Investigating Confusion and Decision in the Wandering Island Novel Based on the Principles of Existential Psychology

Existential psychology is a trend in psychological studies that was influenced by the philosophy of existentialism in the second half of the twentieth century and soon became one of the most important branches of mental analysis. According to this psychological approach, death, freedom (responsibility), loneliness and emptiness (crisis of meaning) are the most important concerns of contemporary man, and the quality of dealing with these concerns is the cause of health or mental disorder. The novel "Wandering Island" by Daneshvar is one of the most important contemporary Persian fiction works that Its main theme is the confusion and astonishment of human subjects in the semi-modern Iranian society. In addition to paying attention to the issues of death, loneliness and the meaning of life, the author of the novel has made the subject of responsibility and decision-making a special subject of the story. This interdisciplinary research seeks to examine the subject of confusion, responsibility and decision in the novel Wandering Island based on existential psychology in a descriptive-analytical way and answer that question What types of divisions are the decisions of the characters in the novel? And these characters, each in a position to choose, and Each in a position to choose, to overcome the existential anxiety of being in a position of choice, which defensive method do they use? The results show that the wandering decision type has the most repetition in the narrative, and the characters in the novel use the trick of shifting responsibility to avoid existential anxiety.