“FROM THE LAKE OF ONE'S BEING” Interpreting the shapes and silences of existential nothingness in modernist women’s writing

The study examines modernist women writers’ portrayals of existential nothingness. It discusses three novels—Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925), and Jean Rhys’s After Leaving Mr Mackenzie (1931)—and analyses how these works depict existential non-being, that is, the theme of experiencing emptiness. The aim of the research is to amplify women’s voices and broaden the understanding of existential literature and philosophy from a women's perspective, while simultaneously challenging current views of the fundamental structures of being human and being-in-the-world within the traditional canon of existential philosophy and literature, which has long been dominated by a male perspective.

The dissertation brings together the theoretical foundations of existentialism and feminism and highlights the tension between them as it appears in the works. Employing a hermeneutic research approach, the study creates a dialogue between literary texts and philosophical ideas, thereby challenging the conventional, male-centred existential canon. The research demonstrates that women’s ways of encountering and expressing existential nothingness differ from the traditional, male interpretative framework found in philosophy and literature. Whereas existential “nothingness” has often been regarded as a threat or a source of suffering, women write about it as a form of solace, sanctuary, and spiritual gateway—a possibility for growth and self-discovery. This diverges from earlier philosophical and psychological explanations of existential emptiness and from the dominant representation of men’s experience in literature.

The study provides new insights into existential self-understanding and emphasizes that cultural self-understanding cannot develop without incorporating women’s experiences into existential literature and philosophy. It opens the way for a new interpretive tradition that acknowledges the significance of gender and lived experience in addressing the fundamental questions of human existence.