The apocalypse myth in Louis de Bernières' novel Birds Without Wings: Rustem Bey and an individual apocalyptic experience in the kierkegaardian frame

Abstract

The aim of this study is to draw attention to the myth of apocalypse, which has grown in popularity in the literature at the turn of the millennium. Louis de Bernières in his novel Birds Without Wings also illustrates this myth on the general and individual levels of existence. In this work, we have tried to connect the Kierkegaardian stages of man, aesthetic, ethical, and theological, to Louis de Bernières' character Rustem Bey in order to reveal the preoccupation of an individual for defining himself as an integral Self in relation to others and to God. This personal experience is of essential importance, as the character prepares himself to investigate the reason and the meaning of the world and his existence in the face of apocalypse.