Deny Suicide In Meursault, By Raymond Camus

At the very beginning to the novel Meursault decides to take a proactive existential approach to life: deny suicide and create his own meaning. Only halfway through the novel Meursault starts to utilize his complete freedom, thus he creates a passion and begins to realize the only pleasures in life he can create are the ones he omits. Camus often talks about freedom being the moment of consciousness but contentness; one becomes free when they accept the absurd and find a passion. Meursault’s friend and neighbour, Raymond, is known as a pimp around the city, and invites Meursault to a friend’s cottage and Raymond as well suggests he bring Marie with him. While at the beach house, Raymond and Meursault see the Arabs which were following Raymond

Living in the means of his choices he takes control of his life and succumbs to repercussion of his actions on his own terms. Meursault is later sentenced to a death penalty since the community and legal system fear him and cannot comprehend Meursault’s actions, though neither can he. A Chaplain enters his cell and wants to say a prayer for him, but Meursault denies his offer for he believes in no God : “ As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself [...] so like a brother, really [...] I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.” (Camus,110).Meursault is a monolith for the idea of

The idea of absurd is presented to the reader once more as Meursault finds comfort in his death for it indicates that there is no need to wait for heaven since life is the only thing that holds value. From this epiphany he becomes content with the absurd and would live his life over again, not wanting to change a thing as he has proved to himself he led a free life and is happy to depart the world which gave him confliction but freedom. Similarly, in Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, Sisyphus’ passion for life results in him to be condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up and down a hill for eternity, this myth is futile because there is no ending and the character is conscious. In The Myth of Sisyphus Camus writes, “ [When] Sisyphus watches the stone in a few moments whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit.[...] For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his