Modern Existential Dilemma

As an outstanding postmodernist writer in contemporary American literature,Don DeLillo has created so many works that are extremely meaningful and thought-provoking.His works reveal his thinking about religion,terrorism,environment pollution,and people's mental state.Cosmopolis is Don DeLillo's thirteenth novel.Don DeLillo shows many kinds of American crises and concerns about American future fate by telling readers a marvelous story that took place in one day.This thesis aims to analyze existence dilemma embodied in Cosmopolis through Sartre's existential perspective.Sartre's existential philosophy divides existence into two categories.One is the existence of the world without individuals,which is called “Being-in-itself”.It is accidental and absurd.It is different from God and spirit,unexplainable,unknowable and unchangeable,so it is a kind of superfluous,disgusting existence.The other kind of existence is “Being-for-itself”.It is the existence of individuals and human beings' subjective consciousness,the real existence.Because of the human subjective consciousness,a subject-object relationship can be established between man and man,and man and object.This makes man become an absolute free,active and creative subject.Don DeLillo's novel Cosmopolis tells the story of the hero Eric in one day,and shows the existence state of modern American society,the existence state of individuals,and the relationship between people.After introducing Don DeLillo and his works,as well as Sartre's existentialism in the Introduction and Chapter One,this thesis analyzes Cosmopolis from three aspects—the state of social existence,the state of relationship between people,and the state of individual existence from Chapter Two to Chapter Four and draws the conclusion that the world is absurd and that the interpersonal relationship is distorted and that individuals are suffering in the Conclusion.