Death in the Prism of Existentialism: A Comparative Reading of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and Sadeq Chubak’s The Patient Stone

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Rasoul Aliakbari

• In this article, I compare William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Sadeq
  Chubak’s The Patient Stone with respect to the theme of death and from
  the perspective of Existentialism. I argue that despite Faulkner’s influence
  on Chubak and similarities in their writings, the Iranian modernist
  novel presents intellectual and aesthetic nuances catering to the domestic
  material circumstances of its composition. While As I Lay Dying offers a
  pro- Sartrean and nihilistic notion of mortality, the Iranian novel features
  a pro- Heideggerian and authenticating view of death. I use this
  comparison in order to transcend the notion of modern Iranian literature
  as merely influenced by Western literary models.

• Date created

  2016

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Comparative Literature
  • Existentialism
  • William Faulkner
  • Sadeq Chubak
  • Persian literature
  • Iranian literature
  • Iranian literary modernism

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3542JG0F

• License

  Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International