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Innocence and experience
Innocence to experience
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There are many different emotions that make people do many different things, yet love seems to be the strongest emotion of all. Love is the reason people fight for there country, or why a mother lion protects her young. In the short story “the Rocking-Horse” by D.H. Lawrence we see a little boy use his undeniable gift to help his materialistic mother with money issue. Yet in the book “The Stranger” by Albert Camus we see a man who seems to be lacking love or really any emotion at all to turn into a uncontrollable man with many different ideas about life. These two stories show how a innocent boy who only wants the best for his mother and a sociopath that doesn’t feel the repercussions of his actions spiral into a downward disaster. …show more content…
“Yet nobody said it aloud. The whisper was everywhere, and there for no one spoke it.” (Lawrence 602) In the short story “the Rocking-Horse” Pall, the little boy find out at a young age when he rides his rocking horse he seems to learn the name of the winner of the next horse race. This gift is used to make money at the track. Pall lives at home with his mother and father and two sisters. Pall learns from his mother no matter how hard you try you will never be rich unless you are lucky. Palls father was not very lucky, which made Palls mother sad because she could never have enough money. This gave Pall an idea, he will use his gift to make money and give it to his mother. Palls love Mersola 2 for his mother was so strong, he didn’t care he could never give his mother enough money to satisfy her, he just wanted to try and make her happy. He didn’t want her to know it was coming from him, so he came up with a plane to arrange a lawyer to have him give it to her so she would never find out how he was getting this much money. Yet this greedy mother drove Pall to the point were he ended up dying, yet Pall believe that he mad a difference in his mothers life. “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 anything. Maybe it was yesterday.” (Camus 3) In the book “The Stranger” we see a man completely different the Pall from the Rocking-Horse. Meursault is the kind of man who doesn’t even remember much of his own mothers funeral or ever shed a tear. He is lacking love and emotion from his life all together. He seems to be a man of few or no emotion at all. When going though the story we see how he condones a man beating his mistress and killing another man for virtually no reason at all. This sociopath shows no remorse or love for anything he has done and anyone he has hurt. This is the opposite of Pall from “The Rocking-Horse” who only wanted to help his mother. Meursault did not love anyone but himself. This man hurt and destroyed many peoples lives. This story shows us how love is non existent in Meursaults life. When someone love someone such as a son loving his mother, it is appropriate to show emotion when their mother has passed, yet Meursault shows none. This is a tall tale sign that he has no love for his mother or the man he killed or anyone for that matter. When coming to the end
of Mersola 3 Meursaults life and talking to the prist about life and god, he wanted nothing to do with it. He was ungrateful and didn’t believe in anything. He didn’t know love. These books show the extent of love and also the absent of love. Pall shows how a little boys love for his mother goes as far as getting his mother more money so she can be happy. And Meursault who has no love for anyone but himself can end in a short unlived life. There are many differences between Pall and Meursault such as the relationship they had towards their mother and the love they had. Pall showed his love by giving his mother the money he made and could say he died to make her happy, yet Meursault had not a care in the world for his mother. Love is sometimes a complicated emotion to show, yet these books showed both the extremes in love.
Meursault resists being typecast into an archetypal moral category in many of his deeds and actions. Many of his actions in Part One of the novel help contribute to the fuzzy picture of the character. For example, at his mother's funeral, Meursault does not cry or weep in the typical mourning fashion, but rather sleeps during the vigil and entices one of the other mourners present to smoke a cigarette with him. This would be typically considered "evil" behavior, in the context of the story. He could easily been seen as disrespectful and seditious toward his mother and the established procedures of mourning, which seem to be fairly definite at that era in France. However, this "evil" mold can easily be shaken if one considers that Meursault may be more shaken than anyone else present at the funeral. Considering the other events in the novel, it seems as though he does not have a large capacity for emotion. Based on this, it is not unreasonable to assume that the events leading up to and including his mother's death may have overtaxed his limited scope of emotion, and he was therefore nearly incapable of mourning in the "normal" or expected way for his mother, but rather had to resort to his own, more c...
Meursault doesn’t conform to society such as understanding what we would call normal human emotions such as the emotions of love or death. The reason Meursault may seem disconnected from the felling of love is shown when his girlfriend ask about marriage. Meursault answers without caring by saying “it doesn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to” (Camus, 156). Meursault also show the disconnection of normal human emotions after his mother’s death. “… Maman’s death, but that was one of those things that was bound to happen sooner or later” (Camus, 123).
A man by the name of Thornton Wilder said, “We live in what is, but we find 1,000 ways not to face it,” and to me this quote is saying we live in a world full of tragedies and emotion, but always find a way to stay away from them. In, The Stranger, Meursault suffers from his mother’s death and struggles with finding happiness. This attitude sets up a theme in the story. How he avoids emotions to serious events causes Meursault to think about how a person's life isn’t really important in society. Meursault refuses to think about anything such as fate or God and only believes what he can see. He can only use logic. Whether it is his mother's death, Marie's need to prove her love, or even his killing of the Arab, nothing actually affects his emotions. This quote applies to Meursault because he is a bothered man who can never face his feelings.
In the experimental novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, he explores the concept of existentialism and the idea that humans are born into nothing and descend into nothingness after death. The novel takes place in the French colony of Algiers where the French-Algerians working-class colonists live in an urban setting where simple life pleasures are of the upmost importance in the lives of working class people like the protagonist of the novel Meursault. What is fascinating about this novel is that it opens up with a scene of perpetual misfortune for him through the death of his mother although he seems to express otherwise. The reader perceives this nonchalance as a lack of care. Maman’s death and its impact on Meursault appear in both the very beginning and very end of the two-part novel, suggesting a cyclical pattern in the structure. This cyclical pattern suggests not a change in the moral beliefs of Meursault but rather his registering society’s systems and beliefs and craft meaning in his own life despite the fact that he meets his demise in the end. Camus uses Maman’s funeral to characterise both Meursault and the society and customs created by the society Meursault lives in in order to contrast the two while at the same time reveal how while society changes, Meursault does not. Rather, Maman’s funeral becomes of unprecedented importance in Meursault’s life and allows him to find that nothing means anything in his meaningless world at the time of his death. He finds peace in that.
There is a never ending list of what makes some people amazing story tellers. Some writers have vast imaginations, other writers use the lives of others in their stories and other writers use their lived experiences in order to write moving works of art. Most books, works of poetry and short stories that revolve around lived experiences share a common theme of love, hate or both. As these are emotions that all humans share, However, there are some stories that have far more unique. Stories like “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway. Both O’Brien and Hemingway come from two completely separate walks of life but were both able to write stories using the same theme of emotional and physical
Meursault shows very little love or sorrow at the fact of his mother's death. A normal man would feel pain and regret for not being by her side while Meursault does not even care much about the date she passed away. Immediately on the first page in the novel, we confront the situation where Meursault's mother dies, and he does not care about it. "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 anything. Maybe it was yesterday" (3). Meursault does not bother to call back and find information about his mother. Meursault shows no emotion or care for his mother because he sends her away for someone else to take care of her. During the last years of an elder person's life, they are invited to stay with the family in order to become closer with one another. Meursault could care less as he shows no sign of pain, and goes off to do something else. He resembles a figure where an issue as important as death does come as a priority. "We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men/ Leaning together/ Headpiece filled with straw" (Lines 1-4).
Meursault in the book tries to overcome his emotional indifference within himself. One example shows Meursault emotional indifference against Marie. In this quote, “A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so.” The quote explains how Meursault doesn’t really think about the consequences of other people’s emotions. When he said in the quote it didn’t mean anything to him, it shows he believes human life and emotions are meaningless. He also says I didn’t think so, showing he struggles to comprehend and make his own interpretations on human emotions from Marie and other people. Another example shown is Meursault against his mother’s funeral. In this quote ‘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 anything. Maybe it was yesterday.’ This quote also shows Meursault idea of human life is meaningless. This shows that Meursault believes it doesn’t really matter if his mother died, he’s probably implying that his mother was dying soon...
Most people would say that love is a concept which will always be a mystery to man, because it is so changeable, and therefore it will always be able to fool and distort man’s thoughts. Love can both be happy and miserable, and this makes it very powerful and therefore able to control the entire behaviour of a person. Throughout a lifetime people will unavoidably experience things that will have a certain impact on the individual’s personality as well as further development. These experiences will often become memories that will follow them their entire life. This is also the case in “Mule Killers”, where a father tells his son about the memories he has of the year his son was conceived and his relationship to his father.
Meursault is very much like someone autistic. Autism is a developmental disorder which affects a person’s communication skills, social restrictions and behavior. Like people with autism, Meursault doesn’t know when to show emotions nor think they are important. You can see this pattern in Meursault when he is informed about his mother’s passing. It does not seem to affect him at all and shows this by saying “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know” (Camus 3).
Meursault’s apathy towards his mother’s death, his girlfriend, Marie Cardona, and the Arabic man symbolize a cruel French colonist. The first sentence of “ The stranger”, “Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure”(4), appalls reader by showing Meursault’s unconcern about his mother’s death date. At the funeral, Meursault behaves indifferently which contrasts with the old Perez, “who put on and put off his hat again and again”(11). Conversation between Meursault and his girlfriend also shows Meursault aloofness. “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. Then she asked me again if I loved her. I replied, much as before, that her question meant nothing or next to nothing- bu...
...immediately gives an impression of a lack of emotion towards the demise of his mother. This lack of emotion highlights the existentialist ideal that we all die, so it doesn't matter what life we have while we are alive. We simply exist, as did Meursault. It becomes apparent, as the novella unfolds, that Meursault has acquired an animal like indifference towards society. His interactions with his neighbour Raymond are an example of his indifferences. It never dawns upon Meursault that society does not condone his interactions with the pimp, avoided by his community. Meursault simply acts to fill his time. Being a single man, he has a lot of time to fill, and finds the weekends passing particularly slowly.
... mother, he does not react in a way most people do. He does not cry but instead accepts what has happened and realizes that he can not change it. He goes back and does physical things he would do on a normal day. When the caretaker offers him coffee, he accepts it, he smokes a cigarette and has sex with a woman he just met. Meursault also does not lie to escape death. He refuses to conform to society and lie. He would rather be seen as an outsider than do something that he does not believe in. Finally, Meursault, will not believe in G-d or Christianity just because it is the only thing to turn to before he is put to death. When Meursault decides not to cry at his mother’s funeral, he accepts himself as an outsider. When he is considered an outsider, it does not matter if he is guilty or innocent; at the end of the day he guilty just for being different.
But in the novel, the main character, Meursault, does not show any emotion to his mother’s death. Meursault was not moral, but he was not immoral either. It is because he lacks any emotional feelings. He is detached from the world and he is seen by society as an outcast because of the way he acts. Meursault’s personality can be described as dull and boring.
On the day of the funeral Meursault immediately notices details such as, “the screws on the casket had been tightened and that there were four men wearing black in the room.” Throughout the day he does not display any signs of grief, and hardly seems to pay any attention to the fact that he is at his own mother’s funeral.
Meursault is distant from set plans, ambitions, desires, love, and emotions in general. He has a difficult time with emotions such as regret and compassion. The reader sees the nature of his personality in the first few lines of the novel: "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know." When he hears of the death of his mother through a telegram, he is unattached, and can be considered uncaring.