austerian existentialism in light of heidegger and sartre

An existential investigation into the problem of human existence in paul auster’s writings reveals that his existentialism can be traced back to heidegger and sartre. auster’s own philosophical viewpoints – drawn from his interviews, non-fiction, and fiction – can be given a new interpretation by highlighting what he shares with, or draws from, heidegger and sartre. in this light, the common grounds in heidegger’s and sartre’s ideas about human existence can be observed in auster’s fiction, overtly and covertly, and auster’s oeuvre can be studied in light of existentialism as developed by both heidegger and sartre, in a way that the key terms in their philosophy can be separately highlighted in auster’s works, simultaneously on all the political, social, cultural, and philosophical grounds. this study is thus to argue that for auster, human existence in the world follows the rules of chance and contingency in a way that random events make sense in retrospective and, as such, meaningfully affect people’s lives in different periods of life. hence, auster is to be analyzed regarding his concern with such existential concepts of freedom, authenticity, the openness of possibilities, and the contingency of death and these concepts help readers with his characterization.