socialism, resting in
peoples’ power rather on the State. This political and economic ideal was taken up by
Camus who propagated the democratic values based on social and economic justice. The
political system which excludes the working- class would be a failure for the future
French government.
It is in this context that Sartre, the chief proponent of existentialism expanded the
definition of existentialism in Critique of Dialectical Reason, wherein the influence of
the society was made equally responsible in the development of an individual’s
personality, affecting his choices and individual decisions. While using the term
‘practico-inert’, the laws or the customs, made by free actions in human affairs, he
emphasizes the involvement of the world in to human affairs thereby influencing human
choices and struggles and the placement into the history. In fact the Critique of
Dialectical Reasoning is an effort to grasp the world in the perspective of overall human
struggles in a historical time which is the result of human action, ultimately ‘historical
making of humanity’ observes Catalano (2010). Ironically, it was Sartre, the champion of
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45
individual freedom and responsibility, who, after ‘conversion’ to Marxism, wedded the
Existentialism with Marxism, as according to him human freedom is curtailed by the
society; a man cannot live as an individual or individual freedom is impossible in a world
which runs through the interaction and involvement between humans. It is through the
wedding of Existentialism and Marxism, that the mankind and the world can be
understood in totality. Thomas (1986) observed that Sartre championed the socialism;
stood against negritude and colonization. He was against the French colonization in
general and colonization in Algeria in particular as according to him this had caused a
negative impact on French politics, as the values of justice, democracy and freedom have
been marred during the colonizing program of French Empire. Sartre argued that through
colonialism France had rendered violence on the Algerian population in the pretext of
civilizing the uncivilized.
It was this historical context, the French Algerian conflict that compelled him to
fit his theory of existentialism in Marxism, for he had a belief that the Algerian peasants
would stand up against the French colonialism. His idea of the existence preceding the
essence can only be situated in the individual freedom within the constraints of history or
situations in life. In other words freedom is curtailed by the worldly constraints, Davis
(2011). It was this historical background that formed Camus’ communist leanings and the
reasons for his joining the Communist party in 1935 where his job was to organize
debates and discussions on the left wing politics, McCarthy (2004). French colonialism
had also been criticized in Camus’ editorials in The Combat. He even did not hesitate in
criticizing the French government for injustices which it was creating in its colonies
when the French government was going through its own rebuilding process after the
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46
Liberation. According to Camus, it was hypocrisy on the part of French government to
fight for its own freedom and suppressing the very right for its colonies. Authentic
democracy was impossible in France without acknowledging the same for the colonies,
Valensi-Levi (2006).
Conclusion
In the light of the above discussion on the existentialist novels The
Metamorphosis and The Stranger it becomes clear that 20th century Existentialism
emerged out of European nations’ colonizing agenda. The capitalism as a form market
economy in the postcolonial Austrio-Hungarian Empire, and the French Algeria, to which
Kafka and Camus belonged respectively had far reaching effects on the social systems of
both these countries. The existentialist struggle of the individuals, Samsa and Meursault
in the novels is to be studied in the light of these effects, i.e. the postcoloniality, the
market economy, the exploitation of an individual in constraining forces and above all the
implied struggle between the Capitalism and the Socialism, the protest against which
Samsa and Meursault stand for.
End Notes_________
Boahen, Adu.A. (ed). (1990). Africa under colonial domination, 1880-1935 Vol.7.
London: James Currey Ltd.
Bennoune, Mahfoud. (1988). The making of contemporary Algeria, 1930-1987.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Catalano, S. Joseph. (2010). Reading Sartre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Daviis, Haleh Muriam. (2011). Algeria as postcolony? Rethinking the colonial legacy of
post-structuralism. Journal of French and Francophone philosophy, 9(2). pp-136-
152.Doi.10.5195/jffp.2011.510.
Gandhara Journal of Research in Social Science (ISSN: 2415-2404, Volume: 1, No. 1 Spring 2016) _____________________________________________________________________________________
47
Evans &Philips. (2007). Algeria; The anger of the dispossessed . London: Yale University
Press.
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