In search of 'authenticity' in an essence-less body : Camus’s The Fall, Sartre’s The Age Of Reason and Bowles’s The Sheltering sky

Abstract

This thesis will tackle Sartre’s existential philosophy, specifically his view of a man’s different modes of being, which he defines in his book Being and Nothingness. In congruence with Sartre’s philosophy about ‘authenticity’, this thesis will demonstrate that although ‘authenticity’ is the highest mode of being, it is still too difficult to achieve fully and permanently. This is due to the fact that being in an ‘authentic’ state entails that a man must be completely responsible for every action that he takes, which is the reason why people avoid ‘authenticity’ and live in ‘bad faith’. Indeed, the freedom involved in ‘authenticity’ is scary and evokes a lot of responsibility and can create anxiety, which thereon makes this mode of being difficult to sustain for a long period of time. Further, the inability to remain in an ‘authentic’ mode of being is due to the fact that an individual’s mode of being is in perpetual state of alteration due to the nothingness of the self. In this thesis I will demonstrate the difficulty to fully and permanently achieve ‘authenticity’ through the analysis of the characters' journeys in The Age of Reason (1945) by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Fall (1956) by Albert Camus and The Sheltering Sky (1949) by Paul Bowles.