Sane or Insane: The Crisis of the Anti-Hero in Kingsley

Amis’ The Green Man

Gonul Bakay

(American Language and Literature Department, Bahcesehir University, Turkey)

Abstract: Published in 1969, Kingsley Amis’ The Green Man is the story of the disenchanted Maurice Allington who is haunted by ghosts as well as existential questions. Revamping the conventional ghost story genre, Amis puts supernatural events in the contemporary context and presents a profound analysis of the existential crisis faced by modern man. Throughout this article, I use the term “existential crisis” with reference to the feeling of an acute sense of loneliness and isolation in a world that lacks any coherent meaning. This fundamental feeling of loneliness is further exacerbated by one’s recognition of his own mortality and the inevitable sense of dread that accompanies it. For the purposes of this article, I utilize several existentialist concepts Sartre develops in Being and Nothingness to examine more thoroughly the dilemmas faced by Maurice Allington in The Green Man.

Key words: existentialist philosophy, existential crisis, Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Kingsley Amis, The Green Man