Topic #1
Jennifer Lumarque AP Literature
Mr. Amoroso
PD: 1
Those who voice truth and honesty carry the burden of a demonized image.Everyone has different views on what truth and honesty are. One may say that truth and honesty are the exact same things. People who are both honest and truthful are almost always ridiculed. When someone shows traits of being both honest and truthful are people that are to find. Even though they may be rare to find these people sometimes can be brutally honest and truthful and don't always meets society expectations. Meursault in The Stranger by Albert Camus goes through his life being ridiculed and being seen as someone who can't meet the social norm and can
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Growing up we are told that “Honesty is the best policy” but in many cases that can be juxtaposed. When certain people are being honest in certain instances it comes off as being brutally disrespectful, but isn’t Honesty the best policy? when Meursault is being honest and truthful he comes off as being detached and disconnected to the world.Throughout the whole book, meursault is perceived as a person without a care in the world.“But if you don't die today, you'll die tomorrow or the next day. And the same question will arise. How will you face that terrifying ordeal? I said I would face it exactly as I was facing it now.”(Camus, 117) when Meursault is talking to the Chaplin, the Chaplin thinks that Meursault is crazy. All while the Chaplin is shocked at the way Meursault is answering, he fails to realize that Meursault is being both honest and truthful. To continue further into the book more of Meursault's honesty and truthful ways are being shown. “He wanted to talk to me about God again, but I went up to him and made one last attempt to explain to him that I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God” (Camus 120). The last bit of this chapter goes on on the way Meursault feels. Meursault's honesty and truth baffle the Chaplain because he couldn't respect how brutally honest and truthful Meursault is
This passage is set before Meursault’s execution with the chaplain entering the scene, and telling Meursault that his “heart is blind”, leading to Meursault to yell and delve into his rant, and moment of consciousness. The passage has a calm in the beginning as if Meursault catches his breath from yelling previously, and he starts to reassure himself that he is not wrong for expressing his views as it went against the public’s religious beliefs, and states that this moment was so important to him that it was if his life was merely leading up to it. Why this particular scene is important to Meursault is that this is an instance where he successfully detaches himself from the world, and begins to deconstruct the world’s ideals as his rant shifts on to focusing on how nothing in life mattered. Meursault describes his gripes with the chaplain’s words as he explains his reasoning as to why the concept of a god is flawed as Meursault saw that everyone was inherently the same, with equal privileges just how often people could express them separated them. The passage continues with Meursault arguing that everyone would be faced with judgment or punishment one day, and explains why his own situation was not significant as it was no different. After that explanation the passage ends with Meursault posing the concept of everything in the world being equal both in wrongdoing and life in general, evident in his example of saying “Sala¬mano's dog was worth just as much as his wife.” Although the passage shows Meursault challenging the ethics and morals that the world around him follows, it does have instances like the end in which we see that the rant is still expression of Meursault's complex emotions, as it is unclear whether it is fear or a...
Life has been defined as the property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism. Further, that very definition from the Webster's dictionary says nothing when it comes to the everyday experiences one faces throughout a lifetime. The experiences one faces makes, breaks, and shapes us into how we act and live. T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" portrays a world in which humans lack connections to each other and to G-d. Similarly, the main character, Meursault, from the short novel The Stranger, by Albert Camus, represents a man who does not feel any condition to anyone or anything. Meursault seems not to have a sense of emotion for the occurring actions in his life, and as a result, Camus pictures him as a senseless man. Many people in society go through life-breaking crisis that takes them several weeks even months to get over, meanwhile Meursault goes through some of the most immense problems during his life, yet he shows little emotion to ward his reality.
... his mother and the idea of God which is again supported by his close relationships. Those relationships are with people who don’t believe in a higher being or who show no true morals. Camus accommodates white with many objects and people, yet purposely excludes Meursault and refers to him as dark. All of these techniques show Meursault as a nonreligious man with potential to harm without remorse. This leads up to his interaction with light where he feels uncomfortable just as he does with God. Meursault’s history and personality lead up to the murder of the Arab, the distraction of the light, and in the end, accusing God, “the light”, for his criminal behavior. Human nature needs moral standards or the world would be as corrupt as Meursault’s life.
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...
In the book he is perceived as a mystery, or someone unfamiliar to those who do not know him, but those close to him adore and respect him, because they took the time to get to know him. Those who are strangers to Meursault have a difficult time understanding him so either try to force their morals or customs on him, such as his lawyer, or they just try to find a label that best fits him, like they did during the court case, or how his lawyer labels him an antichrist. Those within that particular society do this because they fear what they do not know, so they feel they must somehow familiarize themselves with him in order to be content with themselves, but because he brings this frustrating situation to those in the society, they tend to label him negatively. On the contrary those who actually get to know meursault, see the pureness and honesty in him, and they respect that he refuses to be other than himself, and speak nothing but his truth. For example, when Marie asks Meursault if he loves her, he tells her that it did not mean anything but he did not think so. Despite his telling her this she still continues to surround herself with him. This is a display of the light that Meursault provides to the people around him. The only issue with Meursault's character is that he cannot successfully reach everyone in his society with his light, because they are too busy trying to
In Albert Camus’s The Stranger, Meursault, the protagonist, could be seen as immoral if he were judged on the basis of his actions alone. However, through Camus’s use of a first person narrative, we begin to understand Meursault as not an immoral man, but simply an indifferent one. Meursault is a symbol of the universe, and so in understanding him we understand that the universe is also not evil, but instead a place of gentle indifference.
Within The Stranger, Albert Camus includes a passage concerning the story of the Czechoslovakian man. Camus employs this passage not only to foreshadow Meursault’s final fate, but also to emphasize Meursault’s antihero status by creating foils between Meursault and the Czechoslovakian man. The Czechoslovakian man has a brief appearance in the story which plays a large part in Meursault’s emergence as a dynamic character. Meursault’s emotionless demeanor throughout the story distinguishes him as a flat character, at face value, at least. Once he enters prison, he must find ways to pass time, and one of those ways becomes recalling how to remember. The story of the Czechoslovakian man turns into one of his means of remembering, as he reads and rereads this story, memorizing details and forming actual opinions. These shifts within Meursault represent his first real commitment to any single entity, even if that entity exists only to pass time.
.... He wanted to file a legal appeal but he knew they would all get rejected. Meursault was not sentenced to death because he killed the Arab but because of his absence of emotion to his mother’s death. The people wanted him dead because he posed a threat to the morals of the society. But when he accepts the fact that he is going to die he feels a sense of freedom and he looks forward to his execution. By rejecting to believe in God, it shows that he does value any hope of life after death. Then when he accepts his death sentence, he also takes the punishment away from it either. He is neither depressed nor hopeful when it comes to his death, which overall proves how he lacks morality in the story.
In Albert Camus’ novel, The Stranger, the protagonist Meursault is a character who has definite values and opinions concerning the society in which he lives. His self-inflicted alienation from society and all its habits and customs is clear throughout the book. The novel itself is an exercise in absurdity that challenges the reader to face the nagging questions concerning the meaning of human existence. Meursault is an existentialist character who views his life in an unemotional and noncommittal manner, which enhances his obvious opinion that in the end life is utterly meaningless.
The Stranger by Albert Camus was written in 1942. The main character Meursault is indifferent and absurd, and chooses to live day by day. In this novel, Meursault commits a murder by killing an Arab and did not have any further investigation on the crime. However, Kamel Daoud an Algerian writer decided to write a response to Camus’ book called The Meursault Investigation. This novel is about the victim’s brother that was killed in The Stranger by Meursault. Haroun tells his own version of the story from an Arab’s point of view by giving an homage to his brother Moussa. Dead Man’s Share is a detective novel, but also a political novel announcing the excesses of an authoritarian regime. The author also demonstrates his commitment and his affection
...everyone is surrounded by death. Camus explains that life isn’t about what is not envisioned, but it’s about what is evident. Meursault’s feeling of apathy is directly related to his conviction that life lacks necessary order and meaning, “As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope…I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world,” as he awaits his impending death, he finally recognizes that life is the most complex entity in the universe and one only has one life to live, so live it wisely (122). In the end, Meursault changed spiritually because he didn’t concentrate as much on the physical world because while he was in prison, he thought about life’s gifts and (although still atheist) realizes that faith in yourself and life is very important. There is also some irony here; he finally realizes the meaning of live just as he awaits his death.
...ists, Meursault has his own values which are incompatible to the values of the world. Values that would be very significant for most people, such as love for someone or suffering at a parent’s death, do not matter to him, at least not on a sentimental level. He simply does not care that his mother is dead, or that Marie loves him:
Meursault’s boss offers him a position in a new office he plans to open in Paris. Meursault replies that it is all the same to him, and his boss becomes angry at his lack of ambition. Meursault muses that he used to have ambition as a student, but then realized that none of it really mattered. Meursault lives his life almost unconsciously, nearly sleepwalking through a ready-made structure that his society provides him.
Sometimes reading fiction not only makes us pleasure but also brings many knowledge about history and philosophy of life. ‘The Guest’ by the French writer Albert Camus is a short story and reflects the political situation in French North Africa in 1950s. According to this story, we know the issues between the France and the Arab in Algeria, and the protagonist, Daru, refuses to take sides in the colonial conflict in Algeria. This is not a boring story, because Camus uses a suspenseful way to show the character, conflicts and symbol and irony.
Camus writes in a simple, direct, and uncomplicated style. The choice of language serves well to convey the thoughts of Meursault. The story is told in the first person and traces the development of the narrator's attitude toward himself and the rest of the world. Through this sort of simple grammatical structure, Camus gives the reader the opportunity to become part of the awareness of Meursault. In Part I, what Meursault decides to mention are just concrete facts. He describes objects and people, but makes no attempt to analyze them. Since he makes no effort to analyze things around him, that job is given to the reader. The reader therefore creates his own meaning for Meursault's actions. When he is forced to confront his past and reflect on his experiences, he attempts to understand the reasons for existence. At first, Meursault makes references to his inability to understand what's happening around him, but often what he tells us seems the result of his own indifference or detachment. He is frequently inattentive to his surroundings. His mind wanders in the middle of conversations. Rarely does he make judgments or express opinions about what he or other characters are doing. Meursault walks through life largely unaware of the effect of his actions on others.