Study Of The Echo Maker By Richard Powers From The Perspective Of Heidegger's Existentialism

As one of the most influential and eye-attracting writers in contemporary America,Richard Powers(1957-),won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2006 for his work The Echo Maker,also attracts Chinese readers' attention since 2006.As a writer who once majors in physics,Powers makes a sophisticated combination between science and literature,and always points out,in an roundabout way,the crisis that human beings are facing now,which is one of his writing features,and it is also this feature that makes him enjoy the attention paid by literary critics in modern times.From the perspective of Heidegger's existentialism,what results in the crisis of human beings in modern times is the abandonment and forgottenness of Being,therefore human beings regard being as Being.They take the common life they have already been accustomed to as their authentic existence,and take their efforts to pursuit it.In the fallenness of being-there,or Dasein in German,as the representative of human beings,the three main protagonists in The Echo Maker are addicted to their own hard work in order to achieve their purpose,the so-called real existence.However,the “real existence” they are pursuing is the concealment of authentic existence.People in modern times only focus on one fixed point but do not realize that the real existence is a dynamic process of the continuous concealment and revealing.By analyzing the three main protagonists in the novel,this thesis exposes the unauthentic existence of human beings: obsession with science and technology,indifference to the opposition between human beings and Nature,which at last undoubtedly bring about anxiety and puzzlement.What's worse,they are in the anxiety and puzzlement but have no idea what cause the present situation.Different from other theses studying this novel,this thesis by applying Heidegger's existentialism presents a promising future for human being which is presented by the retreatment of Webber from technology,the regression of Karin to nature and the isolation of Mark from the fallenness,which should have great influence on human beings' future.