alexthestampede
09-26-2004, 04:22 PM
im sposed to be writing a paper due tomorrow and not screwing around on .. heres what i have so far.. heaven knows its miserable now
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An Evaluation of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger” and its Philosophical Significance
The 20th century has seen the introduction of a considerable amount of literature aimed at exploring some new philosophy or redefining the experiences of humanity. In the context of our modern society, and with the influences of modern wars, modern work lives, and advances in science and literature, quite a few authors have undertaken with some success to paint a truer portrait of reality and dispel the traditions of romanticism and inaccuracy surrounding our understanding of life. One of the most successful of these authors, in presenting a truthful, honest look at life, and at matching philosophy with style was the French author Albert Camus, with his existentialist novel, “The Stranger”. Few other works contain a message that rings so true as the fatalistic moral of Camus’ novel, and of these, even fewer have consistently matched the tone and language of the novel to the conclusions it seeks to establish, and it is for this reason that “The Stranger” is now widely regarded as one of the most philosophically complete novels of the 20th century.
The novel begins with the protagonist Meursault receiving the news of his mother’s death in blunt, detached language with blunt and detached emotion. “Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday. I don’t know” (Camus, 1). This simple and unconcerned language is the essence in the book, and was something Camus developed intentionally to convey the nature of Meursault’s reaction to life and the nature of life itself. He was influenced by the intentionally blunt speech of Hemingway, yet while Hemingway used this language chiefly to reflect the simplicity and determinedness of his characters and subject matter, Camus uses it to reflect the disjointed and random nature of life. The very way the novel was written was as important to the message as the events in the novel, and set it apart from its contemporaries.
The work of Albert Camus is significant chiefly for the message it conveys about life and how we view it. The actual philosophy behind Camus’ writings is that life is meaningless and absurd, and that nothing holds any importance because ultimately one will die and as there is no afterlife, all of the realities of ones life will cease to exist. While the absurdity of life was not a concept invented by Camus, it is one rarely found unmediated by some life-affirming principle as it is in Camus’ early work. Whether it is the case that a long life is incompatible with such a nihilistic mindset, or that over time the cares and emotions of life wear down on one’s impassive and unconcerned world view, Camus tempered his views after the second world war and as he grew older, and none of his novels were so absolute in their claims as “The Stranger” (Cohn, 36). In the novel, Camus does not dabble in his exploration of the meaning of life, and presents his views immediately without qualifiers or explanations. Sartre picked this fact up immediately in his review of Camus; “Camus is simply presenting something and is not concerned with a justification of what is fundamentally unjustifiable (p. 111).” He does not berate his readers with the truth, nor does he corral them into some conclusion with evidence and supporting reason as is traditionally done, but rather portrays as accurate a picture of life as he can and leaves the truths undeniably present in the book to resonate with the readers experience of life and stand up against their other beliefs. One criticism of early nihilist writers, not only in French literature, but English and Russian as well, is that they were heavy handed in their argument and laid it on too thick in their approach to any definitive statement of their beliefs. Camus, however, intended to unwind his truths without relying on a normally progressing argument or a carefully established system of evidence and proof, and it is because of this that once his points are made, they are so hard to refute as they rest solely on experience, that is, realism, and not on hypothesis, that is, intellectualism.
Meursault does not feel anything about his mother’s death, he does not force himself to feel anything, and he behaves in a manner that reflects this honestly. He does not believe in God, in right or wrong, morality is foreign to him, but above all he does not believe in ardency in anything, or in any reason to be ardent. His nihilism is only incidentally reflected in his behaviors and dialogues, and he never sets out to force anyone into submission to his ideas. Before Camus, the atheist or existentialist writers were of a sort of romantic strain of nihilists, whose essays argued passionately, whose protagonists were crushed in ways that spat irony at the established system of beliefs, and whose work ultimately was supposed to present some sweeping rout of romanticism but came off sounding a little too passionately idealistic. They may preach that nothing holds significance, but in the end place their faith in humanity or in the super-man, or progress, and sell their disbelief short by involving themselves so heavily in a cause whose outcome ought not to matter in a meaningless world.
Where in other works there is a struggle between disbelief and belief, there is none in “The Stranger”. Meursault has reached the end of philosophy so to speak, and the conclusions that this philosophy hold would not allow him to care to explain himself or to put any stock in whether society holds his views or not. He, in fact, does not put stock in much, as is reflected in his understanding of his crime and his reaction to his mother’s death. At the time he simply sees that he could “either shoot or not shoot”, and that there was no real difference, and when questioned about his mother’s death he simply states the truth: that he would rather she be alive, but that he was not really lost in grief over the loss. Meursault is truly a stranger to the society he lives in, an incidence only accomplished by Camus, as his character enters the scene having already come to the conclusion of man’s absurdity, while other writers portray invariably characters who have come to their nihilist conclusions through a conscious thought process. The presentation of a fully developed main character was a technique seen before in literature, most notably in Voltaire’s “Zadig”, another story of the absurdity of society. Yet while Voltaire makes jabs at certain aspects of our society, Camus aims to reveal a much deeper truth with the misplacement of his astonished hero (Brock, 95).
While the novel pettifogging (Levy, 1).
When Albert Camus told the story of how a meaningless action on a sun-baked Algerian beach brought about the downfall and ultimately the execution of a man strange to our society and the framework of humanity’s commonest beliefs, he showed that whatever happens in one man’s life, in any man’s life, is meaningless and insignificant. The novel, however, is anything but meaningless and significant in the world of literature. “The Stranger” is one of the first novels to break free of the limits man’s innate need for society and hope that had bound the conclusions reached by earlier writers and come to a final destination in philosophy. It was quite possibly the first of such novels to match the realities of its philosophy with real language and reflect the sincerity of the author through the matching honesty of its protagonist, message, and style. Camus’ pioneering style and purpose in “The Stranger” have established the book as an enormous literary breakthrough and have created a far reaching cultural influence that defines the book as the apotheosis of modern philosophy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An Evaluation of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger” and its Philosophical Significance
The 20th century has seen the introduction of a considerable amount of literature aimed at exploring some new philosophy or redefining the experiences of humanity. In the context of our modern society, and with the influences of modern wars, modern work lives, and advances in science and literature, quite a few authors have undertaken with some success to paint a truer portrait of reality and dispel the traditions of romanticism and inaccuracy surrounding our understanding of life. One of the most successful of these authors, in presenting a truthful, honest look at life, and at matching philosophy with style was the French author Albert Camus, with his existentialist novel, “The Stranger”. Few other works contain a message that rings so true as the fatalistic moral of Camus’ novel, and of these, even fewer have consistently matched the tone and language of the novel to the conclusions it seeks to establish, and it is for this reason that “The Stranger” is now widely regarded as one of the most philosophically complete novels of the 20th century.
The novel begins with the protagonist Meursault receiving the news of his mother’s death in blunt, detached language with blunt and detached emotion. “Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday. I don’t know” (Camus, 1). This simple and unconcerned language is the essence in the book, and was something Camus developed intentionally to convey the nature of Meursault’s reaction to life and the nature of life itself. He was influenced by the intentionally blunt speech of Hemingway, yet while Hemingway used this language chiefly to reflect the simplicity and determinedness of his characters and subject matter, Camus uses it to reflect the disjointed and random nature of life. The very way the novel was written was as important to the message as the events in the novel, and set it apart from its contemporaries.
The work of Albert Camus is significant chiefly for the message it conveys about life and how we view it. The actual philosophy behind Camus’ writings is that life is meaningless and absurd, and that nothing holds any importance because ultimately one will die and as there is no afterlife, all of the realities of ones life will cease to exist. While the absurdity of life was not a concept invented by Camus, it is one rarely found unmediated by some life-affirming principle as it is in Camus’ early work. Whether it is the case that a long life is incompatible with such a nihilistic mindset, or that over time the cares and emotions of life wear down on one’s impassive and unconcerned world view, Camus tempered his views after the second world war and as he grew older, and none of his novels were so absolute in their claims as “The Stranger” (Cohn, 36). In the novel, Camus does not dabble in his exploration of the meaning of life, and presents his views immediately without qualifiers or explanations. Sartre picked this fact up immediately in his review of Camus; “Camus is simply presenting something and is not concerned with a justification of what is fundamentally unjustifiable (p. 111).” He does not berate his readers with the truth, nor does he corral them into some conclusion with evidence and supporting reason as is traditionally done, but rather portrays as accurate a picture of life as he can and leaves the truths undeniably present in the book to resonate with the readers experience of life and stand up against their other beliefs. One criticism of early nihilist writers, not only in French literature, but English and Russian as well, is that they were heavy handed in their argument and laid it on too thick in their approach to any definitive statement of their beliefs. Camus, however, intended to unwind his truths without relying on a normally progressing argument or a carefully established system of evidence and proof, and it is because of this that once his points are made, they are so hard to refute as they rest solely on experience, that is, realism, and not on hypothesis, that is, intellectualism.
Meursault does not feel anything about his mother’s death, he does not force himself to feel anything, and he behaves in a manner that reflects this honestly. He does not believe in God, in right or wrong, morality is foreign to him, but above all he does not believe in ardency in anything, or in any reason to be ardent. His nihilism is only incidentally reflected in his behaviors and dialogues, and he never sets out to force anyone into submission to his ideas. Before Camus, the atheist or existentialist writers were of a sort of romantic strain of nihilists, whose essays argued passionately, whose protagonists were crushed in ways that spat irony at the established system of beliefs, and whose work ultimately was supposed to present some sweeping rout of romanticism but came off sounding a little too passionately idealistic. They may preach that nothing holds significance, but in the end place their faith in humanity or in the super-man, or progress, and sell their disbelief short by involving themselves so heavily in a cause whose outcome ought not to matter in a meaningless world.
Where in other works there is a struggle between disbelief and belief, there is none in “The Stranger”. Meursault has reached the end of philosophy so to speak, and the conclusions that this philosophy hold would not allow him to care to explain himself or to put any stock in whether society holds his views or not. He, in fact, does not put stock in much, as is reflected in his understanding of his crime and his reaction to his mother’s death. At the time he simply sees that he could “either shoot or not shoot”, and that there was no real difference, and when questioned about his mother’s death he simply states the truth: that he would rather she be alive, but that he was not really lost in grief over the loss. Meursault is truly a stranger to the society he lives in, an incidence only accomplished by Camus, as his character enters the scene having already come to the conclusion of man’s absurdity, while other writers portray invariably characters who have come to their nihilist conclusions through a conscious thought process. The presentation of a fully developed main character was a technique seen before in literature, most notably in Voltaire’s “Zadig”, another story of the absurdity of society. Yet while Voltaire makes jabs at certain aspects of our society, Camus aims to reveal a much deeper truth with the misplacement of his astonished hero (Brock, 95).
While the novel pettifogging (Levy, 1).
When Albert Camus told the story of how a meaningless action on a sun-baked Algerian beach brought about the downfall and ultimately the execution of a man strange to our society and the framework of humanity’s commonest beliefs, he showed that whatever happens in one man’s life, in any man’s life, is meaningless and insignificant. The novel, however, is anything but meaningless and significant in the world of literature. “The Stranger” is one of the first novels to break free of the limits man’s innate need for society and hope that had bound the conclusions reached by earlier writers and come to a final destination in philosophy. It was quite possibly the first of such novels to match the realities of its philosophy with real language and reflect the sincerity of the author through the matching honesty of its protagonist, message, and style. Camus’ pioneering style and purpose in “The Stranger” have established the book as an enormous literary breakthrough and have created a far reaching cultural influence that defines the book as the apotheosis of modern philosophy.