| V. S. Naipaul’s In a Free State won the Booker Prize in1971. Known as a workfor the ironic accounts of colonial and postcolonial societies, In a Free State is alwaysanalyzed from the perspective of postcolonialism by critics. Stylistics, thematic study,space theory and comparative study are also applied for the analysis. Apart from theseperspectives, existentialism is applied to analyze this work, which is inadequate whencompared with other research approaches. In fact, the existential study on this workstill holds new possibilities. In this thesis, Sartre’s view of absolute freedom andabsurdity will be applied to provide a new way of reading. The different choices madeby the protagonists, the absurdities they encounter and the dilemma they face will beanalyzed in detail. Facing the absurdities in life, all the protagonists have the freedomto make their own choices. However, after their choices, what encounters them is stillthe absurd and restrained life without freedom. And what they have to do is taking theresponsibility for what they chose for themselves. Through existentialism, this thesisattempts to scrutinize the protagonists in this work to reveal the restrained, rootless andisolated existential dilemma of people from both former colonies and formermetropolitan states in the postcolonial period. Although the existential dilemma of theprotagonists is revealed, their persistence in making their choices sheds light onpessimism of this work. |
