Release and Realization

The protagonists in Siddhartha and The Stranger appear to be enormously dissimilar from one another at first glance. Siddhartha takes place in India several centuries prior to the birth of Christ. Siddhartha is the educated son of a Brahmin, who leaves behind his lavish lifestyle and elite family in order to attain spiritual enlightenment. The Stranger is set in French Algeria. The protagonist, Meursault, is an ordinary yet psychologically disconnected man who commits an unplanned murder and ends up in jail with a sentence for execution as a result of this crime. Although Siddhartha and Meursault are different people with different paths and ultimately different fates, both men deal with the concept and struggle of release in order to come to a realization. Both of these protagonists release different things and embark on different journeys in order to reach this point. Siddhartha learns to release his son and in turn learns a valuable life lesson which takes him one step closer to reaching his final goal. Meursault releases his freedom and is then able to come to terms with what he has always believed about life. The concept of release which results in realization is a key element to the development of both characters in both novels.

Siddhartha sets out on a complex journey all for the purpose of reaching nirvana. He makes several stops along the way, learning many things from many different people and lifestyles. He first trades in his life as a fortunate, wealthy Brahmin to live amongst the Samanas, who believe that enlightenment can be reached through a refusal of physical desire and the body. He adjusts remarkably well to this new lifestyle, and learns to rid himself from the desire for property, clothing and ...

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...ealization.

How much does one have to sacrifice in order to find meaning? For one man, it was the painful release of his only child, and for another, it was the forfeit of his freedom and ultimately his life. Living in different time periods, in different places and under different circumstances, Siddhartha and Meursault are bonded together by the struggle to let something important go. Both men undergo a release and in turn gain the ability to realize something significant that they had been missing before. The existence of release as it leads to realization is a crucial component to the development of the protagonists in both Siddhartha and The Stranger.

Works Cited

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Trans. Matthew Ward. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. Print.

Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha. Trans. Hilda Rosner. New York: New Directions Publishing , 1951. Print.