In Camus’ novel, The Stranger, the main character Meursault depicts the absurd man and consequently shows the somewhat negative effect that has on a person. Throughout the novel Meursault is apathetic, detached, and a stranger to society. He embodies the meaninglessness of life through his indifference, he shows the atheistic aspect of absurdism, and indirectly lives by a quantity of experience. The beginning of the novel shows this acceptance and embracement of the absurd. The story starts with, “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: ‘Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.’ That doesn’t mean a thing” (Camus 1). He is introduced by his absurdist attitude and detached place in society …show more content…
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 …show more content…
He focuses on the freedom produced through the acknowledgement that there is no existence of a divine intelligence. Preaching that “existence precedes essence”, one understands that humankind exists prior to a defined nature and one has the choice to determine what humankind ought to be (Sartre 22). Likewise, his commentary also brings to light a more promising tone in Camus’ misanthropic and disheartening novel. He explains the absurd is ultimately an inseparable part of the human condition. In the novel, Meursault is confronting the world with his strangeness as a fully conscious being. Also, Sartre helps explain the passion of the absurd. The absurd man wants to live, even though he knows life has no meaning, and asserts his existence by revolting. Sartre clarifies how the absurd man, “stares at death with passionate attention and this fascination liberates him” (Sartre 78). Life is finite and realizing this creates an irresponsibility because God does not exist and humankind is impermanent, therefore everything is permitted. Furthermore, Sartre explains that the absurd man is innocent, he is neither moral nor immoral. Sartre illustrates innocence by explaining the absurd man is, “Confronted with this ‘quantitative ethic,’ all values collapse…the absurd man, rebellious and irresponsible, has ‘nothing to prove’” (Sartre 78). He has no need for justification and
Minor characters are characters that author used to portray the protagonist's characteristic or personalities in the story to the readers. Although, minor characters are unlikely to be focused on by the readers, but they do served an important role in the story. The Stranger by Albert Camus, basically talks about a man’s death due to the society’s misunderstanding. Therefore, this essay will discuss how the author used Meursault’s relationship with minor characters to show that Mersault is a common man with a tragic end. First of all, old Salamano is one of the minor characters in the novel, where the relationship between he (Salamano) and his dog found special yet complex, he act as a symbol to reflect the relationship between Mersault
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.
He discarded the view that man should be submissive to a “Higher Being” as ludicrous and that man has no excuse for failure except for his own doing, his own strength and nothing to do with “God’s Will”. Meursault’s critical stand led to his branding as a threat to society and order, “Mr. Anti-Christ”. His philosophical views were not accepted as societal norms and so led to him to being
The novel categorizes him as dangerous and evil because Meursault refuses to conform to society’s accepted standards of behavior. Everyone is different and Meursault “refuses to conform to society’s accepted societal norms.” Experiences,
The statement of Jean Paul Sartre (2004) we led with offers a way out of such misguided thinking, words that can remind us of the immensity of human potential and what that signifies for every person. Admittedly, Sartre’s existentialism is a harsh landscape barren of faith or hope beyond this world, yet even in his Godless realm the philosopher has found ground for exercising human freedom in a way that, though atheistic, contains profound insights and wars against any compromise of the human capacity that lies within each of us. The first insight involves Sartre’s conviction that every individual through conscious choice must determine who he or she will become. While Christianity would assert that we would have no choice at all were it not for a God who created us with free will, it would agree that each person, by virtue of that freedom, is called to fashion his or her own truest identity. As Peter Kreeft (1988) delineates, “God makes our what, we make our who.
This would include tracing back his life starting from his childhood, his relationship with his parents, his years as a student, most particularly during his pre-teen years, his love life, the lifelong relationship he had with the Beauvoir or commonly known as the Beaver. Such knowledge of Sartre’s genealogy will serve as the foundation in which why he came to think in the manner that he did. Giving attention on his love life most particularly with Beauvoir, I will draw from there such notions that he had towards love. Love not as filia way but love referring to romantic love, love as eros. In addition to this, his influences on how he formulated his philosophy is important as well.
Sartre Freedom and Anguish: In their belief system we are created for the sole reason that the
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,
“Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” (Camus 1) If someone were to say this in our world, it would be condemned, and the person would be thought of telling a sick joke or having even a mental problem. In reference to an absurd world, though, this usage of extremist ideals about death can better explain the concept and how it is seen by the writer.
In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, the author’s absurdist views of life are reflected through the main character Meursault. The reader follows Meursault from his mother’s funeral to his own death, as he exerts his indifference to the world around him. Camus’s employment of motifs represent Meursault’s consciousness of absurdity in a world where everything fails to retain meaning. Nevertheless, humans still seek value in their lives from surrealalities; absurdities that are incapable of immortalising humans. The motifs of religion, judgement, and death inspire Meursault’s heroism through his sincerity and rejection of these absurd social norms.
People often question the meaning of life, whether it be based upon religion or if life itself contains any meaning at all. The views of the famous novelist Albert Camus contributed to the philosophy known as absurdism. Absurdism is the key component in the story, The Stranger, and is the belief that human existence is purposeless and that is evident by the way the protagonist behaves throughout the novel. A significant event from the novel would be when the magistrate in the story brings out his crucifix and revealed it to the protagonist, Meursault. The crucifix represented the afterlife, society’s acceptance of it, and the main characters search for a higher order.
Introduction In this paper I will be investigating Sartre’s (Cahoone, 2003) ideas on freedom and responsibility against the backdrop of his theory of existentialism. Firstly, I will explain what atheistic existentialism is. The three themes central to this theory are, anguish, despair, and abandonment, so I will also be discussing these concepts, and the roles they play in, and understanding existentialism, and later on, freedom.
(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.
The argument Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher, presents on existentialism helps to prove the foundation which is “existence precedes essence”. Existentialism is normally understood as an ideology that involves evaluating existence itself and the way humans find themselves existing currently in the world. For the phrase existence precedes essence, existence’s etymology is exsistere or to stand out while the term Essence means “being” or “to be” therefore the fundamental of existentialism, literally means to stand out comes before being. This can be taken into many different ideas such as individuals having to take responsibility for their own actions and that in Sartre’s case the individual is the sole judge of his or her own actions. According to him, “men is condemned to be free,” therefore “the destiny of man is placed within himself.”
"The absurd" as he calls it, is a contradiction that cannot be harmonized, and anyone that attempts to are only attempting to escape from it. Like he says, facing the absurd is struggling against it. Camus claims that existentialist philosophers and phenomenologists. They all confront the contradiction known as the absurd but, then they try to escape from it. On the other hand, existentialists do not find meaning or order in existence and then they will attempt to find some sort of meaning in the very meaninglessness.