EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE: RECLAIMING PERSONHOOD IN ZUMAS’S RED CLOCKS

Abstract

This article examines Leni Zumas’s Red Clocks (2018) through Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist maxim: “existence precedes essence.” Set against the backdrop of a society where the Personhood Amendment defines individuals through reproductive capacity, the novel portrays the struggle to reclaim autonomy within structures of constraint. Through the intertwined lives of the Biographer, the Mender, the Daughter, and the Wife, Zumas stages the existential conflict between imposed identity and the freedom to create meaning through lived choice. Each figure enacts a distinct response: the Biographer seeks authenticity through creative action, the Mender embodies rebellion against authority, the Daughter asserts agency over her body, and the Wife confronts the inauthenticity of conformity. The analysis draws upon Sartre’s notions of freedom, responsibility, and bad faith, together with Albert Camus’s reflections on absurdity and rebellion. These philosophical frameworks illuminate how Red Clocks exposes the absurdity of legislated essence while affirming that authentic personhood arises only through responsibility and defiance of external imposition. By situating Zumas’s narrative within existential thought, the study underscores how literature renders visible the philosophical struggle for autonomy in the face of determinism. Ultimately, this article argues that Red Clocks is less a dystopian caution than an existential meditation on personhood, autonomy, and the essence. It affirms the enduring truth that existence precedes essence, and that authentic personhood must be continually reclaimed through acts of resistance and choice.