The Deliberate Stranger Essays

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see" (Thoreau, n.d.). This quote by Henry Thoreau highlights the ability for humans to possess differing perspectives on the same event. While an onerous situation may negatively affect one person, it may have little to no effect on another. In Elie Wiesel's book Night (2006) and the movie "Life is Beautiful" (2000), this reality of differing perspectives is portrayed through the eyes of a father and son as they endure the horrific conditions

Throughout the story of Soldier’s Home, the main character, Harold Krebs, goes through a dynamic change. He starts out as a World War 1 veteran who recently returned home. He wants all the attention as he tells his war stories. He soon realizes that the people around him have lost interest in the stories from combat. He is determined to gain back the attention he thinks he deserves from making lies about the war. Krebs finds that not even his ludacris lies will get him the attention he desires. This

An Examination of Meursault’s Motive in The Stranger Many people who read The Stranger conclude that Meursault’s murder of the Arab was not deliberate because of his passive and apathetic personality within the novel, especially exhibiting emotional indifference to the people around him. His murder of the Arab at first seems to be completely thoughtless and impulsive. It is reasonable to assume that because of his personality, he would not have or develop a motive. However, that could not be

Albert Camus’ The Stranger embodies 1940s French Algeria as it depicts the result of existentialism within a French Christian society. Literature often highlights the values of a culture or society by using a character who is alienated because of creed. The protagonist, Meursault, is an existentialist judged as a pariah and detached from society due to his beliefs. Existentialists have no real meaning in their life and believe that they are free to make whatever decisions they want. Christians believe

“Everything is true and yet nothing is true”: an analysis of the rational and absurd worldviews in Camus’ The Outsider The Outsider is a novel that broadly explores the philosophy of the Absurd, which is the conflict between one’s attempt to search for a meaning of life, and one’s inability to find any. It is different from Nihilism in the aspect that, although one acknowledges that there is no meaning of life, they should not cease in the attempt of finding one. In the novel, this philosophy is

In The Stranger by Albert Camus, there was the theme throughout of the author’s opinion of absurdity; the ludicrousness of the universe and the meaninglessness of human life. He propagated the notion of life not having any coherent meaning and any set mandate. The term “absurdity” defines man’s attempt to put meaning to life even where none exists. Man is constantly trying to prove that life has structure and order according to Camus as he has difficulties accepting that it is otherwise. Camus taunted

One of Connie “trashy daydreams” “Where are you going, where have you been” is a short story written by Joyce Carol Oates in 1966 about a young girl 15 year-old girl named Connie. In the story Connie is boy crazy and very into her looks. She is young and beautiful and because of this her relationship with her mother is strained with jealousy. She is left home alone one day while her family goes to a barbecue and a man by the name of Arnold Friend pulled into her very long driveway and tries to

Fate is often said to be inevitable, have an adverse outcome, or end and free will is the ability to choose at your own discretion. In our everyday life, we make decisions and are often told that life is about making choices. It is because we have free will that we make choices which may lead to positive consequences if the choice is rational and yet other times our decisions lead to negative consequences. Free will plays an important role in Oedipus the King and fate appears in the play but it

Kilgore Trout is one such creation the author keeps employed for some time, and the different ways in which he used indicate Vonnegut’s transition from sub generic formulas to increasingly personal structures, a move paralleling his own change in status from a neglected and virtually unknown write to one of the country’s most famous public spokesmen. In Slaughterhouse-Five Trout’s personal appearance comes almost near the end of the novel but his stories and novels are referred to throughout the

oodbye Lenin!, set in East Berlin during the crash of the Berlin Wall opens up the eyes of viewers to the harships endured in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, which was governed by communist rule. It focuses on the life of Alexander Beyer, a young man from East Berlin. This essay will address the images of Germany, the Germans and the “Germanness” the film presents and the relevance of these images to the present day viewer. The historical context of Goodbye Lenin is the prevailing

ABSTRACT: “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”- Marcus Tullius Cicero Till the time human has life, he is respected but the same ends as soon as the person is dead. There are no rights and no duties regarding the dead. Deceased are considered to be wasteful mass of cells. At earlier times, a lot of importance was connected with them. Some considered them to be next to god or their messenger to almighty. But, today’s money-minded society tries to exploit the dead body to their

Transcendental Singularity Gonzalo Santos, Victor Miranda, Faviola Saucedo, George Garcia In The Stranger by Albert Camus, the protagonist Meursault represents Camus’ atheistic existentialist mindset by depicting emotional and psychological detachment from the world. Not only does Meursault symbolizes Camus’ atheistic existentialist beliefs, he also exemplifies Camus’ argument that “nothing matters.” Meursault’s display of apathy towards societal standards such as his indifference to his mother’s

possible. However in creative writing the laws of grammar do not necessarily apply, and the syntax is allowed to be as colorful and expressive as the author wishes as long as it contributes to the artistic quality of the work. In Albert Camus’s The Stranger, there are many instances where Camus has no qualms about abandoning proper grammatical structure in favor of creative expression. The novel is narrated from a first person point of view, and thus the main character named Meursault’s tone is visible

James Baldwin’s, Giovanni’s Room, tells the story of an American man, David, in Paris, and his relationship with a man, Giovanni. There are large overarching themes of repression and isolation throughout the novel which lend a hand to, David’s, own repression of self. It is immediately obvious to the reader what David is repressing; he cannot admit that he is gay. Baldwin uses imagery of water throughout the novel (a glass of water even being used on some covers) to represent David’s relationship

Camus gives the reader no background or details as to why Meursault shoots the Arab, let alone why he shoots him four times. As the reader, it is hard to analyze the situation because of how natural the occurrence seems. There was no premeditation to his actions and it seems that it was only a coincidence that Meursault had the gun in the first place. When looking at the text it appears that Meursault is shooting at the blade of light reflecting off of the Arab’s knife into his eyes, “the Arab drew

In The Illustrated Man, author Ray Bradbury conceives two similar but slightly different characters. Hollis, from “Kaleidoscope” can be compared with Hitchcock from “No Particular Night Or Morning”. In both of the stories, Hollis and Hitchcock are very argumentative with people who do not share similar opinions. In “Kaleidoscope”, Hollis has a disagreement with Lespere. Hollis is angered by Lespere because Lespere is able to accept his death. Hollis does not understand why somebody would not be upset

The Outsider other known as the Stranger by Albert Campus, a novel about a young man named Meursaults endeavours of his life seen on the outside view of the societal norms through the narration of Meursault. Into the wild by Jon Krakauer, a novel about Chris McCandless “Alex” and his sad end to a life that would have had amazing things happen, through the process of interviewing people that have met him up to his death. Through the process of the novels both established similar characteristics displayed

In his short life of only 46 years, Albert Camus lived through World War I, World War II, and the Spanish Civil War, all of which affected his opinion towards fascism greatly. He saw nazism and fascism run rampant throughout his life, and we can see how he came to hate dictatorship and oppression. Albert Camus was a French-Algerian novelist, essayist, dramatist, and journalist as well as a Nobel laureate, but it was a long ride before he achieved all of this. After his father was killed in WWI,

Reveries of a Solitary Walker by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a detailed musings completed by Rousseau towards the end of his lifetime of his stay on an isolated island. Rousseau describes his stay on the island as “two months as the happiest in his [Rousseau] life,” (Rousseau 2) showing how his experiences on the isle comprise what he deems to be part of the idea of a good life or the best life one can lead. In Rousseau’s description of his paradise, it is “not made up of fleeting moments

people are proficient at, and what we can do. Camus wrote an extensive variety of work including short stories, theatres, essays, philosophical tracts, and tons of novels—throughout his relatively small career he was largely known for his work The Stranger and The Plague. Camus was also known for his charm and success with women. He often hinted at being an ‘outsider” in the world, in his novels (McKee). During his childhood, Camus grew up in Algeria and his family was in poverty. He had a strict,