The Existential Theme of Death in the Short Stories of Yashwanta Chittala

Abstract

Existentialism is a major philosophy that took birth in the western world during the time of two world wars that took place in Europe. Pessimism and related aspects like death, dismay and suffering are the main traits of this philosophy. Though this philosophy influenced the western writers to begin with, it did not take much time for the writers around the world to come under its sway. In India too, the post independent era which is popularly known as ‘Modern Period’ in literature is mainly influenced by the existential philosophy.  Yashwantha chittala is one of the major Kannada existentialist writers in whose works all the traits of existentialism can be seen. The current paper tries to explore the way in which the existentialist tenet of death has been presented in his short stories.