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Stranger in a strange land literary analysis
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The dark, black sky was covered with a million bright shining stars. The moon shimmered above a small town in the suburbs of London. The gentle wind swept past the bare trees and danced with the leaves below it, creating a colourful array of orange, yellow, red and brown. Across the street, a light was on in a small house where a tall, dark haired woman stood, talking to her two children Nicola and Erin. While she was tucking them in Erin asked, “Mummy, will you tell us a story please?” “I’m sorry but its time to go to sleep now,” she said. “Please mummy,” begged Nicola “Okay but only one story,” she replied “This story is about how I got lost when I was a young girl and how I met an incredible man. It all began when…” “Wake up, wake up!” as the shrill loud shouts echoed through my ears. My eyes, puffy and tired slowly opened, only to reveal a tall and blurry figure standing in front of me. It was the bus driver, telling me it was the last stop. I looked around nervously, no-one was there and everybody had left. I slowly made my way to the front of the bus, staggering across the aisle. As I stepped off, the door creaked then slammed behind me. The engine spluttered and the tyres screeched as the bus made its quick getaway leaving me helpless in the middle of nowhere. The clouds were dull and grey and the light pitter patter of the rain could just be heard above everyone’s voices. My head was still spinning, not knowing wher... ... middle of paper ... ...eeing my family again. I couldn’t wait to get home and tell them all about that man. I only knew him for a couple of minutes yet he was the most incredible man I have ever met in my entire life, she ended. As she tucked her children in they said goodnight to her, she switched off their light and everything went pitch black. She stood outside her children’s door and in line with her vision hung a battered, old guitar. Throughout all these years she had kept it with her, because she knew that never letting go of that guitar meant never letting go of that amazing memory. She just stood there gazing at it, virtually paralyzed, while a single drop of tear, from her brown-chestnut eyes, slowly made its way down her cheek then fell silently on the floor.
In “The Stranger”, the protagonist, Monsieur Meursault, is characterized as cold, uncaring, and emotionally detached. Throughout the novel, Meursault expresses no emotions toward the death of his very own mother, the proposed marriage between the woman, Marie Cardona, who became his lover, and to the actual murder of a man he didn’t know. While the jury at his trial sees him guilty because his uncommon and disassociated demeanor shows that he willfully intended to murder the Arab on the beach, a variety of psychologists would instead diagnose Meursault with Major Depressive Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and Asperger’s Syndrome in order to characterize his indifferent thought patterns. If Meursault is suffering from Major Depressive Disorder, he is unable to function as a normal person would which ultimately leads the jury to believe that he is actually a cold blooded killer. Antisocial Personality disorder, like Major Depressive Disorder, causes Meursault to communicate a disregard for the lives of others and lacks remorse when he harms and even kills the Arab.
About thirty years ago there was a young girl in love with her boyfriend. One day, he convinced her to take their relationship to the next level, telling her how deeply he cared. A couple weeks later, she found out that she had become pregnant, and decided it was best to hide it from him. They kept in close contact over the next few months, and he told her that they would be together forever. When her father realized that she was having a baby without marriage, he made her leave the house until she came back with a husband. When the baby girl was born, she decided to tell the boyfriend about the child, by bringing her to his house. He lived on a small farm right outside town and you had to pass over a small river on a bridge to get back to his house. As she opened the door, she walked in on him with another girl. Filled with anger, (pause) she gets in her car and speeds off. Now she could not return home unmarried and had lost her only love because of this one child. As she looked over at the baby, she is only reminded of her boyfriend and the image of him with the other girl. (tone increases) Finally, she reached the bridge, then slammed on the breaks. She got out and in a moment of rage threw the baby over the bridge to rid her of the baby girl’s troubles. Later that night, the police were tipped off about a murder at the bridge and came to find the girl hanging from the bridge.
Susie’s mother opened the door to let Molly, Susie’s babysitter, inside. Ten-month old Susie seemed happy to see Molly. Susie then observed her mother put her jacket on and Susie’s face turned from smiling to sad as she realized that her mother was going out. Molly had sat for Susie many times in the past month, and Susie had never reacted like this before. When Susie’s mother returned home, the sitter told her that Susie had cried until she knew that her mother had left and then they had a nice time playing with toys until she heard her mother’s key in the door. Then Susie began crying once again.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein takes the themes portrayed in the book and directly criticizes the Western Culture. As Heinlein said, "My purpose in this book was to examine every major axiom of western culture, to question each axiom, throw doubt on it" (Jelliffe 161). These axioms are where feels the Western Culture fails and so he uses the themes to criticize humans of the Western Culture by pointing out these faults. The themes of the story portray this by having Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians, come to earth to teach his knowledge which contradict what the Western Culture feels to be true. "Stranger is a strong-minded work of culture criticism, no doubt about it (Stover 58)." The themes that Heinlein uses are those of religion, sex, and love to make his point of where the Western Culture fails as a whole. Heinlein's writing of his novels after 1961 when he wrote Stranger in a Strange Land, has changed the genre of science-fiction, because he not only wrote about strange worlds and crazy adventures, but Heinlein also tried to include criticism and a message to the reader in his novels to explain problems that he felt humans have. This became Heinlein's writing style after 1957 when he reached the age of 50 and was on the top of science-fiction. Because science-fiction was considered to be for kids, Heinlein began to write more for adult audiences by adding the real problems and criticism into his novel (Drucolli 210). "The publication of Stranger in a Strange Land marked drastic shift in Heinlein's writing, at least in social criticism and controversial subject matter" (Drucolli 227). "As he had done immediately before World War II, Heinlein helped to ...
Strangers in the Land, written by John Higham, is a book about the history of nativism and immigration policy. This book roughly takes place through the years of 1865-1920. World War I happened during this time and that had a significant effect on American’s views on immigration. This was a time of economic crisis and chaos in America.
It was a village on a hill, all joyous and fun where there was a meadow full of blossomed flowers. The folks there walked with humble smiles and greeted everyone they passed. The smell of baked bread and ginger took over the market. At the playing grounds the children ran around, flipped and did tricks. Mama would sing and Alice would hum. Papa went to work but was always home just in time to grab John for dinner. But Alice’s friend by the port soon fell ill, almost like weeds of a garden that takes over, all around her went unwell. Grave yards soon became over populated and overwhelmed with corpse.
Society has always been known to judge people based on their age, sex, appearance, culture and social status. In the second part of the novel “The Stranger” the narrative stile changes and we as the reader no longer see the story developing in front of us, but we read a case, a trial that already happened. Albert Camus is guiding us thru the trial and the state of the defendant with an objective narrative stile, allowing us to make out own opinions about Meursault’s crime and the outcome of his actions.
The Stranger is a story narrated by the protagonist of the novel who suffers alienation from himself and the world. The narration of the protagonist is divided into two parts where part one concern the routine affairs of Meursault as it begins with the death of his mother at the Home for the elderly in Marengo. He is unmoved with the death of his mother and do not observe the funeral rituals as this makes him involve in an affair with Marie, an action that makes the society angry. Part one ends when Meursault is involved with Raymond, who beats his girlfriend and colludes with Meursault to write in his defense and to accuse the woman. Eventually, this leads to more fights where the girl’s Arab brother gets in a fight
The Stranger, a novel written by Albert Camus shows a world were being authentic is impossible. Meursault, the main character, is a strange person from the point of view of society and at the end of the book he is sentenced to death “for killing an Arab.” The society that judges Meursault as a stranger is the representation of our world, and Meursault is a person who tries to live his live following what he thinks is important in life; he is authentic. Meursault lives in a world really different from the real world. At the end of the book it is seen how the prosecutor, a “lawyer” of the state, defines Meursault as a person that is very different from the rest of society. The reason why Meursault is different from the rest of the world is that he doesn’t have the same ideals than society, and the things that society things are important Meursault considers them as unimportant. By having different reasons to live life, Meursault lives separated from society; he lives in a separate world. At the end of the book Meursault is obligated to come to reality. The judgment of Meursault let us see the impossibility of the. Meursault is not only himself but also a representation of the people how try to be different, and the prosecutor and the rest of the society are a reflection of our own world. The whole book is a reflection of our world.
French author and playwright Albert Camus once said, “He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.” In the The Stranger and The Guest this philosophy is expanded on by demonstrating how those who do not conform to society are isolated, and portrayed as a threat to society because of their unique beliefs.
If you could have done everything in a different way, what real difference would that make in the end? This novel shows a young man that gets caught up in a murder. Throughout, “The Stranger”, absurdism, modernism, and decisions helped with the development of this simple, yet profound novel.
clouds were gray, the roads were slick due to a recent rainfall and there was
This old/new bus continued our route, and we all sat quietly, awaiting our stops. Everyone had a tired, almost forlorn look, as though they had been through much more than just switching buses. I did not have any concept of time as the bus chugged along, stopping occasionally to let people off, and all of a sudden I recognized that it was almost to my stop. I jerked out of the stupor I was in as the bus stopped in front of my apartment complex. As I gathered up my things to leave, I looked at my friends and said, "Well, this will make one interesting story at school tomorrow!"
It was 1590 in Austria, still in its Age of Belief, and also still in the Middle Ages.
It was a beautiful sunny morning; you could hear the birds singing in the background. I just woke up after a long sleep. It was now 11am and everyone was awake whizzing all around the house and I wondered what all the havoc was about. I came across my mum and asked, “What was going on”. I got no reply. It was like my mum didn’t even see me if I was invisible. After that I could not be bothered to ask because it looked like another busy Sunday morning.