Márquez’ Practical Guide for Handling Existential Crises in Strange Pilgrims

Existential crisis befalls the human kind on becoming conscious of ultimate freedom in an apparently absurd universe, in terms of philosophy, and on thinking about one’s position and situation as a conscious being within society, in terms of sociology. In order not to submit to the apparent absurdity of the world and not to remain doubtful of one’s status in society, Existentialism offers humankind a set of principles to tolerate one’s life in the universe and live one’s moments in the best possible way within society. Gabriel García Márquez’ Strange Pilgrims is a collection of twelve stories in which Márquez has presented us with the lives of people struggling with their existence as such, people who are trying to make sense of their lives before the existential crises happening to them on personal and social levels. Regarding both the range of these people’s experiences and existential crises within the stories and Márquez’ broad view of humankind’s condition in the universe, the present paper tries to investigate the problem of existence these people are dealing with including anxiety, depression, choicelessness, inauthenticity, absurdity and death in light of Márquez’ practical guidelines for managing them. In this sense, Márquez’ existentialism, not apparently indebted to any school of existentialism, is presented to be running at the core of life without any farfetched theories to hold unto.