Albert Camus': "Summer in Algiers"
This early essay by Albert Camus presents an eloquent picture of his understanding of what it means to know. But in order for us to assimilate it, we must recognize that Camus is not celebrating a hedonic naturalism, nor engaging in an existential anti-intellectualism. Rather, his articulation of lucidity and the exemplification of it in the artistry of the essay itself presents us with a challenging concept of knowledge. I attempt to explicate this concept with the help of two images, one from the musical Hair and one from the movie The Pawnbroker, thus seeking to reinforce Camus' reliance upon image as the equivalent of idea.
This is a paper about Albert Camus' understanding of what it means to know as he eloquently expressed it in the essay "Summer in Algiers." To begin it requires two images. First I summon a song from the musical Hair. One of the hippie freaks sings that he is "crazy for the red, white and blue." He castigates his bourgeois detractors for thinking him subversive just because he has long hair. He continues to express devotion to the red, white and blue until, at the end of the song, he adds "crazy for the red, white and blue . . . and yellow and green." Only then do we realize that he has been singing about his experience of color, not of the American flag.
The second image is no joke. It is the image of Rod Steiger playing the lead part in The Pawnbroker, the excellent movie adaptation of Edward Wallant's novel. Near the end of the movie, when the old pawnbroker realizes that he has been wrong to isolate himself in bitterness from the human emotions of life by brooding on a past ruined by the Nazi Holocaust, he places his hand on the point of the receipt nail in hi...
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...und, tightly mouthing a cigarette, waiting stoically for the next disappointment. Still, there is no contradiction. We need only remember that the nature Camus celebrated was always cruel. "Strange country that gives the man it nourishes both his splendor and his misery!" (p. 141) We need only remember that purity was an intellectual virtue for this shining exemplar of the life of the mind.
The life of a man is fulfilled without the aid of his mind, with its backward and forward movements, at one and the same time its solitude and its presences. To see these men of Belcourt working, protecting their wives and children, and often without a reproach, I think one can feel a secret shame. To be sure, I have no illusions about it. There is not much love in the lives I am speaking of. I ought to say that not much remains. But at least they have evaded nothing. (p. 153)
The Return of Martin Guerre, written by Natalie Zemon Davis, is the tale of a court case that takes place in sixteenth century France. Martin Guerre is a peasant who deserted his wife and family for many years. While Martin Guerre is gone, a man named Arnaud du Tilh arrives at Martin’s village and claims to be Martin Guerre. Bertrande, who is Guerre’s wife, Guerre’s sisters, and many of the villagers, accepts the imposter. After almost three years of being happily married, Bertrande takes the fraud to court under pressure of Pierre Guerre, her stepfather and Guerre’s brother. Arnaud du Tilh is almost declared innocent, but the real Martin Guerre appears in the courthouse. Throughout this tale, many factors of the peasant life are highlighted. The author gives a very effective and detailed insight to a peasant’s life during the time of Martin Guerre. Davis does a successful job of portraying the peasant lifestyle in sixteenth century France by accentuating the social, cultural, and judicial factors of everyday peasant life.
Tedford, Thomas L., and Dale A. Herbeck. Freedom of Speech in the United States. State College, PA: Strata Publishing, Inc., 2009. Tinker V. Des Moines Independent Community School District. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. .
Since its release in 1966, Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers has divided critical opinion. The film which depicts the Algerian struggle for independence, was awarded the Lion d'Or at the 1966 Venice Film Festival and nominated a year later for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film. Despite this acclaim, the inherently controversial film was banned in France until 1971 due to its graphic portrayal of torture and repression during the war. Heavily influenced by the distinctive film style Neorealism, the politically engaged director sought to make a film which was produced and shot within a 'dictatorship of truth.' These neorealist aesthetics (hand-held camera, non professional actors) rendered such an extraordinarily accurate reflection of social reality that the film's original U.S. distributor inserted the disclaimer: "Not one foot of newsreel or documentary film has been used."
...ing—this was knowledge, knowledge under the breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze” (1177). He could have escaped his fate of nothingness and loneliness, “The escape would have been to love her; then, then he would have lived” (1176). Marcher’s punishment for being so selfish and self-absorbed was that “he had been the man of his time, the man, to whom nothing on earth was to have happened” (1176). This was the story of a man whose ego was the “beast” in the “jungle” of life.
In spite of the fear which propels him, there is finally hope for Ignatius. Waddling fearfully into the world, he can now learn to accept his common fate with the rest of humanity--his own humanness and inherent vulnerability in a world over which he has no control. In her frustration and resignation, Ignatius' little mother, an unusual Earth Mother at best, once sadly and plaintively tells her son, "You learnt everything, Ignatius, except how to be a human being" (375). Therein lies a lesson for us all.
MacDonald, Paul S. “Albert Camus.” The Existentialist Reader. Ed. Paul S. MacDonald. Routledge: New York, 2000. 144 – 183.
All of Camus' writings may be viewed as a quest for meaningful values in a world of spiritual aridity and emptiness. He begins with man's despair, estrangement, fear, suffering and hopelessness in a world where is neither God nor the promise that He will come- the fundamental absurdity of existence- but ultimately affirms the power of man to achieve spiritual regeneration and the measure of salvation possible in an absurd universe. This radical repudiation of despair and nihilism is closely bound up with his concept of an artist. Camus conceives of art as a way of embracing a consciousness of the absurdity of man's existential plight. But art becomes a means of negating that absurdity because the artist reconstructs the reality, endowing it with unity, endurance and perfection. By taking elements from reality that confirms the absurd existence, an artist attempts to correct the world by words and redistribution. Thus the artist never provides a radical transformation of reality but a fundamental reinterpretation of what already exists. He provides a new angle of vision of perceiving reality. That is why, for Camus, an artist is a recreator of myth. He teaches humanity that contemporary man must abandon the old myths that have become otiose, though once defined his existence. The artist liberates man to live in his world by redefining both man and the condition in which he exists. In this regard, it is important to point out that, for Camus, the traditional opposition between art and philosophy is arbitrary. It is because they together become most effective to create the redefinition: the philosophy awakens the consciousness and the art, propelled by such a radical discovery, ...
In the Return of Martin Guerre, Guerre himself was a prime example of the lack of individualism in the community. Clearly, there is a dilemma between collectivism and individualism within this French 16th century society. In the society of Artigat, religion was the determining factor for collective identities, and this collectivism added to the ideas behind the “individual identity” of a family –however, this left a singular identity behind an entire family name. Before Martin’ Guerre’s departure, individual identity was not based off of the individual person—By leaving Artigat, Martin Guerre demonstrated this new idea of ‘independent self-worth’. Martin Guerre made it clear that he had all the intention to leave Artigat and declare his own independence away from his family: “Martin "stole" a small quantity of grain from his father. Since they were both living in the same household, this theft probably reflected a struggle for power between the two heirs. But in any case theft was unpardonable by the Basque code, especially if done within the family. "The Basques are faithful," Judge Pierre de Lancre was to write; "they believe that theft is the work of a debased soul, of a low and abject heart; it bears witness to the demeaning neediness of a person." Martin Guerre h...
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a disorder which causes people to develop an anxiety when certain obsessions or compulsions are not fulfilled. OCD can affect both children and adults with more than half of all adults with OCD stating that they experienced signs as a child. People living with OCD display many obvious signs such as opening and closing a door fifty times because they have to do it “just right”. Others exhibit extreme cleanliness and will wash their hands or take showers as often as they can because they constantly feel dirty. OCD devastates people’s social lives as they are fixated and obsessed with perfection that can take forever to achieve. However people living with OCD are often found to have an above average intelligence and typically excel at school due to their detail oriented mindset, cautious planning and patience. OCD can be caused by many different factors such as genetics or the ever changing world a...
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can be defined as having repetitive, unwanted, urges and thoughts that raise the need for excessive amounts of time or energy spent on the unwanted urges. OCD typically involved ritualistic like tendencies that result in two types of characteristics, obsessions and compulsions. Obsession can be characterized by the actions and thoughts that intrude one’s mind. As well as the uncontrollable and irrational impulses one must face with OCD. Compulsions can be defined as the act of doing excessive things related to behaviors. People feel the need to act on these compulsions for the sole purposes of releasing the anxiety they feel by the compulsive and reoccurring thoughts. In essence,...
People from all walks of life can get a diagnosis of OCD. It can be found in multiple groups of people in all social and ethnic groups and found in both male and female. Most symptoms are formed in early childhood, the teenage or young adult years. If the appearance of OCD suddenly appears later in life could merit a thorough medical evaluation to ensure that another illness is not the underlining causes of these symptoms. This paper will discuss what OCD is, who actually gets it is, what the actual causes of OCD are, and what the effective treatments for OCD are available out there (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, OCD, ...
The “beautiful young woman” began to show her stubborn ways early. According to the reading, Bertrande was concerned more about putting aside her wifely duties than to ruin her reputation and independence (27-28). When Martin abandoned Bertrande, she was left without a defined position in the village social structure. Being the honest women that Coras said she was, Bertrande would not separate from Martin, and under Catholic law she could not remarry unless there was strong proof of death. The values that Bertrande grew up with showed that she never saw herself leaving village customs (32). Though the devastating experience of Martin leaving left her weak and yearning for a husband, she lived “virtuously and honorably” through her “stiff-necked sense of herself and her reputation” (34).
Psychguide (2016). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Symptoms, Causes and Effects. Retrieved August 20, 2016, from http://psychguides.com
From page fifty-eight to fifty-seven of Albert Camus’s The Stranger he uses the relentless Algerian sun as a motif for the awareness of reality that pursues the main character, Meursault, throughout the passage. When each motif appears in the novel such as this passage, Meursault’s actions change. This exemplifies that the light, heat, and sun trigger him to become debilitated or furious. Albert Camus sets up this motif in the passage to indicate to the reader that this motif shows the major themes of this novel. This motif shows Meursault’s emotion, how the imagery of weaponry affects Meursault’s actions, how the sun is a representation of society, and how the sun weakens Meursault.
Changing situations throughout the world affect all organizations in business today. Therefore, most organizations acknowledge the need to experience change and transformation in order to survive. The key challenges companies face are due to the advancements in technology, the social environment caused by globalization, the pace of competition, and the demands regarding customer expectations. It is difficult to overcome the obstacles involved with change despite all the articles, books, and publications devoted to the topic. People are naturally resistant to fundamental changes and often intimidated by the process; the old traditional patterns and methods are no longer effective.