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Moral and ethics in a few good men
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Are people evil or is their behaviors that or evil? I believe that people are evil because you can control your action and how you act towards other people. “I fired four shots more into the insert body on which they left no visible trace” (Pg 59). I feel that Meursault should have handled it different and not have shot the Arab because the arab could have had a family and he didn’t know. No One has the right to take a man’s life because you never know how it will affect the family. Meursault didn’t have to shot the arab four times all that was uncalled for and very childish of him. “I told them I’d kill an arab and they kept mum for a while” (Pg 72). Meursault didn’t have to say that to them. All the arab did was look at him when he
Evil can be a scary thing many things can influence on why a person may be considered evil or do evil things.People do things because they were influenced by others or by their own selfish desires,
Chapter 6 of part I of The Stranger concluded with Meursault’s conscious decision to shoot an Arab because of the physical discomfort the Arab’s knife caused him. The significance of the ending of part I is that it was the first demonstration of Meursault’s awareness of the possible consequences of the act that he committed. This awareness continues into the second part of the novel as he is arrested and trialed. The reason for Meursault’s trial is the murder of the Arab. His insensitivity towards Maman’s death and lack of a social conscientious are factors that contributed to support further investigations, but are not reasons to trial him because they have not ‘harmed’ society on a way that he could be arrested for. For example, if Meursault
There are two kinds of evil, moral and natural. Moral evil is things like murder, rape, stealing, terrorism, etc. Natural evil is things like suffering and unpleasantness typically as a result of moral evil. Evil is that which has no power of its own. Evil is darkness, a negation of light. Its power is in us, in our fear of it, in that we consider it a "something" worth responding to.
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.
Meursault gives simple nonliving objects authority as a way of excusing himself for his negative actions. At the point where Meursault goes back for the Arab, he consistently sets everything in place – everything besides himself. Beginning with the first sentence of the passage, Meursault realizes that he can overcome the situation simply by turning around and walking away. However, he refrains from finding fault with himself, and turns it back to the beach as “the whole beach, throbbing in the sun, [is] pressing on [his] back” (Camus 59). Because he gives the beach control over an actual living object, Meursault continues with his actions. Not only does he deflect blame from himself, but he also desists from turning completely against the Ar...
... purge his guilt. Thus, when man believes in a divine being as the whole reason of his existence, then when his belief is put into question, his entire existence in questioned. Thus, people are incapable of living up to their religion. The irony in this novel lies in the fact that by killing and condemning Meursault for his “insensitivity,” he his defying social constructs, because Meursault never would have been on trial is he had not killed the Arab man, which is the very thing that the French are doing to the Arabs: killing them. By condemning Meursault for his crimes, the French are actually condemning themselves. Furthermore, his epiphany that we are all equal illustrates Camus’ opposition to the French oppression over the Algerians. Only through the realization of the gentle indifference of the world will we begin to sort through the violent absurdity of life.
The trial portrays the absurdist ideal that absolute truth does not exist. This ideal destroys the very purpose of the trial, which seeks to place a rational explanation on Meursault’s senseless killing of the Arab. However, because there is no rational explanation for Meursault’s murder, the defense and prosecution merely end up constructing their own explanations. They each declare their statements to be the truth, but are all based on false assumptions. The prosecution itself is viewed as absurd. The prosecutor tries to persuade the jury that Meursault has no feelings or morals by asking Perez if “he had at least seen [Meursault] cry” (91). The prosecutor then continues to turn the crowd against Meursault when he asks him about his “liaison” with Marie right after his mother’s death. Though Meursault’s relationship with Marie and his lack of emotions at his mother’s funeral may seem unrelated to his murder, the prosecutor still manages to convince the crowd that they are connected to one another. The jury ends up convicting Meursault not because he killed a man, but because he didn't show the proper emotions after his mother ...
decisions. Such decisions can be based upon actions and people often do heinous acts due to strong emotions; however, Meursault does not show the normal response that is often required for his crime of murder, such as guilt. Guilt has several definitions, but the most common being the “[r]remorseful awareness of having done something wrong.”(American Heritage Dictionary) Meursault, who is shown to fail at employing empathy for most events in life, often does not try to conceal his true thoughts on subjects. This is seen when Meursault, along with his lawyer, prepare for his trial. Meursault states, “[My lawyer] asked if I had felt any sadness that day... He thought for a minute. He asked me if he could say that that day I had held back my natural feelings. I said, ‘No, because it’s not true.’” (Camus 52) His statement upsets his lawyer since Meursault’s answer does not fit into the social norm of grief. In accordance to the Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature, “In the last hours he spends with his mother, he sleeps, rather than doing what might be expected of ...
One of the most popular questions humankind have always wonder is if humans are born evil, or good, or just blank. It may seem like a very simple question but once the person has thoroughly analyze every possibility it might just change their mind. A human is evil from the time they are born, but as they grow up each individual will make the choice in letting their evil side be shown or hidden inside them. Everything the person is exposed to in everyday life can make a bigger impact on them. On the other hand if the person sees themselves as “purely good” they can still have that evil side which can be provoke or influenced. Evil is always in a human but its up to the person if they want evil to control his or her life.
...e murder to his present state at the police office. Camus effectively allows uncertainty of details from the plot to delineate Meursault.
After Meursault had no emotion when his mom died he continued having no emotion later on in the novel, when he murdered a man whom he shot several times while at a friend's beach house. Meursault then had a trial because of the life he had taken, but he did not seem to care that he would be going to jail and could be executed. When he got in jail he had told himself “and I decided that, if ever I got out of jail, I'd attend every execution that took place" (Camus 138). This line in the novel shows the reader how cold hearted Meursault really is that he would go watch criminals die if he ever was a free man once again. Meursault discusses his guilty feeling with himself while in jail but realizes guilt is an emotion and wishes to lose that feeling. "I was saddled with a load of guilt, of which I must get rid" (Camus 148). Albert Camus continues to show the reader the little emotion the narrator has by including his selfishness and also never sparing anyones feelings or beliefs. “I went close up to him and made a last attempt to explain that I'd very little time left, and I wasn't going to waste it on God. I hurled insults at him, I told him not to waste his rotten prayer on me" (Camus 151). Meursault also shows his selfishness when he states "almost for the first time in many months I thought of my mother." (Camus 153). In the last couple
When asked if he believes in God during his trial he says no. This causes an uproar in people’s opinions of him and they think he is crazy. But people failed to see he is a person who practices absurdism. An absurdist believes that religion is a social construct made to give meaning to something senseless. This is interesting coming from a man who lives in France. The most practiced religion in this area is Christianity. It’s also not that Meursault hates religion, but he doesn’t like it forced upon him. When he gets put in a cell with the, Chaplain he tells the man he is living the life of a dead man. He refuses to spend his last minutes before death on God. Meursault conveys an atheist persona, and in this French culture it appears as though he has a bad personality. Once he says he does not believe in God, people do not see him as a sane man anymore and push him more on the guilty
The first time they met these group of guys, they were fighting at each other, but nothing serious happened. As Meursault went back to the beach for another walk to get away from everything, he met along one of the guys. They were going back and forth when he pulled out a knife on Meursault who then pulled out his gun. He explains, “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” (76). Him doing this also relates back to the thesis. He killed someone and didn’t even feel any regret or anything and he didn’t even know him. Showing the level of violence in this book it reaches.
With the belief that justice is served upon death, Meursault serves his sentence for being indifferent about Maman’s death, loving Marie, killing the Arab, for living. According to Meursault, life was just “killing time” until he reached his final destination. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, society believes that Meursault’s condemnation was justice for his crimes, which were for lacking care for his mother’s death and for the murder of the Arab man. In the end, Meursault’s search for justice finally eradicated his title as a “stranger.” Both his definition of justice and society’s definition of morality reached the same conclusion, which caused Meursault to finally be part of society rather than a “stranger.” Both he and society believed that his justice was
His reluctance to get involved in defending himself results in a verdict of death by guillotine. Had Meursault been engaged in his defense, explaining his actions, he might have been set free. Meursault's unresponsive behavior, distant from any apparent emotions, is probably reinforced by the despair which he sees open and feeling individuals experience. He observes, for example, Raymond cheated on and hurt by a girlfriend, and sees his other neighbor, Salamano, very depressed when he loses a dear companion, his dog. Meursault's responses are very different, he doesn't get depressed at death nor does he get emotionally involved.