André Malraux Critical Essay | Critical Essay by T. Jefferson Kline

Critical Essay by T. Jefferson Kline

[Malraux] has founded the Human in a rigorous geometry of differences. Whereas animals appear to ignore their impending death or to accept it as part of a larger natural process of continuity, Man posits his identity on the knowledge of his death as a radical rupture of his own continuity. Man is a consciousness of pure opposition to death or destin, and thus the activities which define him are termed anti-destin. Traditionally Malraux's novelistic evolution has been seen as a long and increasingly successful quest for authentic values which would serve as such an anti-destin. His early essays and novels make it clear that traditional Western social organizations are themselves incapable of providing authentic values, are simply absurd. Malraux's protagonists from Garine to Berger pursue an increasingly elusive ideal; they move from adventurous cynicism through Marxist idealism to a socratic pessimism and finally to contemplative resignation. Yet it is precisely...
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