The Meaning Of Life In Stranger And Stranger Than Fiction

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What is the meaning of life? Some might immediately cite the will of God, or explain a complicated system of reincarnation and karma, or simply answer with the number forty-two. However, the existentialist would reject any of these answers and instead encourage the reader to find and make their own meaning of life, instead of following any other definite, absolute answers. Both existentialist novel The Stranger by Albert Camus and the film Stranger than Fiction examine unique protagonists who search for their own reasons to live. However, The Stranger is able to more effectively describe and develop existential themes through Meursault’s more dark and morbid conclusion, while Stranger than Fiction’s Howard Crick is robbed of his existential …show more content…

As she describes to Dr. Hilbert, “If the man knows he’s going to die and dies anyway, dies willingly, knowing he could stop it, then isn’t that the type of man you want to keep alive?” (Stranger than Fiction) This statement does capture the idea of existentialism, as the existentialists accept their death when it is their time and make the life they want in the time that they have. However, the issues in this understanding of existentialism fall in the fact that Eiffel actually saved Crick from death, but also that he gives in to Eiffel’s version of his death. In Eiffel’s act of saving Harold from his demise, the central message changes from acceptance of death to defiance of it, which is against the existentialist point of death being absolute. Furthermore, Harold becomes resigned to the death given to him by Eiffel. Instead of making what he has been given personal and meaningful to him, he tells his girlfriend, “There was this boy. I had to [save him]. I had to. I didn’t have a choice.” (Stranger than Fiction) Because he shows how beholden he is to Eiffel’s story, Harold’s death and life have ultimately lost their existential undertones. While this shows a level of maturity on Harold’s part, as he accepts that his death is necessary to the meaning of Eiffel’s story, it does not show a level of existentialism that Camus believes in or develops in The

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