T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

acial, political, institutional and professional rivalriestending to frustrate all human hopes and efforts to outlive theonslaughts of fate and circumstances. John Updike treats theproblem in the Context of an Americawhereln God has failed,leaving man high and dry to fend for hlmself in the vacuum ofnlhillsm. Vonnegut treats ~t in the context of a unlversemarked by the monstrosities of war, sclence, technology andmaterlallsm which afford no chances of freedom andlndlvlduallty to man.Their works register an ldentlcal growth In consciousnessfrom the 'Vlctim' tothe 'survlvor-hero' vla the 'Vlctim-survlvor', with succinctness and urgency. The victim-protagonlst of thelr early works are Immature and do notdlsplay any capacity for moral growth. In thelr fallure to riseabove thelr crlses lnsplte of thelr best efforts they conveythelr wrlters' lnltlal dlsbellef In modern man's capabilitiesto prevall over the contradlctlons of hls existence. In themlddle phase, these wrlters recover thelr bellef in man to someextent and wrlte about the vlctlm survivors who, unllke thevlctlm protagonists of their early novels, learn through thelrexperience of life and there-by overcome their predicaments.The vlctlm 1s generally a weak character. Circumstances be fallhlm In such a way that he 1s thrown lnto an "ultimateSltuatlon" of despair. or ~nstance, Jay Gatsby In Fitzgerald's