Existential escapism and the tragic triad : Sula vs Fred Daniels

Abstract EN

It is not a secret that being a black person in the USA meant at a certain time being a problem, a source of panic and despair.

Black Americans react against oppression differently, some of them prefer to commit suicide; but others submit to the whites' supremacy.

In “The Man Who Lived Underground” Richard Wright presents the protagonist who flies paradoxically to the underground world to discover its contradiction with the aboveground world, he sacrifices himself in order to feel free.

Besides, Toni Morrison's “Sula” reflects self-destruction deeds that black women exercise against themselves to free themselves from pain.

In the light of Victor Frankl's Logotherapy and the Tragic Triad, and through the two protagonists Sula and Fred Daniels, this study examines the different reactions that black Americans create to fly away from their racist communities, and to liberate themselves from the existential trauma that stigmatizes their beingness.