A Few Definitions

Here are some brief definitions of a few terms from J. A. Cuddon’s A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory.  Do any of these apply to The Stranger?  What about other books we have read this year?

Existentialism (“Pertaining to Existence”):  “An important feature of atheistic existentialism is the argument that existence precedes essence […] for it is held that man fashions his own existence and only exists by so doing, and, in that process, and by the choice of what he does or does not do, gives essence to that existence.”

Nihilism:  “…denotes a radical or extreme radical attitude which denies all traditional values, and, not infrequently, moral values as well.”

Theatre of the Absurd: “Mathematically, a surd¹ is that which cannot be expressed in finite terms of ordinary numbers of quantities.  Hence irrational rather than ridiculous.  It is in the mathematical sense that the ‘philosophy’ of the absurd has been mostly expressed.  But it is a pervasive attitude rather than a system of thought.”

^1: technically, a root that is irrational