In Quest of “Answers” in the Colonial Sands A Comparative Study of Waliullah and Camus’ “Absurd” Protagonists

DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L314.45

Authors: Dr. Sanyat Sattar and Abu Saleh Md. Rafi

Abstract: Syed Waliullah (1922-1971) and Albert Camus (1913-1960) are two distinct writers from two different continents. These writers have interesting commonness, especially in two of their novels—Chander Amabasya (Dark Moon), by Walilullah and The Outsider by Camus. The protagonists in both of these novels, Arif Ali and Meursault respectively, suffer from existentialist crisis, mainly fueled by the impacts of the tarnished history of colonialism and the aftermaths. Even though the stories of the these protagonists take place almost half way round the world in entirely different settings, the impacts and facades of the crisis are strikingly similar. This paper is a comparative study of soul-searching Arif Ali and Meursault.

Keywords: colonialism; postcolonialism; absurdity; meaninglessness; death