Max Frisch's novel Homo Faber

Characters like Faber are trying to find their way in a world that makes it difficult for them to achieve the self-knowledge they need. Faber is a representative of modern life, a man who has found some accommodation with the issue of determinism versus free will largely by ignoring it. He has decided to live his life as if it were predictable and controlled, and for him the way to achieve some sense of certainty in his life is to avoid relationships with others, relationships which might challenge his understanding and create a sense of uncertainty where presently there is none. Walter Faber is known in the title as Homo Faber, indicating that he re

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his feelings for his electric razor: I don't feel comfortable when unshaven; not on account of other people, but on my own account. Not being shaved gives me the feeling I'm some sort of plant and tried every possible way of getting it to work. Of course it was no use: you can't use an electric razor without any electric current, I knew that--that was what put me so on edge, the fact that in there desert there is no current, no telephone, no power points, nothing (25). Faber is indeed often at a loss to understand either himself or what is taking place around him: Of course I tried to look at everything from the funny side. . . An hour later I still had no idea who these people were. . . I don't know what the truth was (67). Indeed, his lack of awareness becomes something to which he returns again and again as a reason for all that happens, and though he says there is no defense, he seems to be using this fact as a defense just the same: What difference does it make if I prove that I had no idea, that I couldn't possibly have known? I have destroyed the life of my child and I cannot make restitution. . . How does providence come into it? I wasn't in love, on the contrary, she couldn't have seemed more of a stranger once
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3269
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)