An Existential Study Of The Protagonist’s Existence Predicament In Everyman

Philip Roth (1933-) is an outstanding contemporary American Jewish writer, his novelsusually portray contemporary Jewish-American life. Everyman mainly explores the theme of theindividual’s existence and death, and this theme is similar to that of existentialism. Everymandevelops around the protagonist Everyman’s living condition, the predicament of his existenceand tells his life experience with aging, illness and death.This thesis discusses the protagonist Everyman’s existence predicament by employingSartre’s existentialism and Heidegger’s view of death. By analyzing the context of Everyman,this thesis aims at studying Everyman’s physical predicament, spiritual predicament and the freechoices which he makes so as to overcome the predicaments. Sartre’s existentialism exploresmankind’s living condition and the predicament of existence, the gist of which is fear, anxiety,loneliness, alienation, nothingness and free choice among others. What’s more, Heidegger’sview of death is being-towards-death in which he advocates man to face death bravely. Roth’sideas that are represented in this novel coincide with Sartre’s and Heidegger’s existentialism. Inthis novel, on the one hand, the protagonist Everyman suffers from the deterioration of bodyfunction as well as the fear of physical death. On the other hand, the disintegration ofEveryman’s marriage and family along with his separation from Jewish tradition and religionlead to his spiritual loneliness, alienation, anxiety and nothingness. In order to get rid of thesephysical and spiritual predicaments, Everyman makes free choices in which he turns to sex toevade aging and death, and utilizes art to get over his spiritual loneliness and nothingness.However, what Everyman did cannot overcome the predicaments, for frustra tion and nothingnessstill haut him. Finally, Everyman has gained new insights into death after the baptism at hisparents’ cemetery, thus he is able to peacefully and bravely face the impending of physical death.The conclusion of the thesis is reached based upon the analysis of Everyman’s livingcondition and the predicament of existence. The protagonist’s predicament of existence that arerepresented in Everyman still exists in Jews and the contemporary people. Therefore, Philip Rothfocuses not only on the living condition and the predicament of existence of Jews but also on theliving condition and the predicament of existence of contemporary people even mankind. Thisnovel embodies a universal significance and shows Roth’s ultimate concern for mankind.