What Is Existentialism

Existentialism in literature is less a neat category and more a mood that clamps down on comfortable explanations. I like to think of it as literature's insistence that people are thrown into a world without a manual and then left to write the manual themselves. That shows up in novels like 'Nausea' and 'The Stranger', where everyday things suddenly feel uncanny; it shows up in 'Notes from Underground' as bitter self-awareness; and it sits behind plays like 'No Exit' and essays such as 'The Myth of Sisyphus'. Philosophically, the big beats are freedom, responsibility, angst, absurdity, and the idea that existence precedes essence — we exist first, then we make ourselves through choices.

Why it matters? Because it strips literature down to raw human experience. When a character faces meaninglessness or must own the consequences of freedom, readers are invited into the same dilemma. That examination sharpens empathy: we're made to feel the paralysis of choice, the relief of creating values, or the loneliness of being misunderstood. It doesn't provide instructions, but it gives permission to ask hard questions — about identity, morality, authenticity, and what it means to act sincerely in a world that often feels indifferent. Personally, those books and plays keep pulling me back; they’re oddly comforting in how uncompromising they are, like a friend who refuses platitudes and hands you a flashlight instead.

Sartre's take on existentialism really shook my worldview when I first dug into it, and I keep coming back to it because it's both blunt and oddly freeing. At its heart is that famous line: existence precedes essence. That means we appear in the world first—without a blueprint—and we build who we are through choices and actions. In 'Being and Nothingness' he teases this out with concepts like being-for-itself (the conscious, always-projecting self) and being-in-itself (objects that simply are). Humans are not fixed things; we're constantly transcending our facticity—the given facts about us, like our past or body—toward possibilities.

This constant freedom produces anxiety, which Sartre calls anguish. I like that he doesn't romanticize this: you're 'condemned to be free'—nobody else ultimately chooses your values for you, and that responsibility is heavy. The idea of bad faith resonates a lot with me: it's those little lies we tell ourselves to dodge responsibility, pretending we're not free so we can avoid anguish. Sartre's fiction, like 'Nausea' and the play 'No Exit', dramatizes these ideas—how people flee the truth about their freedom and how the gaze of others can freeze you into objecthood.

The political edge is important too: in 'Existentialism is a Humanism' he argues that when I choose, I implicitly choose for all humanity—so authenticity has social consequences. That bit makes me feel less selfish about caring how my choices affect others; my freedom isn't a private toy. All in all, Sartre pushed me to look squarely at choices instead of hiding in excuses, which is uncomfortable but oddly clarifying in my daily life.

Staring at the night sky after a long gaming session, I often drift into thinking about the big existential puzzles—why we care, what counts, and whether anything counts at all.

Existentialism, to me, feels like a dare. It starts from the uncomfortable observation that life doesn’t hand you a ready-made purpose; you’re thrown into the world and must choose who you become. Think of 'Being and Nothingness' vibes—freedom, responsibility, the weight of choice, and the anxiety that comes with realizing you can’t hide behind pre-set roles. Existentialist voices like Sartre and Kierkegaard push you to act authentically: make meaning by committing to projects, relationships, or values, even if the universe is indifferent. That creative, stubborn impulse to make significance is why existentialism often feels hopeful to me, even when it’s grim.

Nihilism, by contrast, reads like the cold diagnosis before any cure: there is no objective meaning, value, or purpose. Existential nihilism says life, morals, and truth can be groundless. Nietzsche famously described the collapse of old values and the danger of sinking into despair; but he also challenged us to overcome that abyss. The real difference is attitude: nihilism can end at resignation—why bother?—whereas existentialism picks up the pieces and answers, “We’ll make something anyway.” I see both threads in shows like 'Neon Genesis Evangelion' and novels like 'The Stranger'—one diagnoses emptiness, the other pushes for personal meaning. Personally, I oscillate between the two, but I tilt toward existentialism because the act of creating meaning, even temporarily, makes everything feel a little more alive.

Every time I sit down for a movie that leaves me thinking long after the credits roll, I know I'm in existential territory. For me, existentialism in film means the story doesn't hand you a purpose on a silver platter — it forces characters (and the audience) to confront freedom, absurdity, mortality, alienation, and the heavy weight of choice. Films that feel existential often show characters facing a void: a literal or emotional emptiness, baffling coincidences, or moral decisions where none of the options feel authentically 'good.' Think of characters who question their identity, deny their freedom out of fear (bad faith), or try to create meaning in a world that feels indifferent.

Cinematically, those ideas translate into particular choices: long lingering shots that insist you sit with the silence, sparse dialogue that exposes isolation, bleak or indifferent landscapes, and ambiguous endings that refuse to tidy everything up. Directors like Ingmar Bergman in 'The Seventh Seal' stage a literal dialogue with death; Andrei Tarkovsky in 'Stalker' and 'Solaris' uses slow, meditative visuals to explore inner searching; Antonioni's 'L'Avventura' isolates characters in modern alienation; and Charlie Kaufman's 'Synecdoche, New York' multiplies identity until it collapses. Even genre films can be existential — 'Blade Runner' and 'Blade Runner 2049' ask what it means to be human when memories and desires are manufactured.

If you want jumping-off points, watch 'The Seventh Seal' for death and absurdity, 'Persona' for fragmented identity, 'Stalker' for metaphysical yearning, and 'Lost in Translation' or 'Wings of Desire' for quieter, living-with-others loneliness. I always end up rewatching these when I need a reminder that film can feel like philosophy, not lecture — more question than conclusion — and that beautiful, unsettling space keeps me coming back.

Existentialism isn't about a single 'ending'—it's more like a lens to view life's messy, open-ended journey. Think of it as staring into the void and realizing there's no prewritten script, just choices we make. Take 'The Stranger' by Camus: Meursault's indifference isn't nihilism; it's raw honesty about life's lack of inherent meaning. The 'ending' here? We create purpose through action, even if the universe stays silent.

That's what grips me—existentialism doesn't wrap things up neatly. It's like finishing 'No Exit' and realizing hell isn't fire and brimstone; it's other people witnessing your every flawed decision. The freedom to define yourself is thrilling and terrifying, like riding a bike with no handlebars. No cosmic resolution, just the hum of your own heartbeat deciding what comes next.

Late-night pages and bad coffee made me fall in love with this question: existentialism in modern novels is less a rigid philosophy and more a mood and method that asks what it means to be human when meaning isn’t handed to you.

I see it as a collision of themes — freedom, absurdity, death, alienation, and the search for authenticity — filtered through contemporary styles: sparse prose, unreliable narrators, surreal intrusions, and moral ambiguity. Classic pillars like Jean-Paul Sartre’s 'Nausea' and Albert Camus’s 'The Stranger' still define the blueprint: characters confronting the sheer contingency of existence and reacting with either defiant choice or weary indifference. Modern writers pick up that thread and tweak it. Haruki Murakami injects dream logic and loneliness in 'Norwegian Wood' and 'Kafka on the Shore', turning alienation into a landscape of odd encounters and surreal metaphors. Kazuo Ishiguro, especially in 'Never Let Me Go', reframes existential questions with restraint, asking how identity survives in worlds that strip agency away.

I also think of Cormac McCarthy’s 'The Road' as existential in its barebones ethics — a post-apocalyptic meditation on meaning through the father-son bond — and Don DeLillo’s 'White Noise' as an exploration of death anxiety under late-capitalist consumerism. What ties all these together is how plot often becomes secondary to interior stakes: the novels make you sit with uncomfortable questions rather than give tidy answers. Personally, those books that refuse consolation tend to linger with me the longest — they unsettle in the best possible way.