Humans exist in an irrational universe and despite our circumstances, we continue to venture to make rational decisions. Everyone's meaning of life is distinct from the next. We create our own meaning through the freedom of our existence and choice. In the novel The Stranger written by Albert Camus and TMI (The Meursault Investigation) written by Kamel Daoud both authors attempt to answer the question of the purpose of life through their main characters actions by focusing on questioning human existence, and the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. Meursault and Harun's actions help define and create the self they desire to become (public self). We witness both characters struggling to detect the meaning …show more content…
Those individuals who live by the existential philosophy neglect societal norms abiding by wealth, pleasure, structural and societal values. Instead, they accept their reality of “lack of life purpose” and prefer to live with a day to day approach. In addition, they refuse to accept responsibility and are unable to express gratitude and emotion towards particular situations. Existentialists believe that individuals should hone and treasure every moment because that is all we have. Unlike most of our functioning society, existentialist fail to recognize a greater power. To them, there is no afterlife or anything merely more than our birth following with our death. We have this one shot to be who we are and to develop our interpretation as to why we are placed on this …show more content…
Meursault's opening line explains his mother's death. The reader can quickly interpret, just by reading the first line, the lack of affection Meursault expresses towards his mother. If anything he feels a sense of relief. “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours. That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.” As a reader, I interpreted Meursault reaction to the news as his coping mechanism to accepting his reality. Perhaps it was easier to distant himself from the pain than allow it to engulf him. However, the consensus I have reached was quickly refuted as I continued to read the novel. Meursault feels as though emotion is an accessory to the lives of humans, not a necessity. During several occasions, we witness Meursault's cold hearted selfish nature “A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so.” Because Meursault feels there is no point to feelings and emotional bonds, due to the fact that we are all going to die anyways. Meursault has the habit of pushing the people away who showcase the slightest affection. This explains his solitary lifestyle. In a sense, Meursault fears to open up because he refuses to accept responsibility. With affection comes responsibility and fear of loss “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so
Albert Camus’s work of fiction, The Stranger, explores the life of a French man known as Meursault after his mother dies of old age. Meursault does not feel grief for his mothers death as he believes that doing so is pointless since he, as well as Camus himself, is an atheist and an existentialist. As such, he doesn’t concern himself with traditional emotions and beliefs and is instead only concerned with the physical world around him and his physical interactions with it.
In real life there are many different types of people, some of them are similar
Keeping a mouth shut doesn't hold the world shut out, it opens up new doors to things that would never be expected. In To Kill A Mockingbird written by Harper Lee, there is are two character that is are an eternal mystery for the readers. Boo Radley, though the reader nor Scout and Jem know anything about the character all they want is to learn about him. Boo becomes a mysterious figure that many see as creepy, ghostly, but also reasonably wise. The one-time Boo appears the readers learn he is a sagacious, powerful man. Little do Scout and Jem know is that their father is also a rational being as well. The two crucial character in the story helps support the
Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” takes place during the 1930’s in the fictional and quiet town of Maycomb, located in Maycomb County, Alabama. The town of Maycomb is described as a tired old town that moves very slowly and its residents have nothing to fear but fear itself. Being in set in the South during the 1930’s the story does tackle racism and inequality for African Americans as racism was becoming more and more prominent in the 1930’s. The fact that the story takes place in a backwater county in Alabama makes the the injustice even more prevalent. The story goes through the early years of the main characters Jem and Scout so the exact time is always changing, however, the more important and intense parts of the story takes place
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.
Jill McCorkle's Ferris Beach, a contemporary novel, shares numerous characteristics with Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel written in the 1960's. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, McCorkle's novel documents the life of a young girl in a small southern town. The two narrators, Kate Burns and Scout Finch, endure difficult encounters. A study of these main characters reveals the parallels and differences of the two novels. Jill McCorkle duplicates character similarities and rape from Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird to show the reader how young girls think and develop.
Throughout The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault rejects all conventional morals and believes life to be frivolous. The Stranger, published in 1942 serves as an allegory to express the absurdity of which humankind attempts to force rationality on an irrational world. The novel expresses that realizing life is absurd creates a new beginning rather then a final end, which is made evident by the metamorphosis of the main character, Meursault.
The author George Elliot once said “don’t judge a book by its cover.” Appearance can be very misleading, and you shouldn't prejudge the worth or value of something by its outward appearance alone. This philosophical idea has been included in many works of literature, including the timeless classic To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee. The novel takes place in the town of Maycomb, Alabama during the 1930s. Many citizens of Maycomb tend to make judgements based on outward appearances alone. In the novel, Lee uses minor characters such as Boo Radley, Mrs. Dubose, and Tom Robinson to convey the book’s theme of prejudice.
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.
To Kill a Mockingbird "I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them." – Miss Maudie The quote above states that Atticus Finch was a man who did unpleasant things, but this quote is false. Miss Maudie had every good intention when she told Jem and Scout this and her point was taken in the way she intended it to be taken by the children. Her point could have been better worded if the portion that reads "our unpleasant jobs" were replaced with "what is right." Atticus did unpleasant things only because he knew that they were the right thing to do. Miss Maudie told the children about their father in this way only to avoid saying that the rest of the town was wrong.
To Kill A Mockingbird deals with many primal and basic lessons in human nature. The book exposes many issues that affect most people throughout their lives. Scout, the main character was one of the most affected by these lessons. During the book she was exposed to many profound experiences, which no doubt will leave a lasting impression. In the three years that the book took place, she may have learned the most important things she will learn over her entire life.
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.
Meursault in the book tries to overcome his emotional indifference within himself. One example shows Meursault emotional indifference against Marie. In this quote, “A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so.” The quote explains how Meursault doesn’t really think about the consequences of other people’s emotions. When he said in the quote it didn’t mean anything to him, it shows he believes human life and emotions are meaningless. He also says I didn’t think so, showing he struggles to comprehend and make his own interpretations on human emotions from Marie and other people. Another example shown is Meursault against his mother’s funeral. In this quote ‘Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.” That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.’ This quote also shows Meursault idea of human life is meaningless. This shows that Meursault believes it doesn’t really matter if his mother died, he’s probably implying that his mother was dying soon...
Throughout all of Meursault’s actions at the funeral, most receive scrutiny especially his denial to see Maman before she was buried. Camus states, “When the caretaker asked if Meursault wanted to see his mother, Meursault responds with “I don’t know” (Camus 6). For whatever reason, Meursault was not consciously able to react appropriately at the moment. An expansion on Alonzo’s work in which supports Meursault would be the philosophy of Socrates and the Socratic paradox. Socrates states, “If one acts in a manner not conducive to one 's good then that person must have been mistaken (i.e., that person lacks the knowledge of how to obtain what was serviceable in that instance.”(Socrates 882). Even though Meursault did not understand his reasoning at the time, he didn’t know how to react in order to please the others. It’d be benign to assume he did not give a shit about Maman. Denying the request without reason and ultimately defying society, Meursault inevitably receives judgement from this point forward as an immoral
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.