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ISSN 2063-5346
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QUEST FOR SELF IN PAUL AUSTER’S THE BOOK OF ILLUSION AND THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES

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Pooja Kumari, Dr. Muzafar Ahmad Bhat
» doi: 10.31838/ecb/2023.12.s3.779

Abstract

The presented work reflects the existential concerns and human habitation of the postmodern society. The essay examines Auster's books through the perspective of existential ideology. Crisis of existence, existential crisis, and conflicts of the soul are terms used in psychotherapy and psychology to describe the idea that a person's life should have purpose. In their own notions, some writers have also highlighted the ambiguous definition of a person's identity. Existential difficulties are often accompanied with worry and anxiety that they reach a point where they interfere with a person's ability to function normally in life and make them depressed. Their dark side or pessimistic outlook on life and its purpose reveals several traits of the various philosophical movements known as existentialism. Existential dread, existential vacuum, alienation, and absurdity are terms that describe it. There are behavioural, cognitive, and emotional components to the many crisis-related features. The emotions they arouse, such as despair, guilt, emotional agony, hopelessness, anxiety, and loneliness, are referred to as emotional components. The challenge of meaninglessness, the loss of values, and reflections on one's own death are examples of cognitive components. Addictions, obsessive behaviour, and antisocial behaviour are typically accompanied with outward existential crises. Theorists attempt to address this by categorising it into various existential crises. The basis for classifications is typically the idea that the problem at the heart of these crises differs from the person's stage of life and level of personal development. Teenage crises, quarter-life crises, mid-life crises, and later-life crises are some of the various stages and varieties of these crises that are frequently discussed in literature. They are all at odds with one another over the meaning and purpose of life. The early crises tends to be more forward-looking: the person is uncertain and worried about the course of action in life to be taken, particularly regarding schooling and employment as well as one's identity and freedom in social life. Life's crises are typically viewed from the past. They can be sparked by indicators that a person is at the pinnacle of their existence and is experiencing regret, guilt, and a fear of dying. There are many distinct levels of personal growth; therefore the age of a person does not always correspond to their level of experience. And everyone's experience varies with regard to the various stages. Some people discover the answer to their existential crises sooner than others and some discover it much later. A person, however, finds it simple to avoid or resolve crisis that he experiences later in life if he discovers resolution at an early stage.

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