Nothingness And Meaning Construction: An Analysis Of The Lowland From The Perspective Of Sartre’s Existentialism

With a keen ability to capture the existential dilemmas faced by people,Jhumpa Lahiri(1967-)is one of America’s outstanding female minority writers.Lahiri’s earlier works focused on the plight of immigrants.The Lowland is the first book in which she shifted her focus to the universal human condition.Through The Lowland,Lahiri shows readers the difficulties people face in realizing their self-value and self-meaning,as well as the author’s thoughts on the plight of human existence.The thinking mode of The Lowland has obvious resonance with Sartre’s existentialist philosophy.At present,there are few scholars applying Sartre’s existentialism to analyze this novel.Through close reading of the text,this thesis interprets The Lowland with the help of Sartre’s existentialist philosophical thoughts,and interprets Lahiri’s reflections on human existence in The Lowland from the perspectives of the generation of nothingness and the construction of meaning.This thesis is divided into five chapters.The first chapter focuses on Lahiri and The Lowland,as well as Sartre’s existentialism,and makes a literature review of the research on The Lowland at home and abroad.The second chapter discusses the similarities between Lahiri and Sartre’s understanding of human existence dilemma.The same as Sartre,Lahiri believes that nothingness exposes people in real life to different challenges and failures.Chapter three discusses the theoretical dialogue between Lahiri and Sartre.Sartre believes that other people are the hell of the self,and the relationship between the self and others is irreconcilable.Lahiri fight back,writing in The Lowland about the ways in which the self and the other can achieve symbiosis.The self can be constructed by building relationships with others.Chapter four discusses Lahiri’s scheme for existence to transcend nothingness.By constructing their own existence meaning freely,people can realize themselves and transcend nothingness.Chapter five is the conclusion.Sartre’s existentialism believes that the world is absurd and the relationship between people is alienated.Nothingness brings meaninglessness to life.Lahiri in The Lowland offers an alternative approach to the interpretation of nothingness and the relationship between people.She tries to find a way out for the existence of people in nothingness and alienation,and encourages people in the world to face and transcend the nothingness of life bravely and create more meaning for their lives.