Sartre’s Existentialism through the Lens of Chekov’s The Seagull

Abstract

The life of human beings become ironic when their hopes and dreams are in strong conflict with their fate. Existentialism does not harshly follow the rules of a certain tradition; it is specifically the anti-tradition of all philosophers. One of the key existentialist figures is Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) who has prolifically written about the position of man in his society and environment. He examined the difference between the questions of being what it means to be human, the question of living, and how humans should interact with their society. Remarkably, these aspects of existentialism that Sartre acknowledges are elucidated in great pieces of literature (novels, dramas, short stories and poems) everywhere in the realm of creation. How a person can remain human in a universe filled with complications, the choices that a person makes under the search for the meaning of Existence are the underpinnings of these literary works. The objective of this paper is to analyse the struggle of the characters that search for the meaning of their life in the drama, The Seagull by Anton Chekov, through the perspective of Sartre’s Existentialism. Through the performances of the characters, this drama indirectly portrays the existentialist pattern of thinking which provides the complications of life as a work of art. This paper focuses on the credibility of the choices they make in the play, which is mostly related to the daily struggle of the lives while showing the intellectual assessment with its response to Existentialism.