Evil Acts Of Evil: Good Or Evil?

Throughout history, the concept of evil has been questioned and challenged by many. Philosophers, authors, and psychologists have tried to determine what evil is through literature and experiences. In British literature, stories such as Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Macbeth attempt to show the human concept of evil. These stories provide characters and circumstances to describe the motivations behind performing evil acts.

A connection I can make with all of these quotes is that they all affected Meursault. The color red, sun, and the heat all affected Meursault 's thought process and his actions. He does not know this, but these quotes will affect him in the current situation and in the future. The first motif is the color red. In this novel, the color red has the symbolic meaning of blood and love. The few times the color red is mentioned, it was either on Marie or on the sand. The red on Marie is a red and white striped dress that Meursault loved seeing her in. The dress appears two times in the text, before the shooting and after the shooting. Each time he sees her in that dress, the feeling of lust erupts from him. The red in the sand connects to the blood

Meursault has an absurdist attitude toward his world inside of his mental and physical world. Meursault blames his rash actions on the world and environment. At Meursault’s trial, after he killed the Arab, he defended himself by saying, “it was because of the sun.” (Camus, 103) Meursault actually believed that the sun made him kill the Arab man. In The Stranger, the sun is the main antagonist. It vindictively attacked Meursault and caused him to act the way he did. Meursault claims that he didn’t intend on shooting him, but the sun blinded his thoughts and his ability to think and reason quickly and rationally. The environment parallels the Gods in the myth of Sisyphus. The Gods are stubborn, harsh, and irrational, just like the environment. Neither of them have good intentions for the protagonist, yet both protagonists eventually overcome them and absurdly prosper. Meursault’s external world has rational order, but the world inside of his head doesn’t have any order whatsoever. His external world contains his occupation and things that he does on a daily basis, which seem to be scheduled and orderly, but the world inside of his head is disarranged. With what appears to be a hectic life, Meursault doesn’t seem to realize, because a vast majority of his physical life is so scheduled. It is routine to him. But, his mental life is disorganized. Meursault constantly has varying thoughts dancing around his mind, one of which is the environment. The environment is behind all of Meursault’s struggles and problems in his mental world and interferes with his physical world as well, causing him to think that the world is irrational. Holden’s attitude toward the world is particularly similar to Meursault’s because nihilism and absurdism are quite similar. Both believe that the world is irrational and out to get them. The only difference between the two is that Meursault discovers that even though he believes that the world manipulated him and demanded to kill the

This is not the case, we are let down because we expected Meursault to act/be a certain way. We expected something, Meursault has not expected anything out of his life. Therefore, he has never been disappointed. Meursault has a meeting with the chaplin, who insists that Meursault asks God forgiveness. This causes Meursault to get frustrated because he did not believe in God and did not want to be pushed to believe something he doesn’t. Also, Meursault doesn’t lie because he doesn't feel the need to, so he is digging his hole deeper and deeper instead of helping himself. He believes that whatever happens is suppose to happen and he can’t change or control his life. Meursault fully accepts the absurdist idea that the universe is indifferent. This is a way that Meursault is compared to the universe, they are both indifferent. Meursault realizes that nothing he does will effect the universe, nothing will change when he dies. At the end of the novel, Meursault reaches an emotional realization which comforts him while he's on death row. He realizes that although he is about to be executed, it didn’t

This irrationality is apparent in the events leading up to Meursault’s murder of the man. From the very beginning, Meursault’s decision to head for the beach where he will eventually kill the man is random and meaningless as “to stay or to go…amounted to the same thing” (57). At the beach, it seems to Meursault “as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire. [His] whole being tensed and [he] squeezed [his] hand around the revolver. The trigger gave.” (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. Such a zealous search for a logical explanation appears

Raymond and Meursault run into trouble with the Arab which is Raymond ex-girlfriends brother. Meursault describes the day being “The sun was the same as it had been the day I’d buried Maman, and like then, my forehead especially hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing under the skin” (59). He brings his mother’s death and funeral up when talking about the sun. Meursault ends up shooting the Arab four times. “I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of the beach where I’d been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness” (59). Meursault has no remorse, he does not feel guilty for what he did. “I didn’t feel much remorse for what I’d done. That I had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. My mind was always on what was coming next, today or tomorrow” (100). Meursault is a careless person he does not feel guilty for killing the Arab or being sad or guilty for Maman

The battle for existence is what drives Meursault to connect more to the physical world. In The Stranger by Albert Camus, there’s a young, detached man named Meursault living in French Algiers. At the beginning of the novel, Meursault receives a telegram, which informs him of his mother’s death. He acts calm during and after the funeral and frolics around with his girlfriend, Marie. While on the beach with his friends, they are suddenly confronted by Arabs and get into a fight. This fight leads to Meursault going to a murder trial because he shoots one of the Arabs four times and kills him. Meursault shows importance of the physical world when he is at Maman’s funeral, while in a fight with the Arabs and when he is at his murder trial. Meaursault connects more to the physical world rather than to the

Aside from the sun, the issue is also focused on how many times Meursault shoots him, which is not once but, “I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace. And each successive shot was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing” (Camus 39). The court tries to connect this shooting with his mother’s death and attempts to say there are psychological problems. However, he is not remorseful of his crime even after knowing he was going to prison. This behavior is deemed as irrational and detachment from mankind, but Meursault himself inadequate to feeling emotion appears indifferent to the whole

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...I don’t know … everything will have a more official feel” (Camus 3). The use of diction shows Meursault's dispassionate to visit his mother. Through the use of words, Meursault is prevailed as emotionless and complicated to understand as he does not mourn for his mother, but is calm and lifeless. Also, through the work of diction, it reveals that Meursault has an affection towards Marie, but does not have a habit of comforting his feelings for her, but goes with what occurs in present.But the relationship he has with Marie shows that he cannot give women a healthy relationship. Meursault is used to sleeping around with her that he does not value love she provides for him. “A minute later she asked me if I love her… I didn’t think so”(35). He is honest, but is much direct about it, but he cannot love

Evil is a simple word that we learn at a young age and that we understand is bad. However, our youth and innocence prevents us from knowing the weight the word holds. As our understanding of evil develops, we begin to see evil all around us. Although we hold common societal definitions of evil, each person is bound to view evil slightly different from others. Someone might consider alcoholism evil, while others consider it normal: someone might believe racism is evil, while others believe it is natural. Evil is unique to each individual, how people were raised and what they were exposed to will alter their definition of evil. However, people generally agree that homicide, rape, torture, genocide, and terrorism are all evil. Causing agony or suffering is considered evil. Manipulating the weak or manipulating children, in any way, is considered evil. Despite our societal understanding that these acts are evil and that evil is bad, we witness evil nearly every day. This unconformity, these people knowing what is evil yet still doing the evil, cannot be explained simply.

Meursault is an insignificant man living an insignificant life, with no purpose other than to come to peace with his insignificance and thus remove its power over him. He expresses little emotion even when faced with intensely emotional situations. In The Stranger, Albert Camus details a part of Meursault’s life, which, though short, is filled with drastic life events. We see his mother die, his girlfriend fall in love with him, his neighbor threatened and attacked, his own murder of his neighbors attackers, and eventually his conviction and death sentence. Yet in all these events, Meursault remains aloof and ambivalent, with little to no reaction at all. Eventually, before his presumed death sentence, Meursault decides that since life is meaningless

Moreover, in Camus’ philosophy he believes there is no God and his character Meursault depicts this acceptance in the absurd. Meursault talks to a chaplain while he is in prison, and during this talk the chaplain tries to console him and he narrates, “‘Then God can help you,’ he said. … As for me, I didn’t want anybody’s help, and I just didn’t have the time to interest myself in what didn’t interest me” (Camus 116). He sees no value in depending on any external source for meaning. He explains that whatever one does before they die is ultimately irrelevant. Also, throughout the novel his apathy leads to his involvement of a variety of experiences. He agrees to be “pals” with Raymond and even testifies for him when Raymond abuses a woman. He only agrees to these experiences because he cannot see any reason not

Answer: Meursault never asks why because he accepts is genuinely indifferent to all events around him, and views life as meaningless. For example, “But everyone knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t matter whether you die at thirty or seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living -- and for thousands of years” (Camus 108). Meursault believes that because his life is chaos that he cannot control, that he should just go along and not inquire as to why things happen to him. Meursault’s language is very grim and bleak, regarding life. For

What is evil? Evil is defined as being profoundly moral or wicked. I strongly believe that someone is not born evil person becomes evil due to the social background and upbringing. It is an important issue because defective moral hardwiring could potentially be used as a defence in court and this could usually affect the outcomes of critical court cases. For those of you that don’t know, defective moral hardwiring is an argument or defence that people shouldn’t be charged with crimes of the parents for criminals, because they have inherited genes. This means that they naturally born with a distorted moral compass. If lawyers start to use this unjust defence for criminals, then they can get away with murdering, Committing serious offences and

Hinduism is a complex variety of mixed religions. The explanation of evil in the Hindu faith have three major perspectives: the Vedas, Upanishads, and the Epics and Puranas. In the hymns of Varuna, evil is explained as humans not fulfilling their laws or not performing a ritual properly. Those who commit these evil deeds must repent before Varuna. The Upanishads explain karma as the explanation for evil in the world. There is a cycle: karma brings suffering. Suffering is apart of the cycle and never ends. The Epics and Puranas adopt a way that evil is, in a way, a middle way of the two other scriptures. Evil is dictated of karma and the responsibility of other Gods.