The stranger albert camus existentialism
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Ultimate Meaning and ‘The Stranger’
Imagine living in a world where there is no true meaning, depth, or significance in anything. It’s a world without any purpose, where nothing that you do – and nothing done to you – has any value. If you can imagine such a world, then you have entered The Stranger.
I recently read this book by Albert Camus. It’s a piece of philosophy masquerading as fiction, written in the first person. Camus (1913-1960) was a French absurdist, though he is generally categorized as an existentialist (he denied that he was such, but he is close enough for the purposes of this discussion).
Now, let me summarize the idea of (atheistic) existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre asserted that “l’existence précède l’essence” or “existence precedes essence.” In other words, man exists before he has any purpose; mankind must discover (or create) his own purpose, because he exists without any inborn or theoretical purpose at all. The exist
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Existentialism on Contemporary Literature Series: Albert Camus and the Alienation of The Stranger
Despite the significant developments in science during the 19th century, the two devastating wars of the following century dismantled human faith in scientific and rational thinking. This negativ outlook on society was first observed in philosophy by authors such as Jean-Paul Sartre. As a result, twentieth-century literature fryst vatten deeply influenced by existentialism that focuses on the character’s consciousness rather than following the traditional unfolding of the plot. In this way, contemporary literature makes the psychology of the individual its nucleus, yielding to the exploration of topics such as absurdity, mortality or freedom. Therefore, this series will analyse some of the most important existentialist works of literature from the 20th century to explore how the authors have intertwined their motivations with the widespread pessimism of the time.
This series fryst vatten div
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John Valentine, Savannah College of Art and Design
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One of the most enigmatic characters in modern literature is Meursault of Camus’s The Stranger. Is he an absurd hero or a dangerous psychological type? There are clearly two personifications in the novel: the Meursault of Part One, an embodiment of sensualism and carpe diem, a hedonist possessing minimal self-reflection; and the Meursault of Part Two, a condemned criminal, a heinous killer—in the eyes of society at any rate—whose existence has been converted into a series of stereotypical categories. Which is the real Meursault?
A useful guide in this search is the existentialists’ own distinction between existence and essence. The distinction is that between the freedom of human beings and the thinglike nature of objects, stereotypes, and essences. Humans have and make a history for themselves. Their existence is open to the possibility of choice and change, a project in the making. Objects, stereotypes, and essenc