World-renowned Short Story Anthology · Absurd Fiction

Author: Zhang Rong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-07-01
Features: In many fields of modern Western literature, drama, painting, sculpture, music, and film, we often read, hear, see, and feel a common fundamental emotion—absurdity. The entire modern Western thought is permeated with this theme. The concept of absurdity has existed since ancient times, from the "Tantalus-like suffering" and "Sisyphus's torment" in Greek mythology to Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel in the 16th century, from Shakespeare's Hamlet to Milton's Paradise Lost, from Voltaire's philosophical novels to the works of Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe—all express a sense of absurdity. However, at this point, absurdity as a literary theme had not yet risen to a philosophical consciousness or developed into a philosophical idea. Yet, when Westerners entered the 20th century, Western capitalist civilization faced a profound crisis, and the existentialist trend of absurdity flourished. The concept of absurdity became a conscious awareness with definite philosophical connotations, extending from philosophical consciousness to an aesthetic concept and circulating in major modern Western fields such as philosophy, religion, science, aesthetics, and literature, reflecting a comprehensive mindset in modern Western culture. It makes perfect sense to have a collection titled Absurd Fiction in the World Famous Short Story Anthology by Genre. Since the theme of absurdity holds a pivotal position in Western literature of the 20th century, our selection primarily focuses on the essence of absurd short stories from 20th-century literature. Here, we will discuss a few selected important writers and key works. Kafka can be considered the father of absurd literature. His works primarily depict the fear and confusion of isolated individuals facing a strange, absurd world, reflecting the concept of absurdity through literary works. Kafka's outstanding artistic feature is the overall absurdity with detailed realism—the central events of his works are absurd, but the surrounding environments are realistic, creating an effect of "juxtaposition of the real and the unreal." The Metamorphosis and The Tunnel are typical reflections of the ideological and artistic features of Kafka's works. The Metamorphosis uses a unique metamorphosis technique to portray the phenomenon of "alienation" in capitalist society. Under the oppression of life's burdens and the habits of his profession, the protagonist transforms from a human into an insect. Through the delicate psychological experiences of the protagonist after his transformation and the reactions of those around him, Kafka profoundly depicts the sense of disaster, oppression, loneliness, strangeness, and crisis in human beings. The Tunnel features an animal as the protagonist, a small animal that has been humanized, describing its meticulous efforts to build a tunnel to preserve food and its anxious, restless state of mind after doing so, which deeply portrays the precarious situation of small individuals in capitalist society who struggle to protect themselves. Faced with an increasingly unsafe absurd world, people are filled with worry and fear, hoping to find a safe place to hide. Yet reality is fraught with danger, and the world constantly teeters on the brink of destruction.