The Ethos of American Existentialism in John Barth’s The End of the Road
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64137/31078729/IJLLH-V1I2P102Keywords:
Absurdism, American Existentialism, Freedom and Responsibility, Identity and Selfhood, Moral RelativismAbstract
French existentialism, which has spread its wings in America, has affected the culture and the attitude of the American people. This American Existentialism is explicit in the work of John Barth. In his work titled The End of the Road, the protagonist, Jacob Horner, and his colleague, Joe Morgan, lead an existential way of life. Jacob Horner, who is “weatherless”, an extreme introvert, uselessly self-conscious and indecisive in nature, gets entangled in a triangle love affair with Rennie Morgan, which finally results in Rennie's death and Horner's permanent admission to Doctor D’s Remobilization Farm, thus questioning the purpose of his existence. This paper envisages a critical study of the dissemination of the ethos of American Existentialism in John Barth’s The End of the Road.
References
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