Existentialism in Upamanyu Chatterjee’s Novel ‘English August’

Abstract

Existentialism is a philosophical movement which emphasizes on individual existence, freedom and choice. For existentialists, there is no single theory that can contain the whole of the experience of human life. Existentialism is a philosophical movement which claims that individual human beings create the meanings and essence of their own lives.

Jean Paul Sartre who has taken existentialist’s revolt to the foundation of existentialism that we mean that man is nothing else but which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism. By essence Sartre means what has been Sartre calls its man’s past. Man first of all encounters himself. Meaning behind existence is to establish value. Each man makes his essence as he lives.