...L’Etranger in 1942, Albert Camus’ The Outsider addresses the constrictive nature of society and what happens when an individual tries to break free from the conformity forced upon him by staying true to himself, and following his own ideal of absolute truth and sincerity in every action. Propelled more by the philosophy of existentialism and the notion of the absurd than plot and characters, Camus’ novel raises many questions about life, and answers them in a final chilling climax. The plot of The Outsider revolves around a central act of unmeditated violence on a beach, proving that “the darkest moments can happen in the brightest sunlight”. Meursault, Camus’ protagonist, leads a simple life working as an office clerk in Algiers. He lives as a bachelor, who, as we learn from the first paragraph, has just lost his mother and is preparing to leave for the seaside town of Morengo where she lived in an old-people’s home. The rest of the first section of the novel reads as a diary of Meursault’s life until he murders an Arab whilst away for the weekend with some friends. Part Two deals with the time after Meursault’s arrest for the crime, including his court case in which he is condemned more for not grieving at his mother’s funeral than the actual count of homicide brought against him. It has been said that the plot takes a secondary role in The Outsider to Camus’ expression of his views on existentialism and the absurd. In the character of Meursault, Camus tells the story...
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...The Stranger follows the narration of Meursault a detach man who is on trial for killing a man. indifferent to others view of the world he rather have a different approach to life. The book mainly centers around Meursault and his attitude at his mother's funeral and it is his attitude that digs him into deeper trouble for his crime, because society seems to quickly label him a stranger to the society due to his views on morals and he is condemned to accept his death because he is an outsider. "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal", Albert Camus makes great social commentary throughout his novel by showing the effect of society when they come into the hand of Meursault, who doesn't exactly follow...
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...The Irrationality of the Universe Though The Stranger is a work of fiction, it contains a strong resonance of Camus’s philosophical notion of absurdity. In his essays, Camus asserts that individual lives and human existence in general have no rational meaning or order. However, because people have difficulty accepting this notion, they constantly attempt to identify or create rational structure and meaning in their lives. The term “absurdity” describes humanity’s futile attempt to find rational order where none exists. Though Camus does not explicitly refer to the notion of absurdity in The Stranger, the tenets of absurdity operate within the novel. Neither the external world in which Meursault lives nor the internal world of his thoughts and attitudes possesses any rational order. Meursault has no discernable reason for his actions, such as his decision to marry Marie and his decision to kill the Arab. Society nonetheless attempts to fabricate or impose rational explanations for Meursault’s irrational actions. The idea that things sometimes happen for no reason, and that events sometimes have no meaning is disruptive and threatening to society. The trial sequence in Part Two of the novel represents society’s attempt to manufacture rational order. The prosecutor and Meursault’s lawyer both offer explanations for Meursault’s crime that are based on logic, reason, and the concept of cause and effect. Yet these explanations have no basis in fact and serve only as attempts to...
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...thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters – all that matters, really – is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest – women, art, success – is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.” Is it possible to die a happy death? This is the central question of Camus's astonishing early novel, published posthumously and greeted as a major literary event. it tells the story of a young Algerian, Mersault, who defies society's rules by committing a murder and escaping punishment, then experimenting with different ways of life and finally dying a happy man. in many ways A Happy Death is a fascinating first sketch for The Outsider, but it can also be seen as a candid self-portrait, drawing on Camus's memories of his youth, travels and early relationships. it is...
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...The Concept of the Outsider Literature often persecutes the most vulnerable, a person who lacks support and therefore power within society. Described by Terry Eagleton for The Guardian as the “literary mainstream”; these characters are often referred to as the Outsider due to their exclusion from the community in which the text is set. The characters who are referred to as Outsiders can be portrayed in different ways; their initial exclusion from society can ultimately lead to a narrative of their acquisition of power throughout the text but similarly, can portray a story of their maintenance of the minimal power they have over the course of the text’s plot. However, this is not to argue that some Outsiders presented within literature do not have power over the course of the development of the text so, as a consequence, remain excluded from the society. In this case, the text would then be considered an exposition of the character’s experience from their position in society rather than the author’s attempt of trying to integrate their character into society through their work. Furthermore, the author themselves may be considered an Outsider through their own status in society; they command their readers to be Outsiders themselves within the novel. As well as to read and observe the narrative in order to emulate the same feeling within themselves, within the reader or to have a specific impact on the issues surrounding humanity at the time. The contrast in the ways in which...
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...Major Themes and Symbols by Scott Charles This chapter is a free excerpt from Quicklet on Albert Camus' The Stranger. * * There are five main themes in The Stranger: 1. Alienation. Camus establishes Meursault as an outsider early on in the narrative. The first few pages of the book show Meursault at his mother’s funeral. Meursault watches people and events with no particular connection -- he is distant, feels out of place, feels nervous as he thinks people are staring at him. He does not exhibit any particular sadness at his mother’s death. As the story develops we notice how he comprehends facts but not feelings. He spends more time fixated on trivial physical characteristics than he does on emotional content. He is polite, and passive, but lacks empathy. He is like this throughout the narrative; his character doesn’t really evolve. 2. Time and circumstance. Camus uses some subtle literary tricks to get the reader to imagine that random events strung together are fateful. Meursault’s mother dies, he sees a movie with his girlfriend, he’s walking up a flight of stairs and a neighbor invites him to dinner, a man’s dog goes missing. In between unrelated events like these Camus weaves a simple story about a man who makes the fatal mistake of getting involved with a small-time gangster and ends up murdering someone almost by accident. Camus’ narrative brings the random events full circle as Meursault is convicted for being cold-hearted. In other...
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...The Outsider – Albert Camus Albert Camus presents ideas of identity and the human condition in his classic novel The Outsider, through his exploration of gender and cultural representations as well as an insight into absurdum and existentialism. These concepts of identity and the human condition reflect on the society in which the novella has been set, demonstrating how women, those of other cultures and those who are considered to be different are represented. The novella tells a recollection of events of a young man named Meursault, emotionally detached from a society where he refuses to conform to society’s conventions and in turn a refusal to ‘play the game’. The novella begins with the death of Meursault’s mother and ends with his own, his execution for the guiltless murder of an Arab man. Meursault’s refusal to play the game and willingness to live by his own set of rules is what has him condemned in the end. In the patriarchal society known to the characters of The Outsider by Albert Camus, gender ideologies are explored. In the novella, men are represented as the dominant, powerful gender while women are represented as weak and undermined. It is through the character of Meursault’s girlfriend Marie, that the idea of gender identity is revealed. When Meursault is arrested for the murder of the Arab man, Marie is called to court as a witness to the crime, as well as been questioned for her own character. At the court case, instead of Marie being asked for her recollection...
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...Albert Camus was a French-Algerian writer best known for his absurdist works, including The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. Early Life Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, in Mondavi, French Algeria. His pied-noir family had little money. Camus's father died in combat during World War I, after which Camus lived with his mother, who was partially deaf, in a low-income section of Algiers. Camus did well in school and was admitted to the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy and played goalie for the soccer team. He quit the team following a bout of tuberculosis in 1930, thereafter focusing on academic study. By 1936, he had obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees in philosophy. Political Engagement Camus became political during his student years, joining first the Communist Party and then the Algerian People's Party. As a champion of individual rights, he opposed French colonization and argued for the empowerment of Algerians in politics and labor. Camus would later be associated with the French anarchist movement. At the beginning of World War II, Camus joined the French Resistance in order to help liberate Paris from the Nazi occupation; he met Jean-Paul Sartre during his period of military service. Like Sartre, Camus wrote and published political commentary on the conflict throughout its duration. In 1945, he was one of the few Allied journalists to condemn the American use of the atomic bomb...
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...Throughout the novel The Outsider, Meursault’s strong dislike of human interaction and emotional detachment from society is easily discernable. Significant events in his life do not influence him and he continues to live his life as though nothing of importance happens. Mersault feels indifferent about his engagement and responds to Marie’s marriage proposal with “I d[on]’t mind, and we could if we wanted to” (44). Exhibiting his crass personality, even his own mother’s death has little to no importance to him. Mersault, struggles to recall the day of his mother’s passing, “mother died today[,] [o]r maybe yesterday, I don’t know” (10). His lack of emotion for his mother is extremely shocking and when one of the undertakers asks him how old...
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...In Albert Camus’ The Stanger, Meursault is an outsider basically by choice due to his detached attitude that makes him emotionally indifferent. He is very in touch with his senses, but not his emotions. He experiences his surroundings thoroughly, but does not form deep connections with any of the people in his life. His mother’s death causes no apparent sadness and he feels no strong feelings of love towards his girlfriend, Marie. He seems to be walking through life observing without attachment. The start of the novel shows his extreme detachment from others. At his mother’s funeral the strongest feeling he experiences is a craving for a cigarette. He is almost annoyed by his mother’s friends crying through the night. His behavior is abnormal and it’s Camus’ way of intriguing the readers. As a reader it’s hard to relate to someone who is so emotionless at a funeral therefore the reader wonders Meursault and what caused him to behave this way. Tonio Kröger from Thomas Mann’s Tonio Kröger is different from Meursault because of his frequent experiences of deep admiration for other people. He falls in and out of love with the people he meets. Starting with Hans Hansen as a young boy, followed by Ingeborg in Tonio’s early teens, and then Lisaveta who challenges his...
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...Stranger, Albert Camus portrays his existential theme of the absurdity of the universe through the main character, Monsieur Meursault’s actions and his apparent lack of all human emotion. However, in this novel the reader will find that Meursault is oblivious to the absurd that Camus has falsified, but nonetheless Meursault is affected by the absurd. Camus explores this theme in order to explicate the importance of certain existential realities throughout his novel. For example, Meursault is always seeking logic in an illogical world; in addition, he sees no meaning in any of his interactions or relationships with the...
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...THE STRANGER PART I CHAPTER 1: REACTION TO TONE AND OPENNING BY CAMUS The opening to Camus’ The Stranger, has, ever since the novel’s publication, been a recurring aspect and reference in existential literature. The novel opens to the death of the protagonist, Meursault’s, mother. Her death plays a major role which recurs through the plot, but in the essence of the opening to The Stranger, it already introduces readers to the indifference of the protagonist and the initial tone at which the story is told. From the first paragraph, Camus lets the reader already establish an initial tone; through which he establishes thru many ways. Primarily in the texts structural level, Camus established the tone with the use of short, declarative sentences with no emotion. The narration is done in a matter of fact way creating the detached tone which resonates throughout the whole chapter. The detached tone allows no medium for which emotion is to pass. No matter the event the text maintains this structure of declarative, short clauses bearing no emotion- thus adhering to the tone of detachment. Secondly, Camus also uses digression as a method of establishing the detached tone. Digression serves as a method for Meursault to go to his own world: one he could call his own, with his own norms and beliefs. The motif which recurs as a medium for Meursault’s digression is the weather. This is witnessed initially in the bus trip as he dozes off from glaring at the sky (Pg4). This occurs just pages...
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...continuously a boulder up a hill, only for it to inevitably fall right back down every single time he reaches the top. While these two scenarios may seem to be completely unrelated, they are in fact only separated by one distinct difference: consciousness towards their situation. In “The Myth of Sisyphus”, Albert Camus asks us the fundamental question of whether or not life is worth living once man discovers that life is absurd. Camus defines absurdity as a futile search for the meaning of our existence. It seems to me, that there are only two ways of handling life once one has come to the realization that life is absurd: We can act like the man stuck in a monotonous daily routine, believing that there is no reason for living, bringing him one step closer to suicide, or we can act like Sisyphus, a man Camus describes as an absurd hero, a man who despite being condemned to an absurd task, redeems himself by making the choice to revolt rather than kill himself. (http://thecynicalgirl.com/the-myth-of-sisyphus/ ). I believe that to survive in this absurd and meaningless world, one must act like Sisyphus, one must own their fate, stay determined, and never ask the question of “why?” Camus states in the “Myth of Sisyphus” that he is intrigued by Sisyphus’ ability to continue with his absurd task. He says, “It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured...
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...approach to life. Paragraph How the characteristics of hard-boiled fiction relate to The Stranger by Albert Camus can be seen easily throughout the entire story. Knowing that this form of writing was widely popular during that time period where dark fiction promoted readers to dive into a world where conventional attitudes and ways of life were being contradicted. This novel achieves the contradictions of a hard-boiled fictional piece and targets masculinity making it play a large role in the reasoning behind events. Firstly the male centeredness along with the hostile and violent environment typical of hard-boiled fiction is portrayed in The Stranger using the characters of Raymond and Mersault himself both showing different versions of male violence within the environment of the story. Raymond, a domestically violent individual who believes women who cross him deserve beatings as a form of punishment, perfectly sets the brutal theme that later leads into Mersault’s crime of murder. “The sun glinted off Raymond’s gun as he handed it to me.”(Camus 56) Raymond provides the hostile and violent environment in the story. The isolation and alienation of characters are present through Mersault’s behavior and attitude towards some of the other characters. “As always, whenever I want to get rid of someone I’m not really listening to, I made it appear as if I agreed.” (Camus 69) The attitude that...
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...Existentialism can be defined as a philosophical and literary tendency that typically displays a dismal of abstract theories that seek to disguise the untidiness of actual human lives and emphasizes the subjective realties of individual existence, individual freedom, and individual choice. Runaway by Kanye West is a great example of this philosophical theory and many connections can be made to his work and the work of Soren Kierkegaard, Franz Kafka, and Albert Camus. These four artists apply existentialist themes in their literature and even their private lives. The two themes that I found preeminent in these artists work are isolation and death. The four artists have a very philosophical cohesion between them. They all have a sense of isolationism in their works which makes their creations so unique. In Runaway by Kanye West, a phoenix falls to earth like a meteor and doesn’t know where she has ended up. The phoenix attempts to fit in with our society but she doesn’t know how to act in front of all these people so she is isolated. When the phoenix is at Kanye West’s dinner party, she sees a turkey that is about to be served for dinner and she is shocked and shrieks obnoxiously in front of all the guests and they look at her very differently and isolate her. In Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Gregor Samsa is portrayed as a bug and people look at him very differently. Gregor is isolated in his home and can’t leave because he doesn’t want his parents to look bad. “During the day...
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