Existentialist Literature Background Questions

Existentialist Literature Name:__________________
Global Literature: Europe Unit

1. What were some of the breakthroughs in technology and science that were occurring in the first half of the 20th century that affected existentialists?





2. How did Freud’s analysis of human behavior shock the world?





3. Why would someone possibly describe the World War I as irrational?




4. Who were the Nazis and what did they do that made people question the capabilities of humans?





5. What were some of the aspects (at least three) of World War I and II that made people question their existence and purpose on earth?




6. What was modernism? How did it tie in with this era’s idea of irrationalism?






What were some of the artistic ideas that sprang up out of modernism (give examples)?









7. Who were the surrealists? What was their goal?



How did they accomplish this in art?



How did they accomplish this in literature?




8. How did artists, during this time, challenge the idea of reality?




9. Why did authors of this time period focus so much on the absurd?





10. What is, in your own words, existentialism (if your stuck, ponder the bonus questions for a while)?





11. Why would many people think of existentialism as depressing? Why, can it be argued, that it is not?





Explain the phrase, “existentialism is living”.






12. Who was Sartre? What questions did he concern himself with?





13. Who was Camus? What questions did he concern himself with?





Bonus Questions
Try your own handat answering these existential questions from the great thinkers:

1. If something worth living for is worth dying for, what about something not worth dying for (Camus)?






2. Did man create God to have a reason to live (Dostoevsky)?







3. Does society make men and women different or do we choose our roles (Beauvoir)?






4. Would living forever add meaning to life (Heidegger)?







5. How do you really act in private (Sartre)?






6. Without love, without people, what is a person (Kafka)?