Author: Tanmoy Ruidas
DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.70798/Bijmrd/04040025
Abstract: Existentialism explores the individual’s search for meaning, identity and purpose amid suffering and alienation. Rohinton Mistry’s novelA Fine Balance presents this existential crisis through Maneck Kohlah, whose life unfolds against the socio-political backdrop of the Indian Emergency. While the novel has largely been examined through the lenses of politics, caste and marginalization, Maneck’s psychological and existential predicament has received comparatively less attention. This paper examines how state violence, displacement, the collapse of traditional values and the erosion of human relationships together fragment Maneck’s sense of self. Unlike Ishvar, Om and Dina Dalal, who continue to negotiate oppressive circumstances, Maneck gradually loses the capacity to confront a hostile world. His search for education and personal fulfilment ultimately becomes a search for meaning in a society marked by political oppression and moral decay. The paper argues that Maneck’s suicide is not merely an act of personal despair but the culmination of an existential crisis produced by violence, social disintegration and the loss of hope.
Keywords: Existentialism, Violence, Fragmentation, Self, Alienation, Maneck Kohlah, Identity.
Page No: 192-197