Camus' Stranger and Solzhenitsyn's Gulag
We must tell them what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here. 1
The dying words of Betsie ten Boom to her sister Corrie in the Ravensbruck concentration camp reveal a strength and victory even in great oppression. Historically, Christianity is full of voices crying victory in the midst of the terror. Elijah and David hiding in caves, the prophets of the Babylonian captivity, St. John's Apocalypse during the Domitian persecutions, the confessions of Foxe's martyrs all testify to God's power and truth even in the most severe circumstances. However, much twentieth-century writing sides with a view of God similar to that of Albert Camus--God either does not exist or is evil. The oppressive evil of our age is often used to prove divine indifference. Nevertheless, literature coming out of severe oppression often says the opposite. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn shares that for many the experience of injustice and oppression makes a person appreciate truth much more. And with truth comes a more orthodox Christian view of life.
Life's Suffering Proves God Does Not Care
Camus wrote, "An injustice remains inextricably bound to all suffering, even the most deserved in the eyes of man."2 Suffering and injustice should demonstrate divine indifference to any "thinking person."
Knowing whether or not man is free involves knowing whether he can have a master ... For in the presence of God there is less a problem of freedom than a problem of evil." You know the alternative: either we are not free and God the all-powerful is responsible for evil. Or we are free and responsible but God is not all-powerful.3
Seeing the promises of both Christianity and Socialism as offering hollow hopes, Camus opts for the "happy" state of "no hope." At least, then, the problem of suffering and injustice is understood when the thinker partakes of "the wine of the absurd and the bread of indifference."
Meursault's Indifference
Camus illustrates this well in The Stranger. Meursault is a prisoner. He killed a man in cold blood.
Throughout the 19th century, capitalism seemed like an economic utopia for some, but on the other hand some saw it as a troublesome whirlpool that would lead to bigger problems. The development of capitalism in popular countries such as in England brought the idea that the supply and demand exchange systems could work in most trade based countries. Other countries such as Russia thought that the proletariats and bourgeoisie could not co-exist with demand for power and land, and eventually resorted to communism in the early 20th century. Although many different systems were available to the countries in need of economic change, a majority of them found the right system for their needs. And when capitalist societies began to take full swing, some classes did not benefit as well as others and this resulted in a vast amount of proletariats looking for work. Capitalists societies are for certain a win-loss system, and many people did not like the change from having there society changed to a government controlled money hungry system. On the other hand, the demand for labor brought the bourgeoisie large profits because they could pay out as much as they wanted for labor.
“Albert Camus is one of the most likeable and approachable of the mid-twentieth-century French authors” (Brosman 10).This is quite a compliment for Camus, but most would agree. In France, Albert is known for his many books, two which have made the French best-sellers list. His works are often read and studied in French secondary-school class rooms, introducing a countless number of students to his pieces each year. Camus also holds the high honor of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957 (Boak 346). His wide popularity has made his name known in North America as well. Just what is Albert Camus so popular for one might ask? The answer would be his approach to his work— the underlying beliefs of Existentialism or the theory of the absurd that characterizes his pieces (Wyatt 1).1 All of Camus’ works incorporate this strong sense of the individual having freedom of choice, and thus complete control over his own outcome. He acknowledges no help or control from higher powers, just simply focuses on the individual; consequently, creating a sense of alienation. Albert Camus’ attraction to and his use of Existential beliefs began from his own life circumstances.
It is easy to place the blame on fate or God when one is encumbered by suffering. It is much harder to find meaning in that pain, and harvest it into motivation to move forward and grow from the grief. It is imperative for one to understand one’s suffering as a gateway to new wisdom and development; for without suffering, people cannot find true value in happiness nor can they find actual meaning to their lives. In both Antigone and The Holy Bible there are a plethora of instances that give light to the quintessential role suffering plays in defining life across cultures. The Holy Bible and Sophocles’ Antigone both mirror the dichotomous reality in which society is situated, underlining the necessity of both joy and suffering in the world.
From the moment Meursault is introduced, it is clear that something about him is not normal. When his mother dies, Meursault shows no emotion. When Meursault kills a man is a way that has the potential to be seen as justified by the courts, he admits the killing as a murder in cold blood and accepts the punishment of death without major protest. When he is first questioned regarding the murder of the Arab, Meursault tells the complete truth, even going so far as to explain “that at first [he] had fired a single shot and then, a few seconds later, the other four” (Camus 67; pt. 2). Any normal person wishing to avoid punishment for murder could have—and almost certainly would have—lied about small details and claimed that all five shots were fired without pause, but Meursault chooses to take the honest route. Instead, Meursault does the honest thing, motivated by his personal moral values. Meursault knows that he has co...
Of the many themes and philosophies that Camus struggled with during his life and presented to the world through his writings, one of the more prevalent was that of the absurd. According to Camus, the world, human existence, and a God are all absurd phenomenons, devoid of any redeeming meaning or purpose. Through Mersaults’ epiphany in The Stranger, where he opens himself to the “gentle indifference of the world”, we see how Camus understands the world to be a place of nothingness, which demands and desires nothing from humans. He further explores this philosophy in The Plague, where the world of indifference is understood as a world of fear, which takes a symbolically tangible form in the plague itself. In The Plague the citizens of Oran fear that which they cannot control, understand or fight. They are faced with the most fundamental experiences of life and death, and it is only in the end that a very few find a way to cope with and understand these two ultimatums.
“John F. Kennedy was the youngest man ever to be elected President of the United States of America. He entered in January of 1961 at the age of forty-three. With good looks and two beautiful young children, the nation watched the family with adoration, pride, and curiosity, despite John’s well-publicized adulterous behavior. Startlingly after only the 1,000 days in office, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, becoming the youngest President ever to die in office; it was also marked as the “end of the innocence” in American culture. John F. Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts to Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. His Father was a multimillionaire, who made is money by banking and stock market as well as dabbling in the film industry and bootlegging liquor. His family later moved to New York, where John attended Connecticut for his high school education and graduated in the spring 1935.
While little evolution of character occurs with Meursault, subtle differences are seen when comparing him in the beginning and end of the Camus’ novel. The extent of Meursault’s madness were surprisingly noticeable in the beginning. By the end however, his so called “madness” was demoted to more of an accepted philosophy of understanding, neither moral nor immoral. Meursault was an extremely passive, despondent and disconnected nihilist. From early on, it became understood that Meursault did not conform to the popular pressures of Christianity being experienced in 1940 Algerian society. In fact, Meursault believed life had no true purpose and that there was no God in heaven. This alone did not describe the...
Often times an author incorporates a thought or philosophy into a work that can shape or reshape the attitude emitted from the novel. In Albert Camus', The Stranger, the Existential philosophy that the author fills into the work give an aura of apathy. With the opening lines of "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure," Camus immediately sets a tone of indifference (1). Though the protagonist, Mersault, is not completely without cares, the overall attitude of passiveness he has toward himself, as well as toward others, give the entire novel a tone of apathy.
He was an observer rather than inattentive, but it seems like he detached himself from the world. Innocence and Guilt also interested Camus, as we see in The Stranger. Meursault is almost absent minded about the fact that he murdered someone.
However, he provides an alternative more substantial solution in such a way that does not let the universe triumph. What one must do to overcome this absurdity to is to be scornful of the fact that the universe has created such an individual with the ability to contemplate on his or her own existence. Suicide is an option that takes the easy route out of this absurdity, implicating the difficulty of life is too much to handle. Camus acknowledges his conscious and revolts, or becomes scornful of that fact, and refuses the option of suicide. By choosing to embrace the absurdity of the meaningless of one’s own existence, then freedom to create your own meaning and purpose is
Firstly, Camus juxtaposes the stories of Meursault and the Czechoslovakian man to create a presage of the denouement of Meursault. The Czechoslovakian man undergoes major life changes, and this ultimately leads to his demise. He goes to make a better life for himself, and he returns to his village with riches in wealth and in family. Unrecognizable to them, the Czechoslovakian man returns to his mother and sister, and he decides to play a simple joke “of taking a room” and “he had shown off his money” (80). This trick ends when “during the night his mother and sister had beaten him to death…in order to rob him” (80). The Czechoslovakian man’s newfound courage results in obstinacy. Contrastingly, until Meursault commits his crime of murder, his life appears nearly painfully simple. ...
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