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Stranger In The Empty Night Analysis

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Recommended: Essays on what existentialism is

Critical Essay

Travel Writing

Kayla Drummond

Daniel Quinn once wrote on the meaning of life saying that in life people, “Get a job, make some money, work till you’re sixty, then move to Florida and die.” The philosophy of existentialism presents the challenge to stray from a mindset that is fearful of the unknown and instead embrace the present and the real. There is no control over the past and therefore it does not do to dwell in it. What can be controlled however, are the present and the future. Existentialism shows the ability to make the absolute most of present existence. To travel is to find oneself. To travel is to realize ones full potential and purpose in life. To travel is to make existentialism …show more content…

Sometimes there is a profound yearning that cannot be understood; sometimes it is completely unintentional. It seems as though this was the case of Stubbs in Stranger in the Empty Night. Stubbs became a stowaway on a ship leaving his country and how he came to be in this position was most likely not completely conscious. As the story plays out, the reader finds that Stubbs was escaping a country that he didn’t believe cared much for him. He was an army man who longed for affection from the country that he so dutifully served. “Seeing the city sinking… while making promises it couldn’t keep, would have pleased him” (Rosen, 2009). In his final moments taking in the last glimpses of his country, Stubbs wishes it would at least make a diminutive attempt to change his mind, but what he didn’t realize was that coming to terms with leaving was a major part of his existential …show more content…

This specific story of existential travel was all finding oneself in the midst of an exciting journey of travel, companionship and unsystematic chance. The three were “heading for unknown southern lands…barely three miles out of hometown…poor old hometown of childhood” when they were already overwhelmed with the feelings of the unknown as Stan gets bit by the exotic and the mysterious. The men also didn’t have much money or resources, which allowed them to start out knowing they will become fully engulfed in new and exotic

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