In the words of Joseph Roux, “Solitude vivifies; isolation kills” (BrainyQuote 1). Albert Camus’ explores existentialism in his novel The Stranger. He fabricates an insulated, neurotic pariah named Meursault. Meursault exemplifies many deplorable, condescending characteristics that society finds aberrant, which eventually leads to his demise. Alienated, isolated, and truly a “stranger”, Meursault, in Albert Camus’ The Stranger, confirms his inevitable quarantine from society through his scrupulous actions, thoughts, and words.
Indubitably, Meursault embodies “strange” characteristics. Only coming out of his sequestration, to attain what he needs. The reader notices Meursault’s oddities through his actions. In the beginning, Meursault reveals his ambivalence towards his mother by not visiting her. He clearly states her inconvenience,“… not to mention the trouble of going to the bus, getting my ticket, and spending two hours on the journey each way” (Camus 2). Throughout the novel, Meursault pursues his physical necessities. In blunt terms, he sleeps, eats, has sex, and breathes. Furthermore, Meursault swims in the water or ocean constantly throughout the book. The ocean symbolizes Meursault’s subconscious desire to be free as water or ocean resembles freedom. Lastly, the catastrophic
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action that leads to Meursault’s demise occurs as he shoots the Arab not once but five times. Meursault describes the scene vividly, latching on to every detail of his action: Every nerve in my body was a steel spring, and my grip closed on the revolver.
The trigger gave, and the smooth underbelly of the butt jogged my palm. And so, with that crisp, whipcrack sound, it all began. I shook off my sweat and the clinging veil of light. I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy. 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)
Meursault’s inability to see what he had done and continuing to shoot the Arab shows his aberration. His merciless actions fortify his
estrangement. Moreover, one’s thoughts unveil his or her secrets; they unveil one’s true self. Nonetheless, Camus imbues Meursault’s character to have very short, meaningless thoughts. Meursault consistently reminds the reader of his indifferent nature and his casuistry through his thoughts. Without a doubt, the scene where Meursault interacts with the priest shows Meursault’s sudden outburst not only in his actions, words, but prominently in his thoughts. He thinks to himself, “Nothing, nothing had the least importance… What difference could they make to me, the deaths of others, or a mother’s love, or his God…” (Camus 75). Meursault’s revels to the reader his existentialist crisis. This bewildering stream of consciousness merely confirms Meursault’s adamant nature about keeping himself isolated. And at that moment, Meursault’s realizes that himself; he wants to know that everyone hated him as he was executed—as a final confirmation for his seclusion. Moreover, Meursault’s constantly utilizes phrases like “nothing” or “I don’t” or “I didn’t” which signify nothing; nonetheless, portraying the emptiness with in him and his mind. In addition, he thinks in short sentences, not revealing much like as if he wanted to keep himself a “stranger”. Lastly, Camus does not incorporate a lot of dialogue throughout the novel; specifically, there is little to no dialogue from Meursault. Meursault’s thoughts mirror his words. In the book, he usually speaks using one, two words or merely a yes, no. Nevertheless, during conversation, where one expects a more emotional or lengthy response, Meursault’s replies are short and show no empathy. When Meursault has longer conversations with people, Camus writes in the person’s dialogue but excludes Meursault’s and describes his response. This creates the aura of alienation because he distances himself from the reader. Therefore, Meursault not only alienates himself from society but from the reader as well. In the abstruse finale of the book, the audience does not read of Meursault’s execution but the events leading up to it. Camus development of Meursault’s character through his actions, thoughts, and words give the lasting impression of a stranger. Leaving the reader wondering whom Meursault really was.
Meursault, an unemotional, a moral, sensory-orientated character at the beginning of the book, turns into an emotional, happy man who understands the "meaninglessness" and absurdity of life by the end of the book. Meursault realizes that the universe is indifferent to man's life and this realization makes him happy. He realizes that there is no God and that the old codes of religious authoritarianism are not enough to suffice man's spiritual needs. One has to create one's won meaning in an absurd, meaningless world.
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.
... if Meursault has been keeping this anger pent up inside him, and reveals the passive aggressive tone in his slow pacing; the reason the tone in the slow pacing is passive aggressive is that although it seems calm at first, if Meursault was truly fed up with the way the chaplain judged him then he has no reason to be calm, and it was merely a formality to try and keep his usual composure, so by shifting into the fast pace questioning we can almost visualize Meursault’s teeth grinding when he says “I had done this and I hadn't done that.” What this leads us to question is whether this moment of letting loose is Meursault finally not avoiding the “dark wind” that had been rising toward him, since describing it in such a manner makes have an ominous presence that is unpleasant, and by expressing his gripes with the world around him he can die with a clear conscience.
In the late 1940s, Europe began to recover from World War II- the deadliest global phenomenon over economic, political, and social thoughts. Adolf Hitler, the invincible leader of the Holocaust, in which the European Jewish population was blamed and executed for Germany’s economic debacles, was a Christian. Although, he honored his manifest Aryan race rather than religion. In other terms, he disregarded his mother’s teachings of Catholicism and believed purebred Aryans were the master race in the world with ideal physical and mental features (qtd. in The Earth and Its Peoples). In The Stranger by Albert Camus-a French philosopher, journalist, author, and Nobel Prize winner of 1957, Meursault struggles to find the meaning of human life while Hitler destroyed humanity. The book covers less than a year’s span in the early 1940s during World War II in Algeria , which was under Nazi, or Axis, control. Scarred by the warfare of Operation Touch, where the Allies (Great Britain and the United States) launched offense, Algerians attempted to resuscitate their country and people. The middle aged protagonist, Meursault, has no ambitions or formidable thoughts on life while he disregards World War II. Camus does not imply why, but Meursault has always isolated himself by living alone on the basic
At the beach with Raymond, the sun provokes Meursault to commit a crime. He says, "(the sun) shattered into little pieces on the sand and water." While going to get a drink of water, the foreign Arab uses a knife to shine the sunlight in Meursault's face. Meursault knew that all he had to do was turn around and walk away. His emotions (again not shown externally and reserved) took over. Camus states, "All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, instinctively, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes." This strong imagery forces Meursault to fire and kill the Arab with a revolver. What makes it worse, he fires four more times to make sure the sun is dissipated for good.
In many works of literature, a character conquers great obstacles to achieve a worthy goal. Sometimes the obstacles are personal impediments, at other times it consists of the attitude and beliefs of others. In the book The Stranger by Albert Camus, shows the character Meursault who is an emotionless character that let’s other people show their opinions and emotions into him, giving him a type of feeling even if Meursault doesn’t care. Meursault is a victim of emotional indifference between his friends and social indifference. This essay will be about the character’s struggle that contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
Albert Camus’ The Stranger offers one man’s incite into the justice of society. Monsieur Meursault, the main protagonist in the novel, believes that morals and the concept of right and wrong possess no importance. This idea influences him to act distinctively in situations that require emotion and just decision, including feeling sadness over his mother’s death, the abuse of a woman, and his killing of an innocent man. In these situations Meursault apathetically devoids himself of all emotion and abstains from dealing with the reality in front of him. When confronted by the court over his murder, he reiterates his habitual motto on life that nothing matters anyways, so why care? His uncaring response inflames the people working within the
Albert Camus is a skillful writer noted for showing aspects of culture and society through the depiction of his characters. In The Stranger, Camus illustrates the existentialism culture and how that comes into play in the life of the protagonist Meursault. The Stranger, as suggested by the title, is a novel revolving around the protagonist, Meursault, who is a stranger to the French-Algerian society as he challenges its values. Camus vividly portrays Meursault’s journey through the use of imagery, irony, and symbolism. In The Stranger, Albert Camus uses the minor character, Raymond Sintes, to illustrate the contrasting nature of Meursault and how his friendship with Raymond leads to his downfall.
The emotionless anti-hero, Monsieur Meursault, embarks on a distinct philosophical journey through The Stranger. Confident in his ideas about the world, Meursault is an unemotional protagonist who survives without expectations or even aspirations. Because of his constant indifference and lack of opinions about the world, it can be denoted that he undergoes a psychological detachment from the world and society. It is through these characteristics that exist in Meursault that Camus expresses the absurd. Starting from the very first sentence of the book, “Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.” (Camus 1) The indifferent tone from these short sentences convey a rather apathetic attitude from Meursault’s part. Not only does he not feel any sorrow, he also “felt like having a smoke.” (Camus 4) Communicating perfectly Meursault’s disinterest, “[he] hesitate, [he] didn’t know if [he] could do it with Maman right there. [He] thought it over; it really didn’t matter.” (Camus 4) The death of his mother prompts an absurdist philosophy in which he experiences a psychological awakening and begins to place no real emphasis on emotions, but rather on the physical aspect of life.
...able option. Camus’s main character, Meursault, embodies this third option; by accepting his circumstances and being indifferent to them, Meursault is able to break free of all possible causes of anxiety and find happiness. Furthermore, Meursault’s rejection of religion as belief, his acceptance of the “benign indifference of the universe”, and his acceptance of his circumstances all leading to happiness personifies Camus’s take on Absurdism, the philosophy that Camus is trying to depict in The Stranger (76). By using foil characters to contrast Meursault in actions or personality, Camus creates several polarizing situations, making Meursault the extreme epitome of Absurdism in every contrasting relationship and thus, shining light on his ideology in the process.
Camus’s absurd philosophy asserts that the events of the world have no rational order or visible meaning. The story of the returning son murdered by his mother and sister is a perfect example of what he is trying to show us in The Stranger. There is no reason for the son to have died. His terrible, ironic fate is not compatible with any logical or ordered system governing human existence. Like Meursault’s killing of the Arab, the son’s death is a purposeless, meaningless tragedy that defies rationalization or justification. Now because of the murder Meursault is put on trial the following summer and while he is on trial, Meursault comes to understand that his failure to interpret or find meaning in his own life has left him vulnerable to others, who will impose such meaning for him. Until this point, Meursault has unthinkingly drifted from moment to moment, lacking the motivation or ability to examine his life as a narrative with a past, present, and
I, Albert Camus, am a famous French author who had written The Stranger in 1942. I was born in Algeria, and my experiences there had deeply influenced my thoughts, my work, and my philosophies. The Stranger strongly represents my philosophy involving the absurd and existentialism. When I was twenty-five, I moved to France and joined the resistance movement during World War II. After the liberation from Nazi Germany, I became a political journalist and a columnist for Combat, a French newspaper. In 1947, I retired from my journalist career and continued to write fiction and playwrights for the theatre (Simpson). Although I primarily consider myself a writer instead of a philosopher and I deny being an existentialist, the philosophy I most agree with is indeed existentialism. As one will find in my novel, The Stranger, the main character Meursault views the world and situations through an outside perspective, extreme detachment, and a lack of empathy. His characters tend to view the world as an outsider because I personally grew up in many groups
An existentialist represents their choices throughs their actions, opposed to with their words (Corbett). Therefore, someone who expresses the ideals of existentialism may be a threat to society because of their differences in morality compared to others. In The Stranger, by Albert Camus, Meursault was always looking to find meaning in his life because of everything that was happening to him at the time; and that is a key characteristic of someone embracing the ideals of existentialism. Sadly, through Meursault’s search for his inner meaning, he ended up taking the life of another man with very little realization of what he had done. Throughout The Stranger, by Albert Camus, Camus portrays
... defined as a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts. It also emphasis upon man’s creating his own nature as well as the importance of personal freedom, decision, and commitment. This whole theory is displayed in The Stranger through a character named Meursault whom continues living life through the choices he has made and as Camus states life is absurd and Meursault agrees because he see’s life as an unexplainable place and he seems to stand out from the rest of the crowd because he views things differently and thinks unusually than others. He beats to his own rhythm and agrees that life is what one makes out of it. Existentialism is creating your own life.
Albert Camus wrote The Stranger during the Existentialist movement, which explains why the main character in the novel, Meursault, is characterized as detached and emotionless, two of the aspects of existentialism. In Meursault, Camus creates a character he intends his readers to relate to, because he creates characters placed in realistic situations. He wants the reader to form a changing, ambiguous opinion of Meursault. From what Meursault narrates to the reader in the novel, the reader can understand why he attempts to find order and understanding in a confused and mystifying world.