A Philosophical Study on the Existential Themes in Virāgaya Novel and Film

Abstract

Sartre is one of the main philosophers in the existential movement. According to Sartre, ‘existence precedes essence’ to illustrate, the first human being exists and then he tends to define himself through the actions that they perform. He denies the existence of God as he suggests the freedom of human beings. The research problem of this study is whether Virāgaya can be classified as a novel which contains existential themes. The objective of this study is to identify the existential key themes that have been used in Virāgaya. Existentialism is a western philosophical movement, whereas Virāgaya is a Sinhalese novel. Therefore, this study has emphasized the Existential themes that are used in a novel in the Sri Lankan context. In summary, existentialism considers human beings as the centre of their philosophy and their actions and choices that they make provide meaning to their lives. There should be at least one human character that is driven by indicating the existentialist themes; through that character or by the other characters that are influencing the main character. For Sartre, religion, traditional culture, and the society cannot help with that as existence is itself a war. He emphasized freewill. However, the example of a waiter indicates that a particular person does not have freewill. However, we are free to dismantle capitalism. To illustrate, money is the factor which discourages people from experiencing freedom. Existential themes can be summarized as hope, loneliness, despair, choice, anguish, responsibility. All of these themes have been used in Virāgaya.