Choices In The Absurd World

Christina Stead is one of the most prominent Australian novelist in the twentieth century.Her representative work The Man Who Loved Children,based on her childhood experience in Sydney,Australia,has portrayed a family tragedy.In recent years,The man who loved children has gained widespread attention and interest from the audiences and critics both abroad and at home.They tend to read it from the perspective of feminist,psychoanalysis,stylistics and politics,but few makes an existentialism reading.This thesis is a study of the two female characters' fate in The Man Who Loved Children from the angle of Sartrean existentialism,which provides a different interpretation for further research.This thesis analyzes Henny and Louie,the two female characters' absurd existential background.They suffer the existential predicament which is mainly from the unfortunate family life and marriage life,as well as the hell-like relationship with the other.Facing the absurd world,they have a sense of loneliness and helplessness.This thesis also analyzes their different choices to get rid of the existential predicament.Henny chooses self-destruction,committing suicide to evade the stifling family to determine her essence as a result.Louie chooses self-construction,taking the active action to pursue her freedom.According to Sartre's being-in-itself and being-for-itself,Henny exists as inauthentic in-itself,following other people's will without consciousness of her true self;while Louie exists as authentic for-itself,daring to challenge her father's authority to create a new self.Their different existence leads to their different choices,and then results in their different fate.By analyzing the cause of their different fate,this thesis tries to explore how people make choices in the absurd world.By studying the female characters' different fate from Sartrean existentialism perspective,this thesis tries to highlight that although life is limited,cruel and absurd,people should choose to live in the authentic being-for-itself,holding optimistic attitudes to face the existential predicament,and freely choosing the future life following their own will.At the same time,they should take corresponding responsibility for their choices.The existentialist humanism concern is also what this thesis expresses.In addition,this thesis hopes to draw more readers' attention to study Australian women's literature works.