Arun Joshi Existentialism

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A tribe is a group of distinct people, dependent on their land for their livelihood, and who are largely self-sufficient. They live in various ecological and geo-climatic conditions ranging from plains and forests to hills and inaccessible areas and they are at different stages of social, economic and educational growth and development. The tribes in India are spread over the length and breadth of the country. In Indian Writing in English, rural life has been portrayed by a good number of Indian English novels but tribals as such have not been dealt by them significantly. However, the references to tribal life are witnessed in Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, Kamala Markandaya’s The Coffer Dam, Manohar Malgaonkar’s The Princes, …show more content…

Existentialism deals with the problems of the meaning and purpose of life on earth, finding the world as hostile in nature. It is an attitude, an outlook that emphasizes on the purpose and meaning of human existence in this world. Indian form of existentialism as manifested in The Gita and The Upanishads deals with the problems of our existence on earth. [1] Supriya (2013) explored that Arun Joshi’s artistic treatment of the theme of cultural self-exclusion and spiritual quest in the face of a situation where the world is too much with us. In The Strange Case of Billy Biswas the search for identity takes spiritual dimensions against the backdrop of the clash between the superficiality of highly materialistic Indian upper class and the earthy values of the tribals who live in close association with nature. [2] Patil (2013) observed that Arun Joshi’s novels are built around this loneness of individual life and are concerned with the exploration of the inner world of sensibility. The crisis of his novel deals with emotional traumas of fragile introverts suffering from severe loneliness and alienation from family and society. In his novels man is invariable confronted with the self and the question of his existence.

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