ipl-logo

Empathy And Resilience In The Stranger, By Albert Camus

1066 Words5 Pages

In the novel, The Stranger, author Albert Camus portrays the idea that connections that provide empathy and support will increase one’s sense of resilience. Through the character Meursault, Albert Camus conveys the fact that resilience and empathy are connected. Meursault lacks empathy and resilience, Albert Camus uses relationships to represent empathy and diction as well as language to represent Meursault's resilience.

Meursault has been notified of his mothers death, "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure.", this quotation shows that Muersault's feels no guilt in his mothers death. During his travels Meursault did not mourn for his mother's death rather he questioned his significance to her, and would complain about …show more content…

Meursault is given a Lawyer who empathizes with him, the lawyer feels sorry for Meursault, believing he wasn't in the right state of mind and that he should be exonerated. Meursault does not accept the Lawyer's empathy as he feels no connection with him, and believes the Law should be up holded in a fair fashion as he killed the man with intent. Meursault is sentenced to death. The initial blames the court and society for the lack of empathy, and how the society in which Meursault lives values emotional expression, and his lack of emotion makes him an outcast. He emphasizes with others that have faced the death sentence and builds his resilience to face it. Before he heads to the guillotine a chaplain meets with him to discuss receiving a baptism in hope that Meursault may be forgiven by God and be sent to the afterlife. Meursault again refuses as he accepts his fate and doesn’t empathize with the chaplain's kind nature. Meursault is unable to show resilience in the face of difficulty of even death, he does not fight his case nor accept the probability of an afterlife. With the lack of connection and empathy he also lacks resilience. The society's inability to empathize with Meursault makes it difficult for him to be resilient, he is constantly judged by members of the nursing home and the court, which makes it difficult for him to manage on the edge of death. The lack of empathy Meursault receives increases his sense of isolation and loneliness, making it even harder for him to be

Show More
Related
395 Words | 2 Pages

Meursault is eventually convicted and sentenced to death because of his inability to conform to the societal expectations of French Algeria in the 1940’s. 3. Characters: Meursault- the protagonist and narrator of the novel, Meursault is a young shipping clerk who has detached himself from the world around him. He is indifferent

Read More
998 Words | 4 Pages

Meursault attempted to alleviate his loneliness in prison by saying, "I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated and for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there would be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they would greet me with cries of hate." Meursault showcases one of his interesting ways of thinking about a situation in this scenario. Rather than fearing the execution, he thinks that the day it happens, he will feel less alone due to being surrounded by people. This shows how he cannot feel lonely in situations where almost anyone would.

Read More
433 Words | 2 Pages

Close Reading - The Stranger In The Stranger, Albert Camus depicts a man, Meursault, who is emotionless to the situations that surround him. After committing a murder, he gets put on trial and is deemed as a danger to society, and therefore, gets sentenced to a death sentence. However, this decision was not made due to rational reasons but from false accusations on Meursault’s character and motives. In the passage, Camus uses point of view to portray how the people in the courtroom perceived Meursault the way they wanted him to act.

Read More
1353 Words | 6 Pages

Eventually, the prosecutor completes his goal of condemning Meursault to death. Before dying, Meursault heavily reflect upon his life. Although never showing signs of faith towards any certain religion, he is accused of being the antichrist and is almost forced by the chaplain to rely on god during his last moments. The chaplain tells him “Every man I have known in your position has turned to Him” (116) At the beginning of the book when Madam Meursault is being buried, Meursault is told that she wanted a religious funeral even though Meursault never remembered her as religious. “While not atheist, Maman had never in her life given a thought to religion” (6).

Read More
869 Words | 4 Pages

Right away the death of Meursault’s mother joined with other very random occurrences seem to be everyday occurrences. Once again I noticed the similarities of the two main characters of the book, acting as if all the events in their lives seem to be normal. Meursault views life so simply, despite its irregularity. This can be seen in the quote in which he talks about life, “I said that people never change their lives, that in any case on life was as good as another and that I was not dissatisfied with mine her at all”. He really exerts no emotion towards anything in this life.

Read More
671 Words | 3 Pages

Evidently, Meursault’s life lacks any higher meaning to human

Read More
724 Words | 3 Pages

Meursault is not an emotional person. Meursault often seems not to react to major events that happen to him. For example when his mom dies, he says, “Really, nothing had changed”(24). There is an obvious emotional disconnect. Either he was not close to his mother or her death had little to no effect on him.

Read More
932 Words | 4 Pages

Through the use of diction, Meursault perceives life is meaningless, which leads him to have the absence of strong bonding with acquaintance around him. He indicates that he lacks empathy from personal and social level. Meursault is a simple man who lives his life in a stickler type and changes annoy him. As the novel introduces Meursault mother being dead, he shows lack of concern and a burden to visit his mother for the last time. “Maman died today...

Read More
779 Words | 4 Pages

At the beginning of the novel, Meursault’s indifference generally only applies to him. However, When Meursault is sentences and meets the Chamberlin his ideology is broadened and Meursault gathers that the world is like him, in the the aspect that is it also indifferent to human life. He figures that there is no great meaning to people’s lives and their actions have no effects on the universe. This realization is the climax of the novel as it is a conclusion of all the events of the novel and allows Meursault to find peace within himself and with the world around him. Raymond can be seen as a cause for Meursault’s enlightenment because he is the main reason why Meursault got involved with the Arab and subsequently why he was put in

Read More
1196 Words | 5 Pages

(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.

Read More
697 Words | 3 Pages

Due to Hamlet’s actions, he lacks meaningful relationships and alienates all that could have saved him and would have pulled him from his insanity. Meursault in Albert Camus’ The Stranger shares a similar predicament. Meursault is an incredibly isolated individual, separating himself from his lover, Marie, his small circle of friends, his mother, and eventually, society and human reason itself. By building his isolation, Meursault creates a lonely life with little purpose.

Read More
1437 Words | 6 Pages

Their inability to connect with him stems from Meursault 's distinctive behaviour that is not influenced by society. This individualism instils dread in the jury. According to society, an individual such as Meursault, who is authentic and not shaped by society, has no place on Earth. And so, because it is a jury, filled with biased humans, that convicts the defendant, there is injustice in the justice system. As a result of the fallibility of the court of law,

Read More
1210 Words | 5 Pages

Analyze how the interpersonal relationship between Meursault, his mother, Marie and the judge was used to explore the theme “outsider” in the novel “The Outsider.” In the novel “the outsider” written by Albert Camus the main character Meursault explores the theme “the outsider” and the impacts that it has on society has on Meurault. Shown to the audience through Meursault’s interpersonal relationships with his mother’s friends, his girlfriend Marie and the judge who represents the court of justice.

Read More
1491 Words | 6 Pages

The trial teaches Meursault to commit his wrongdoing and is aware of how each person has a different interpretation about him. It was hard for Meursault to

Read More
1351 Words | 6 Pages

(A) What gives Meursault a sense of peace at the end of the novel? / At the end of the novel, Meursault accepts the idea of death and the fact that human life has to end eventually. This makes him come to term with his execution. (B) People think of Meursault as as a “social monster.”

Read More

More about Empathy And Resilience In The Stranger, By Albert Camus

Related Topics

Open Document