Kierkegaard's Influence On The Existentialist
Melinda MacInnis
Professor Santos
Expository Writing
3 May 2010
Kierkegaard’s Influence on the Existentialists Known as the “father of existentialism,” Kierkegaard’s works emphasize mankind’s despair. In his book The Sickness Unto Death, published in 1849, Kierkegaard attempts to show how one is lost without God, and how one’s separation from God leads to sin or despair. Though Kierkegaard did incorporate the notions of God and sin into his works, his philosophy is still existential and influenced later existentialists, such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, who were atheists. Existentialism emphasizes mankind’s state of being, and their need to explain the world around them, while at the same time not understanding it. This idea led to absurdism which stresses the absurdity that exists between man and the world. The …show more content…
Jean-Paul Sartre presents a world like this in his play No Exit, which premiered in 1944. The three characters go through a cycle of mentally torturing each other, miserable in each other’s company. Garcin is desperate to leave, though he believes he is trapped in the room with Estelle and Inez forever. When he becomes completely overwhelmed, he tries to open the door and finds that after much pushing it opens: “Inez: ‘Well, Garcin? You’re free to go.’ Garcin [meditatively]: ‘Now I wonder why that door opened.’ Inez: ‘What are you waiting for? Hurry up and go.’ Garcin: ‘I shall not go.’ Inez: ‘And you, Estelle?’ [Estelle does not move]” (Sartre 42). One would expect that Garcin would leave, and would be overjoyed at finding out that there really is an escape, where before he believed there to be none—and yet Garcin stays. Garcin and Estelle recall Kierkegaard’s idea of becoming lost in the melancholy, of forgetting the “possible” and only looking at life’s “necessity,” therefore becoming engrossed in
Professor Santos
Expository Writing
3 May 2010
Kierkegaard’s Influence on the Existentialists Known as the “father of existentialism,” Kierkegaard’s works emphasize mankind’s despair. In his book The Sickness Unto Death, published in 1849, Kierkegaard attempts to show how one is lost without God, and how one’s separation from God leads to sin or despair. Though Kierkegaard did incorporate the notions of God and sin into his works, his philosophy is still existential and influenced later existentialists, such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, who were atheists. Existentialism emphasizes mankind’s state of being, and their need to explain the world around them, while at the same time not understanding it. This idea led to absurdism which stresses the absurdity that exists between man and the world. The …show more content…
Jean-Paul Sartre presents a world like this in his play No Exit, which premiered in 1944. The three characters go through a cycle of mentally torturing each other, miserable in each other’s company. Garcin is desperate to leave, though he believes he is trapped in the room with Estelle and Inez forever. When he becomes completely overwhelmed, he tries to open the door and finds that after much pushing it opens: “Inez: ‘Well, Garcin? You’re free to go.’ Garcin [meditatively]: ‘Now I wonder why that door opened.’ Inez: ‘What are you waiting for? Hurry up and go.’ Garcin: ‘I shall not go.’ Inez: ‘And you, Estelle?’ [Estelle does not move]” (Sartre 42). One would expect that Garcin would leave, and would be overjoyed at finding out that there really is an escape, where before he believed there to be none—and yet Garcin stays. Garcin and Estelle recall Kierkegaard’s idea of becoming lost in the melancholy, of forgetting the “possible” and only looking at life’s “necessity,” therefore becoming engrossed in