Description
“The world needs a wash and a week’s rest.” So begins the 1947 Pulitzer Prize winning poem The Age of Anxiety by W.H. Auden. Set at the tail end of WWII, the poem features four characters in dialogue on themes of war, modernity, identity, fate, and, above all, loneliness. The poem was influenced by both Heidegger and Kierkegaard and represents a snapshot of global affairs which was marred by existential dread and uncertainty. As the characters try to make sense of the world, the poem culminates in one man announcing: “We would rather be ruined than changed, we would rather die in our dread, than climb the cross of the moment, and let our illusions die.” This line resonates particularly in our age of anxiety and especially when reflecting on discourses around the 2024 US Presidential election. Like the characters in Auden’s poem, US political factions were mired in their own individual dread which could not sufficiently be mutually articulated or understood. American politics is caught between the illusion of wholeness and the promise of individual freedom, a space where existentialism thrives. I argue that existentialist dread can be an effective starting point for understanding the competing realities at play in the US elections. I analyze election discourses through the lens of The Age of Anxiety to further demonstrate how existentialist literature can elucidate the contemporary political moment and our resistance for change.
