A Girl like Phyl | Existential Themes
Perkins is a professor of American and British literature and film. In the following essay, she examines existential themes in the story.
Scholars have noted Patricia Highsmith’s appreciation of John-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, especially their exploration of existentialism, a philosophical movement that had its beginnings in the writings of nineteenth-century, Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard. In the twentieth century, existentialism evolved into an influential movement through the work of Sartre (Nausea, 1938) and Camus (The Stranger, 1942). Existentialist philosophy, according to Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, defines human freedom “in terms of individual responsibility and...
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