From isolation to whole sight: A study of humanist existentialism in John Fowles, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre

It is the purpose of this dissertation to describe the treatment of man's existential quest in Fowles's, Camus's and Sartre's fiction. Various pressures of the 20th century have created our "age of anxiety" which has found its expression in the philosophy of existentialism. This philosophical trend has been reflected in literature, particularly in the works of Sartre, Camus and Fowles.; Man's pursuit of self-fulfillment and authenticity is described in four specific stages: man's awareness of his isolation, man's experience of the sudden occurrence of a boundary situation (absurdity) which leads him to a search for his own value (in freedom), and finally man's expression of his responsibility and a commitment to freely chosen values. The presence of these elements is demonstrated in the writings of the three authors, with major emphasis on John Fowles's fiction.; While acknowledging the direct influence of the French existentialists--there are many examples of ideas, problems and situation which the English writer shares with his French counterparts, Fowles's views on isolation, absurdity, freedom, responsibility and commitment evolve from a highly personal existential vision which governs the structure as well as the content, of his fiction. His preoccupation with Heraclitian notions of conflict, and his dramatic shift in focus on how the quest for authenticity can be fully affected in spite of the inherent absurdity of the human condition, distinguishes his thought from that of his French existential predecessors.