ادبیات تطبیقی (Feb 2023)
Review of Sartre's Thoughts in the Works of Jalal Al-Ahmad Focusing on the Story of “the life who escaped”
Abstract
. IntroductionExistentialism is one of the philosophical schools that, due to its emphasis and special view on "human", find its way into literature, especially into novels and plays. This school was first founded in Germany by Kierkegaard in the 19th century (Rasekhi langaroudi, 2018:18), and then Jean-Paul Sartre spread it in France.In this school, the human is a lonely and abandoned being who has to do something for himself because there is no helper or necessary existence. Existentialism became popular in Iran in the forties and fifties and many were influenced by it and created many works inspired by it. Jalal Al-Ahmed was one of the intellectuals and writers of that period, who was influenced by Sartre's thoughts at some point in his activities. As a committed writer, he described the suffering of a simple porter worker in the short story "The life who escaped" in order to find a way out of the chaos and social injustice. This article tries to examine the concept of suffering in this story and in this way evaluate the influence of Sartre's thoughts on Al Ahmed. In this research, the mentioned subject has been analyzed in a descriptive-analytic way and with a comparative approach, using some elements and components of the school of existentialism. The results of this research indicate that the suffering that Al-Ahmed portrays in his story is not due to frustration and passivity, but rather by portraying this suffering, he seeks to find a way to improve and enhance the troubled situation of the workers and such viewpoint stems from the theory of "committed literature" that Sartre talks about. MethodologyIn this research, the mentioned subject has been analyzed in a descriptive-analytical way and with a comparative approach, using some elements and components of the school of existentialism. DiscussionUndoubtedly, the environmental factors and the socioeconomic conditions of the post-World War II played a decisive role in the spread of Sartre's existentialism philosophy (Dastgheib, 1975: 75). This philosophy was trying to free human thought from the prison of restrictive rules, deception and trickery. After the two world wars, people realized the futility of existence and the baselessness and bewilderment of existence and such mental turmoil made them understand anxiety, apprehension, loneliness and destitution more than before. Due to the prevailing political and social atmosphere of Iran in the 40s and 50s, Sartre's ideas soon found their way into intellectual circles as an effective discourse. Many intellectuals, writers and translators who objected to oppression and injustice became fascinated by concepts such as " human absolute freedom", "responsible intellectual" and "writer's commitment". The philosophy of existentialism seeks awareness and responsibility to fill the void of meaning in life. Such a view of human beings in a world that is engulfed by disorder and injustice affected Al Ahmad like many others.Sartre held responsibility for the writer and believed that the writer should be committed to his society and people. According to Sartre, the writer was obliged to help build a better world by writing about the injustices and deficiencies of society. Under the influence of such social function of literature and the author's commitment, Al-Ahmad, as a concerned intellectual, paid attention to the underprivileged and deprived society class in his stories (Rahimi, 2015:80). As two committed writers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Jalal Al-Ahmed, both deeply believed in the commitment and responsibility towards society. They saw writing as a means to raise public awareness and depict the pains and adversities in society and life.The short story "the life who escaped" is from the short stories collection of "Setar". Setar is the third short story collection of Al Ahmad after "Visiting" and "Of our sufferings". "The life who escaped" is an existentialist story and the roots of Sartre's philosophical ideas and Al-Ahmed's devotion to ideas such as Loneliness, doubt and inner conflict is obvious in the main essence of this story.In the story "The life who escaped", the worker is in a situation from which he has no escape. Either he must deliver the cargo to the destination where he will get money so that he does not die of hunger, or he must abandon the cargo, while it is not known whether he can find another job or not. In this story, we see how the deterministic situation casts a shadow on the worker and leads him to the abyss of desperation, helplessness and destitution. The worker finds himself in an absurd world and the more he struggles, the more he sinks into this swamp of absurdity and failure.Sartre believes that a person is constantly involved in different situations throughout his life and only he should decide what to do. He is free to choose and stand by his choice; in "The life who escaped", Al-Ahmed portrays this Sartre notion in a fictional form. After two days of unemployment, a worker decides to work as a porter. He is forcibly pushed into such situation, but soon realizes that he does not have the necessary strength to carry the cargo. According to Sartre, every human in any situation, can act based on his decision. So, the worker must choose between his two options; he has to take the cargo to its destination without any difficulty and accept whatever happens along the way or return it to its original place.According to Sartre, the human being is always in the circle of possibilities. But to a certain extent, he can hope for possibilities that are exactly within his scope of action. It is "action" that makes it possible for humans to live. But "action" itself requires motivation, and this motivation comes from a level of understanding and awareness (Warnock, 2007:47). The poor worker in the story of Al Ahmed is also fully aware of the concept of hunger and knows the meaning of empty pockets and poverty. Such awareness motivates him, despite his physical weakness, to get his cargo to destination in order to earn some money.According to Sartre’s philosophy, man is constantly choosing. In fact, planning and choosing different paths imply her freedom and freedom of action. Man is constantly forced to choose. So, man is always free and at the same time, he has to choose. Man has no way to escape from these decision makings. So, as Existentialists say: "human is condemned to freedom". Al-Ahmad also shows in a fictional and symbolic way how important the consequences of human choices are and well depicts that humans can be selective in any position and situation; even in the position of a daily worker who must carry a cargo to earn some money and get rid of his hunger. The worker can choose to get the cargo to its destination or take it back to its first place and free himself from the responsibility which is beyond his power and abilities. We are only watching the struggle of the worker who wants to push back his submission to despair as far as he can. ConclusionAs a committed thinker and writer, Jalal Al-Ahmad always sought to create an escape route from the political and cultural dead ends and find a way to get out of the chaotic social situation. Influenced by Sartre and others such as Camus and Celine, he started writing realistic stories. Stories that narrate the pains and sufferings of downtrodden and oppressed people. Hoping to draw public attention to social problems and take a step, even a small one, toward their correction.He narrates the helplessness of an abandoned human well in the story "The life who escaped". The man in Al-Ahmed's story, in a symbolic way, must take responsibility for the heavy burden that is on his shoulders. There is no one to help him. The worker in Al Ahmed's story, with all his desperation, is free, as free as Sartre has repeatedly pointed out. from the existentialist viewpoint, all humans are free, even a prisoner, a cripple or a man under the gallows.In his suffering image, Al-Ahmad is looking for existential possibilities that implicitly open a way to hope, life and justice..
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