The Stranger, Albert Camus | Themes of Existentialism

The Stranger, Albert Camus Themes of existential philosophyExistentialism is often defined as a philosophical movement or tendency, emphasizing individual cosmos, freedom and woof. As a result of the diversity of positions associated with this term it is impossible to define precisely. As is evident through the root of the word, exist, thither is a stress on definite individual existence and freedom of choice. Certain formulations of empiricalism ar witnessed in The Stranger. Existentialists attempt to direct our attention to ourselves as individuals. They force us to think astir(predicate) our relation to such topics as the existence and record of God, what it is to be Christian, the nature of values, and the event of sensations own death. Man is the only cognise being, according to the philosophers, that defines itself merely through the act of living. In other words, archetypical you exist, and then the individual emerges as life decisions ar made. M both(prenominal ) existentialist philosopher philosophers debate the greatest victory of the individual is to realize the absurdity of life and to take aim it. Existentialism is liberating for those of us who do not rely on fate, God, or chance to guide us through the path of life. One aspect that is question equal is our ability to continuously reinvent ourselves through our actions. fleck this is possible, the majorities of superintend stick to old ways of doing things, or follow others blindly. Despite c over a staggering range of philosophical, religious, and political ideologies, the underlying concepts of existentialism atomic number 18 simpletonton. Mankind has free will. Life is a series of choices. Few decisions atomic number 18 with give away both negative consequences. Some things atomic number 18 irrational or absurd, without explanation. If one put ons a decision, he or she must follow through. The decisions you make argon whom you are, so decide accordingly. In The Stran ger Meursault embodies each(prenominal) of the six existential themes. The low existential theme is freedom. Freedom sum that whatever happened anterior to now do not run what your next choice in life will be, we are free to make any choice we call for. Meursault displays Freedom by just doing as he wishes to do. In fate one of the novel Maman dies so he attends the funeral, nothing out of the ordinary. While att oddment his mothers funeral, Meursault decides to smoke cigarettes, drink a cup of coffee, and he fails to yield emotion. This just shows how Meursault is displaying his free will he does not let the influence of his mother dying effect what he wants to do. The reciprocal ohm and the third themes Meursault displays together. These themes are existence which is the awareness of our choices, and passion which are psychological feelings that we get word earlier thinking kicks in. Meursault displays both of these themes at the end of the novel. Meursault wants his li fe to be here and now, he is not concerned with the hereafter. Meursault wants the remembrance of his life. Through this thinking Meursault displays macrocosm and Passion. The fourth theme is contingency. It basically says that life is unpredict competent, prone to chance happenings, also to the unexpected. Meursault displays this theme at the very end of part one of the novel. Meursault is so centre with walking keister down to the spring unwitting that he is going to end up destroying his happiness by shooting the Arab. This is a very unpredictable event because Meursault is just so happy and content with the sun shining on him, then all of a jerky something unexpected happens and his happiness is gone. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the twenty-four hours, the especial(a) silence of a beach where Id been happy. The fifth theme is individuality. An individual is a single unique fraction of a collectivity. Meursault lives out his individuality. The strongest di splay of individuality is at the very end of the novel when Meursault wants a large mob of people to witness his death, and he also wants them to greet him with cries, but those of hate. I had only wished that in that location be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate. By being hated Meursault retains his individuality. If Meursault goes out on that point begging for forgiveness he would just become a member of a collectivity. The final theme is reflection. It refers to the capacity to bring that which we are unaware of into awareness. Meursault leads a pre-reflective life. He goes through his daily events and is so absorbed in each moment that he never reflects on them. Meursault does this until he looks at a reflection of himself for the first time in prison. Meursault looking at himself shows his transition from pre-reflective to reflective. He begins to become aware of what he was unaware of. The important theme in The Stranger is that life is absurd. Reason is in resourceful of formulateing piece nature. Meursaults absurd beliefs are that life is vacuous and without purpose. The meanlessness implies absence of any obvious meaning to our life. This offernot be explained, because no one can explain someone elses sense of meaning or meaninglessness towards life. Camus The Stranger subjects the persona of Meursault who, after killing an Arab, is sentenced to death. This conflict portrays the stark contrast between the moral school of thought of society and Meursaults evident lack of them he is condemned to death, less for the Arabs murder, than for refusing to conform to societys standards. The parole of Meursaults responsibility takes place at the end of the novel. Meursaults execution symbolically brings by emotion, as Meursault confronts his nothingness and the impossibility of justifying the immoral choices he has made, he realizes the sublimate contingency of his life, and that he h as voided, in essence, his own existence by weakness to accept the risk and responsibility that the personal freedom of an existentialist mankind entails. Meursault never really takes responsibility for his actions, all Meursault does is wish that his life could go back to the way it used to be. Meursault is an anomaly in society he cannot relate directly to others because he does not live as they do. He cannot abide by the same moral confines as the rest of the world because he does not grasp them he is largely unbiased to events occurring around him. Meursaults holy being is unemotional. He derives a received direct of pleasure from eating and drinking, smoking cigarettes, sitting on his balcony. Yet all these things are tactile Meursault derives physical satisfaction from them, but there is no emotion attached. This is in direct contrast to society, whose strict guidelines focusing on right and wrong depend on an individuals sense of these concepts. Meursault is perfectly capable of analyzing the situation, but not of responding to it as society wishes him to. Life or death, and anything in between, makes no difference to him. Meursault shows the outcome as inevitable. He cannot perceive any right or wrong in killing the Arab. The action in itself was not out of deep hatred for the man but, as he reveals at the footrace, because of the sun. The sun at the beach, similar to the sun at his mothers funeral, was whipstitching down on him. The sun represents Meursault emotions, which he cannot deal with. Likewise, he cannot deal with the intense heat, the argus-eyed reflected off the Arabs knife which seems to stab at him. Meursaults senses are being overwhelmed, and the only way to handle the situation is to end it so he fires the gun. The death of the Arab in itself is not crucial to Meursaults fate. Meursaults true reverse comes from his lack of emotion. At the beginning of the novel, Meursault sits at his mothers funeral, quietly analyzing deta ils of the scene. The onlookers present do not understand him in fact, they are afraid of him. The prosecutor says, I look into a mans compositors case and all I see is a monster. What Meursault has realized, by the end of the guard, is that any meaning he finds in life he must create. Meursault is the absurdist, explaining the philosophy of existentialism Mans isolation among an absent universe. there is no inherent meaning in life its entire value lies in living itself. Meursault feels he has been happy, and longs to live. When he must die, he wants a crowd to greet him with cries of hate they are screaming because they want life and the world to have meaning they need this because that is what their entire existence is built upon. As the magistrate asked of Meursault, Do you want my life to be meaningless? Meursault understands how estranged the individual truly is from society. Until the conclusion, he was a stranger to himself as well as to the rest of the world. In the en d, he opens himself to the gentle numbness of the world, and finding it so much comparable myself, he feels he has been happy, and is again. fellowship finds this unacceptable, and by refusing to conform to its face-value standards, Meursault must die.Albert Camus believed that to be a true existentialist you had to remove yourself from society as much as possible since a belief in the foundation of government was to conform. Conforming to society norms is considered bad, it doesnt deed over the individual to progress and reach his own decisions Camus realized, however, that restricting himself from all fond conformity was impossible. Camus depicts a man with very little emotion. Once in a while he shows a bit of heart, but for the some part, he gives a robotic appearance. The character expresses no feeling nearly anything merely that light is a sign of evil or annoyance, while the unnoticeable becomes a place of calm and seriousness. In society, the common predilection is that light is bully and evil grows in the darkest of places, but in Albert Camus novel, evil is rock-steady and the light is bad. In The Stranger, Albert Camus uses Mersault and his experiences to convey the philosophy that man is full of apprehension and despair with no meaning in his life except for simple existence. The concept of existentialism is reflected through Mersaults experiences with his mothers death, his relationship with Marie, the killing of the Arab, and his own running and execution. Camus uses the death of Mersaults mother to convey his existentialistic philosophy. He seems more concerned about the time of death, and not the fact that he just lost a loved one. It also conveys the existentialist idea that reason is powerless to the idea with the depths of human life. Furthermore, Mersault shows no compassion at his mothers funeral either. He does not rallying cry or behave the way that society expects him to. This leaves the impression that Mersault is insens itive, or that he did not love his mother. As an existentialist, he accepts life as it is without pursuit deeper meaning. Mersaults murder of the Arab is another example of existentialism. The absurdity of the murder is what makes it a good portrayal of the concept of existentialism. This part of the novel shows how Mersault is not only a stranger to his experiences in life, but also to nature. For the first time, the sun and his sottish pleasures begin to act against him, and cause him to lose control. Most of Mersaults actions have no true conscious motives. Mersault shoots the Arab because of his physical discomfort with his surroundings, but in any case he consciously makes the decision to shoot the Arab. When he is interpreted into police custody and is asked if he would need an attorney, he is genuinely confused. It is simple to him he murdered a man and is now analyzey to face the consequences.The second half of the loudness begins after Meursault is put in chuck out and is awaiting his trial. Rather than being on trial for the crime, he is on trial for his values, like the lack of grievance of his mothers death. Meursault is found guilty and he is convicted and sentenced because of his lack of moral feeling. While awaiting his execution, he thinks about how his life has no meaning besides just living and how death does not scare him. He realizes that life is meaningless and the world is irrational. This suddenly makes him happy and he accepts his death. There are numerous meanings to the epithet, The Stranger, one is that if you live a life antithetical than what society accepts, then you are a stranger an outcast, and will be punished by the rest of society. In other words, the title means that Meursault is a stranger to society. Nothing discussed in the trial had anything to do with the murder. It was all about the way he acted and how different he was. This was used to uphold that people who are different are judged by their character over t heir actions. Also, most of the society was Christian in the harbor and held Christian values. They believed in an afterlife and a heaven while Meursault did not, since he was an atheist. Since society does not understand him, they cannot know him and therefore hes a stranger. Another meaning of the title is that he is also a stranger to himself. He did not make any personal connections to the things he has done, only indifferent observations. He seemed unimpressed by his mothers death, the killing of the Arab, and his trial. Being a stranger to himself leads to the final meaning, which is a stranger to life. At the end of the novel Meursault is able to understand the meaning of life. He was able to do so because he was approaching death, which is an existentialist principle death is the one certainty of life. Before, when his mother died or when he killed the Arab, he did not have any feelings. When he thought about his own life and that he was about to die, he accepted it. He re alizes that one can truly enjoy their lives when they approach and accept death. The understanding of this allowed Meursault to be at peace with himself. Albert Camuss philosophy in the novel can be related to the philosophy of existentialism, which stresses that the individual is solely responsible for the choices they make, there is no predetermination and there is no supreme being who decides morality. This philosophy is extended with the philosophy of the absurd, which states that human beings live an essential isolation in a meaningless and irrational world and people being able to accept that everything cannot be controlled in your environment, which is how Meursault live his life. In existentialism, you believe that there are some things that cannot be rationally explained and just happen out of your control. The Stranger was an unusually good book, which made me think. A majority of the book made me feel like the rest of society, which was not accepting Meursaults behavior. However, the ending changed all of that and further analyzing gave me the real reasons for his actions. When I started reading the book for the first time I jumped in right away and didnt want to crocked it because I never read anything like it. I had to go back a few times to re-read it to understand it better and every time I re-read it, I got a different message.Meursault was an interesting character to read about. His ideas and beliefs seem wrong but are very right. I was able to understand what Albert Camus was trying to say with his philosophy. In fact, I have never heard of existentialism or absurd philosophy until I researched the power to see what he wanted to tell us. Meursault is able to accept the fact that everyone dies and realizing this allows you to live a better life. He lives a life that he controls and accepts all his actions that he does. I cant say that I understand everything about him, like how he uses Marie for sexual reasons even if she tells him her love and committal to him. Nonetheless, this character had the most interesting conflicts that kept me reading. I do feel, however, that the second part dragged on and got a bit dull. The first half of the book was filled with action and there were no direct reasons given for certain actions. In the second half, it is mainly of his self-realization about society and life, which I feel, could have been approached another way by the author, like being shortened. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thinking after reading a book or even coming to his or her own realization like Meursault.Work CitedAndrew Irvine, Basic Themes of existentialism, http//people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/wphil/lectures/wphil_theme20.htmCrowell, Steven, Existentialism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http//plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2010/entries/existentialism/Existentialism Philosophy Discussion of Existentialist Quotes, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camushttp//www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Existentialism.htm/ sunrise(prenominal) World Encyclopedia, Existentialism http//HYPERLINK http//www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Existentialism/www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/HYPERLINK http//www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Existentialism/Existentialism/Solomon, Robert C. Wyatt, C. S. (1999). Existentialists a primer to existentialismhttp//www.tameri.com/csw/exist/exist.html