Recommended: Existentialism in literary analysis
The Stranger, written by Albert Camus, It follows the story of our tragic hero, Meursault, shortly after his mother dies through the events that lead to him being sentenced to death. Camus uses the motif of weather to express Meursault’s emotions. The Stranger shows how even when a person does not explicitly express emotion they are shown in some way. How emotions are expressed is a window to a person's personality. I will first discuss how Meursault appears emotionless, than how Camus uses the motif of weather to express Meursault’s emotions for him and lastly what impact this makes.
Camus outlines this argument in The Stranger through the nihilistic anti-hero Meursault. Throughout the novel, Meursault exhibits very little emotion, which only filters into the protagonist’s stream of consciousness when he expresses physical discomfort or social frustration. The detachment from the world around him makes him a case study for one’s personal quest to find his/her own purpose. Camus’s secular approach deviated from contemporary understanding and challenged the existentialist and religious ideologies that preceded
What if life contributed to no meaning and the only point which matters is the existence happening during the present? To make things worse, as humans live, they breath, but as they die a salvation is received to their soul, and their existence is over. The Stranger by Albert Camus illustrates that the human soul exists in the world physically, therefore the presence or absence does not contribute to any particular event in life. Through, this thought the novel introduces Meursault, who alienates himself from society. He lacks concern for social conventions and is deprived of the physical bounding from people around him.
Through literature, one can receive many valuable lessons that are continuously thought about and learned from. A piece of literature that continuously challenges me to think and consider the nature of life and death is the novel “The Stranger” by Albert Camus. This novel has received much controversy and criticism, and while many claim that the novel suggests that life meaningless because death is inevitable, I think the opposite. Through the characterization of Meursault, the author claims that life should be lived to the fullest; death can occur at any time and it is necessary to stop looking to find meaning in life and instead live spontaneously. It is not possible to plan the future or create a rational structure, and one must take life
The philosophy that is central to the novel, Absurdism, has elements that are derived from conclusions made on Camus’s own sociopolitical environment and the course of his own life. The political tension and overall chaos of the world in the early 1900s included not one, but two world wars, global economic depression, and the peak of European imperialism and violence. In moments in history in which people felt overwhelmingly helpless to the whims of a chaotic world, some choose to turn to assigning meaning through religion or metaphysical philosophies and analyses that help people explain their situation and thus control it. Camus, like the others that lived during this time, chose to accept the evident pointlessness to the world. Camus projects his own philosophy onto Meursault, and declares, “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world” (Camus and Ward 122), approaching life as how Absurdism facilitates.
For the duration of his essay “The Stranger in the Photo is Me”, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and professor Donald M. Murray depicts his train of thought while flipping through an old family photo album. While describing his experience, Murray carries the reader through the story of his childhood, describing snapshots of some of his favorite memories growing up. Throughout the piece, he shifts back and forth between a family oriented, humorous tone and a nostalgic, regretful one and by doing so, he parallels the true experience of looking through a family photo album. Murray expresses a more serious tone while reflecting on a certain photograph of him in uniform from the beginning of World War II and goes on to explain how in his opinion,
Albert Camus’ The Stranger takes place in a 1940s Algiers where the sun is always blaring red hot and the French think they’re superior to the Arabs. That, being narcissism, is just one of society’s many psychopathic tendencies another being manipulation. Society often uses manipulation to always prove it’s right in the face of the individual’s indifferent truth. The main character, Meursault, has a unique personality that raises questions about his mental being, however the real psychopath is society. Meursault is a young French Algerian who comes off as an emotionless person.
Albert Camus “The Stranger” by Albert Camus is an iconic piece of existentialist literature. Throughout the narrative, which concerns the incident of the murder of an Arab native in French Algiers, the themes of absurdism, religion, and isolationism are explored. Camus took from his own experience his disillusion with organized religion, the resulting development of his absurdist view of the meaning of existence and the recurring physical and philosophical isolationism he experienced in his own life, to relate the story of murder and injustice. As the central character Mersault struggles with his own indifference to events surrounding him and the nature of existence, Camus’ ideas on these recurring themes become clear. By examining Camus’ own
(59) After long passages describing the painful violence of the sun, Camus’s transition into the murder is shockingly abrupt, provoking a sense of bewilderment at the unexpected randomness of the murder, conveying effectively the irrationality of Meursault’s murder of the man. However, during the trial, when Meursault reveals that he murdered the Arab only because of the sun, refusing to allow others impose their logical but false interpretations upon his life, “people laughed” (103) and even his own “lawyer threw up his hand” (103) as they are unable comprehend and accept such an irrational motivation. To protect themselves from this harsh reality of the universe, they can only fabricate and impose their own logical explanation for Meursault’s behavior. The prosecutor, for instance, is convinced Meursault murdered the man in cold blood, certain in the narrative he has constructed out of events completely unrelated to the murder, from Meursault’s “ignorance when asked Maman’s age” (99) to his association with a man of “doubtful morality” (99). In both cases, Meursault’s indifference for societal standards of morality has painted him as a man immoral and cold-hearted enough to premeditate the murder.
Perhaps Sartre 's obscure way of thinking can be traced back to his childhood - he was a small and cross-eyed little boy who generally did not fit in with the “ordinary” children. The way that he was treated and viewed by others forced Sartre, at an early age, to view people, thoughts,
French literature of the 1940s was driven by the pessimistic philosophical school of thought, absurdism. Albert Camus’ writings represent a branch of absurdism, existentialism, which questions the inherent meaning of life. In novels such as The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus explores existential tenets, including the immediate pleasures of the physical world versus greater spiritual meaning and what is one’s purpose during one’s life experience. In The Plague, Camus traces the societal reactions to death and disease and the immediate reactions of isolation. In this novel Camus, as a staunch absurdist, uses a contagion as a vehicle to rebuke the two most powerful constructs of belief: the religious and scientific answer to our inevitable
Albert Camus, though denying the tag of existentialism, was and still is a great name amongst French existentialist authors who helped sculpt and define the movement in literature. His works deals extensively with the philosophy of existentialism and existential questions, often resulting in the only answer provided by him, and that is of absurdism. His characters, settings, and situations are dipped in a “tender indifference”, as quoted by him in his magnum opus L’Étranger or The Outsider as translated in English, which was published in 1942. Camus presents his characters amidst different stages of life, whether they are dealing with a moral fall, an epidemic, or a death sentence, and shows the reaction of these protagonist embracing the meaninglessness of life, whilst continually trying to reach an end and also being unfazed by that end at the same time.
The Stranger by Albert Camus follows the daily life of Meursault, a French-Algerian that embodies Camus’ philosophical views of absurdum. Meursault’s life is a simple one; at first glance, he is like any other working, middle class man. However, through the first person narration, we gain insight into his unconventional thought process. He does not place value on anything, including, possessions, love and ambition. Nevertheless, he is content with his life.
The themes of death explored using absurdism in The Stranger is shown with a general disregard for death by Meursault and the strange way he sees life based on these existentialist views. The Stranger is a perfect example of an existentialist novel that was written for that time period, as during this time around the area of France and Europe there was an existentialist movement that Albert Camus, the author, was involved in.
In his novel The Stranger, Albert Camus creates an emotionally incapable, narcissistic, and, at times, sociopathic character named Meursault to explore and expose his philosophies of Existentialism and Absurdism. Throughout the story Meursault follows a philosophical arc that, while somewhat extreme - from unemotional and passive to detached and reckless to self-reflective - both criticizes the dependent nature of human existence and shows the journey through the absurd that is our world. In the onset of The Stranger, following his mother’s death, Meursault acts with close to utter indifference and detachment. While the rest of “maman’s”(9) loved ones express their overwhelming grief, Meursault remains unphased and, at times, annoyed at their
