Soren Kierkegaard speaks of a species of despair by which the man is ignorant of the reality of who he is, and is ignorant of the fact that he is in despair. The need for self consciousness is a theme in Kierkegaard that is key to understanding his concept of despair. Without this self awareness there is a severe lack of the self, which leads to a despair that one might not even recognize as such. We can see this practically expressed in the life of Solzhenitsyn, as he expresses it, prior to his imprisonment. He begins by narrating his opportunities to apply toward what would have lead him to become one of the blue caps. In total ignorance of the horrors that were occurring under the cover of night, he celebrated the war machine of Russia with parades and banners during the day. He laid trapped in desolation masked under the cover of the supposed light of revolution. In this context of despair masked by youthful ignorance he was offered many times the opportunity to join those who would become his torturers. Yet he became strikingly similar to his torturers through an independent military career. After a time as a grunt he became an officer. He, self admittedly was as bad to those under his authority as …show more content…
This kind of despair is one in which a soul lives in denial of the true state of his being. This denial stems from a distraction away from the reality of who the soul is. This destruction manifest itself through a delusional sense of security, which creates a great distance from the soul and the illuminating deliverance of truth. This is, by far and wide, the most prevalent form of despair. When a soul awakens and finds itself imprisoned by the darkness of delusion, it comes to reach for the light of hope. This awakening is often violent; a quake, a shake, and a breaking apart of life that tears the curtain, and reveals the despair of