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Spongebob Squarepants : Character Analysis

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It is safe to credit SpongeBob SquarePants as one of the most iconic cartoon television shows of the 20th and 21st century. From youths to adolescences, the show serves a wide audience internationally, influencing next generation minds everywhere. Unfortunately, SpongeBob SquarePants holds countless deep messages that most viewers neglect. The creator of the show Stephen Hillenburg implements philosophical ideas throughout the show to deliver a grand message and warning about war. Bikini Bottom, referring to the Bikini Atoll, is the location American government tests atomic bombs and one of the many victims of warfare development. In the episode ‘SB-129’, Stephen Hillenburg applies existential philosophies such as absurdity, the becoming, …show more content…

After establishing his condition and his environment, he falls into despair and anxiety, “All of you! I don’t belong here! This is all a horrible mistake! Please, we’ve got to do something” (Hillenburg)! From confusion to denial, Squidward exemplifies the existence before essence. In the beginning, he does not know where he is and what is happening, but after consulting futuristic Sponge-Tron, he establishes his meaning that he does not belong in this realm. With Squidward rejecting his current state and disappearing with the time machine, one may assume Squidward runs from the absurdity that faces him instead of confronting it. However, that is not entirely the case. In Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes, “This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity” (Myth 2). Squidward experiences this feeling of absurdity when he divorces his original life and ends up in the future. When Squidward goes into the time machine, he can escape this absurdity by going back, yet he chooses to continue the absurdity by going to the past. Although Squidward faces anxiety and panics in the future realm, he experiences an awakening and decides not to return to his present. In that moment, Squidward fully embodies an absurdist: he neglects consequences and time, he only wants peace and quiet from his lousy neighbors. The absurdist Squidward shadows Meursault in Albert Camus’ The Stranger. In

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