Date of Award
2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Lopez Zafra, Manuel
Area of Concentration
Religion
Abstract
In this thesis I examine Emil Cioran, who views nothingness to underlie all things. Cioran creates a self understanding of nothingness, from which he aims to discover a cause for suffering in his works. Cioran explores and struggles with Christianity before ultimately renouncing it as unsatisfactory as it sacrifices what he views to be a lucid worldview. Cioran’s lucidity of nothingness instead leads him to find a kinship of thought with Buddhism, from which, he understands birth to be the cause of suffering, showing that suffering is a fact of existence, and that being alive and suffering are synonymous. Cioran’s indictment of life invites the reader to question their existence and engage directly with the question of suicide, which can provide a means of liberating oneself from one’s experience of suffering without sacrificing lucidity.
Recommended Citation
Thornton, Alexander Emory, "SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING: AN ANALYSIS OF THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN NOTHINGNESS, SUFFERING, AND SUICIDE IN THE WORKS OF EMIL CIORAN" (2018). Theses & ETDs. 5617.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5617