The Stranger Research Paper

999 Words4 Pages

Ryan Pomeroy
Billy Goehrig
Disc. @10 on Friday
Absurdity in Actuality

Everything you can comprehend is nothingness compared to infinity. How has the human race come to handle such a truth? Passing hopes, dreams, and desires look nothing more than absurd moments in time. A mere blink in the eyes of existence. How could it be possible to justify meaning in such an expansive reality? Is purpose justifiable? There are multiple ways people can exist through life while constantly facing the absurdities in it, these absurdities which can be anything and everything in the world to some depending on the way they perceive it, whether it be living life with irony, or with an indifferent attitude, or by just enjoying what you do in your life, people …show more content…

Throughout many parts of this book Meursault plays things off as if he doesn’t care what is going on around him and that he is just going through life with only the motions, without care or feelings to what happens to himself or to what is going on around him. Many monumental things were happening in Meursault’s life during the course of this book, including the possibility of marriage to the one person that seems to bring any sort of happiness into his life, the possibility of moving to Paris for his job, the murdering of an arab man for defense, and becoming new friends with many people. Though all of this is happening in his life, he always seems to find a way to pass it all off to just go with whatever is happening around him and have no wants or ties to happiness. It’s all just there and continuing on in his life. For example when Marie, Meursault’s lover, asks to get married he states, “Marie came that evening and asked me if I’d marry her. I said I didn’t mind; if she was keen on it, we’d get married” (pg. 41). This solidifies his go with the flow attitude to life, to many this would be a life changing event or at least it would have some sort of emotional value to oneself. This is Meursault's way of how he deals with each of life’s absurdities. His attitude toward things that happen is the events in his life are what they are and life goes on. This doesn’t seem to be the most fun nor pleasant way to go about living around the absurd. Meursault's indifferent attitude seems to work for him as a way to just get through his life and pass all of his thoughts on life’s