Existentialism in Mother Night

Mother night (۱۹۶۹) is a post Second World War novel dealing with the challenges and ramifications arising in its aftermath. The story is a memoir of a double agent spy, Howard Campbell, who served both the Allies and the Nazis. After thirteen years of living anonymously in New York, he finally decides to turn himself in in Israel to await the trial. Through this paper, I contend that the main character’s beliefs and worldview overlap with an existentialist conception of life and death. This study is going to draw on Heidegger as the contemporary progenitor of existentialism in order to present an existentialistic analysis relying on notions including authentic and inauthentic existence. The article concludes that no matter how hard a person like Howard Campbell tries to live his life authentically, he will sometimes be forced to live his life within the expectation of others which is equivalent to an inauthentic existence

کلیدواژه ها:

existentialism ، Heidegger ، authentic and inauthentic existence ، war