An Interpretation Of Dear Life From The Perspective Of Sartre's Existentialism

As the winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013, Alice Munro is one of the most excellent female writers in Canada. Dear Life is her latest work that not only achieves popular success but also receives critical praises.In this book, Alice Munro depicts the living predicaments the common people suffer in various towns of Canada in their life, their different choices and the consequences of the choices. All these are consistent with Jean-Paul Sartre's concepts about existential states, free choice and authenticity in his existentialism. Thus, it is feasible to interpret Dear Life in the perspective of Sartre's existentialism.At first, this thesis discusses the existential predicaments the protagonists suffer in Dear Life. They are respectively absurdity, alienation and anxiety. The absurdity is embodied through the chanciness of existence and the imbalance between individual need and the indifferent world. The alienation mainly happens between mother and daughter or husband and wife. The anxiety can be divided into anxiety for the past and anxiety for the future. Then this thesis analyses the choices the protagonists make when confronting these predicaments. Some of them choose to passively escape from the predicaments, while others choose to actively face the predicaments. At last, the thesis classifies the consequences of their free choices into bad faith and transcendence according to Sartre's existentialism.Based on the interpretation of Dear Life in the perspective of Sartre's existentialism, the thesis concludes that the existential meaning of human beings depends on their free choices. Whether the protagonists choose to fall into bad faith by escaping from the predicaments passively or choose to transcend themselves by facing these predicaments actively, they comfort themselves to some extent. However, the thesis holds the idea that the only way to live in authenticity and transcendence is to pursue freedom and take responsibilities.