Abstract
The philosophy of existentialism (exoticism), whose first sparks emerged in the middle of the 19th century, essentially questions the meaning of existence. According to this philosophy, human existence is free and human existence precedes its essence. This trend started to be influential first in Western literature and then in Turkish literature, especially after the Second World War.
In the works of Leyla Erbil, one of the representatives of the 1950 generation of Turkish literature, the traces of the philosophy of existentialism are intensely followed. Especially in the novel Cüce, published in 2001 by the same author, phenomena described by the relevant thought movement are featured. In this article, the existential facts determined in Leyla Erbil's novel called Cüce, which consists of ontological inquiries of the main character Zenîme; Anxiety, self, escape, nothingness, sexuality, alienation and death were determined and analyzed and evaluated in the light of the philosophical views of existentialist philosophers and writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Sѳren Kierkegaard, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus and, Martin Heidegger. Thus, with an inductive method, the position of existentialism philosophy in Leyla Erbil's understanding of literature was determined based on the novel Cüce, and the commonality of the purpose of understanding “human” in the relationship between literature and philosophy was once again revealed.