La Quête Du Bonheur Dans La Symphonie Pastorale Et Les Nourritures Terrestres D’andré Gide Et Dans Noces Et La Peste D’albert Camus.

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study seeks to unearth and elucidate the concept of happiness in the literacy work of two French writers namely: Albert Camus and André Gide. The study was born out of our reading of Blondin (1983: 9) who stated in Le Bonheur Possible that « most of human undertakings have a common denominator: the quest for a better life, a better living, a better love in sum; the desire to be happy». This presupposes that the quest for happiness is always at the centre of most human endeavours and since André Gide and Albert Camus are contemporaries, we investigated what constitutes the quest for happiness in two (2) novels of each author namely: Andre Gide’s la Symphonie Pastorale and les Nourritures Terrestres and Albert Camus’ Noces and la Peste. Based on our working definition of happiness (bonheur) as the satisfaction of human needs and that of quest (quête) as a search for something, we laid bare, what constitutes the search for satisfaction of human needs in the four (4) literary works. The study employed the thematic approach of analyzing a literary text. The thematic approach was complemented by Maslow's theory of human need and the theories of hedonism and eudemonism. The study was mainly based on the qualitative / descriptive research methodology for the collection and analysis of data. It was revealed that though the four literary works are of different genres, the quest for happiness abounds in them in different forms. This is amply demonstrated through the behavior of the characters: it is either they are fighting for their own happiness or that of another individual. This points to the fact that each step taken by human beings is undertaken for a reason (the individual’s happiness or that of humanity as a whole). We further concluded that whatever form the quest for happiness takes, they can either be classified as hedonic (based on sensual pleasure) or eudemonic (based on personal development).