Contrasting the Murderers in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Camus' The Stranger

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Central to both The Stranger and Crime and Punishment is a senseless murder, however, the way each murderer feels about his own act of murder is quite different. Meursault in The Stranger has no personal value attached to things he does in life whether it be day-to-day activities or murder. Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, on the other hand, feels that in certain cases values of society do not apply, however after the murder realizes that this is not the case for himself. These differences in thought not only provide more insight on the characters individually, but show that although society helps to guides it is up to the individual, based on values and morals, to decide how to live his or her life.

Through out the novel, Meursault has no personal values attached to his activities....

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