Five shots: first one, a pause, and then four more. They look as if they belong to the same species, and yet they hate each other. She looked sad. As a classic in English translation a lot has been made of its opening and closing sentences. Beni Said Beach from skyscrapercity. View all 62 comments. Feb 23, Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it it was amazing Shelves: camus , reviews. If You Exist "The Stranger" dramatises the issues at the heart of existentialism.
The same issues are probably at the heart of life, whether or not you believe in a god. Being Judged It's interesting that there has been a crime and now Meursault is being "judged". The judgement is symbolic not only of the justice system, but of God's judgement of humanity. Defending Yourself You would normally expect the defendant to assert their innocence or plead not guilty in the criminal justice system cue Law and If You Exist "The Stranger" dramatises the issues at the heart of existentialism.
Defending Yourself You would normally expect the defendant to assert their innocence or plead not guilty in the criminal justice system cue Law and Order theme song. Both options require the defendant to take a positive step, only they differ in degree. To assert your "innocence" is to positively state that "I didn't do it". To plead not guilty can mean a number of things. It could mean that "I did actually do it", but you, the prosecutor, have to prove to the Judge or Court that I did it.
It could mean that "I did actually do it", but I have a defence or justification that means it is not a punishable crime e. Asking Forgiveness This process is partly analogous to the situation when a Christian dies and meets their God. If they have sinned, you would expect them to ask forgiveness. Having been forgiven, they would expect to go to Heaven. Not Defending Yourself One of the dilemmas of "The Stranger" is that morally and legally there might be issues that Meursault could put to the Judge that would excuse his action and allow the Judge to find him not guilty.
He could then go "free". He could have argued that his action was self-defence or the result of provocation. He could have "got off", if he had taken a positive step on his own behalf.
However, he fails to take the step. If he was a Christian i. His life would have had some meaning and he would have wanted more of it. Similarly, if he was a Christian, he would have been motivated to seek eternal life in Heaven. So he would have taken the positive step. What's the Point? Instead, against all expectation, he doesn't defend himself. We are left to wonder why. We have to assume that Meursault effectively asked the questions of himself, "What is the point?
Why should I bother? Achieving Your Own Mortality There was no point in prolonging his life and, not believing in Heaven, there was no point in seeking eternal life. He had lived a life however long or short, however good or bad, however satisfying or unsatisfying and it didn't really matter that his life might come to an end. The point is that, sooner or later, all life must come to an end.
By failing to take a "positive" step on his own behalf, he effectively collaborated in and achieved his own mortality. He existed while he was alive, he would have ceased to exist when he was executed.
If he wasn't executed, he would have died sooner or later. Ultimately, he "enjoyed" his life while he had it, he didn't care enough to prolong it and he accepted the inevitability of his own death. Is Despair the Explanation? This doesn't necessarily mean that he embraced despair as a way of life or death. In a way, he accepted responsibility for his own actions during life and he accepted responsibility for the inevitability of his own death as well.
Ultimately, this is why "The Stranger" and Existentialism are so confronting to Christianity and Western Civilisation. It makes us ask the question "what is the point? Responsibility This doesn't mean that life is meaningless and everybody else should live their lives in despair.
Quite the opposite. We should inject our own meaning into our own lives. We are responsible for our own fulfilment. Life is short and we should just get on with it. Or as a friend of mine says, everybody is responsible for their own orgasm.
Such is life. View all 48 comments. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of Camus' philosophy of the absurd and existentialism. Part 1: Meursault learns of the death of his mother, who has been living in a retirement home. At her funeral, he expresses none of the expected emotions of grief.
When asked if he wishes to view the body, he declines and instead, smokes and drinks coffee in front of the coffin. Rather than expressing his feelings, he comments to the reader only about the aged attendees at the funeral. It takes place on an unbearably hot day. Part 2: Meursault is now incarcerated, and explains his arrest, time in prison, and forthcoming trial.
His general detachment makes living in prison tolerable, especially after he gets used to the idea of being restricted and unable to have sex with Marie.
He passes the time sleeping, or mentally listing the objects he owned in his apartment. At the trial, the prosecuting attorney portrays Meursault's quietness and passivity as demonstrating guilt and a lack of remorse. The prosecutor tells the jury more about Meursault's inability or unwillingness to cry at his mother's funeral and the murder.
He pushes Meursault to tell the truth, but the man resists. Later, on his own, Meursault tells the reader that he simply was never able to feel any remorse or personal emotions for any of his actions in life.
The dramatic prosecutor denounces Meursault, claiming that he must be a soul-less monster, incapable of remorse, and thus deserves to die for his crime.
View all 10 comments. May 25, Fergus rated it it was amazing. Well, and you know what? Camus was for REAL. Camus, like so many mid-century existentialists, was alienated from traditional societal roles and structures. Because he knew the phony Self to be only the Origin of Darkness. And for Camus, too, I think, who might just have said: That is not what I mean to say at all But though it is notoriously difficult to communicate it, Camus had found his Answer in the end: That the clear and calm Eye of the Storm is right at the centre of its fury.
Once you see that, it is enough. Look at that devilish grimace on his young face, cigarette dangling rebelliously from his scowling lips, in that infamous early mug shot! Going vaguely through the motions. Like so many of us, if we are still in the workforce. Not much giving a darn. About anything. I too was a robot - till the day I retired. That was the day all my chickens came home to roost.
I got news for that person. It wanders willy-nilly - all by itself. You can always try to connect the dots, slowly and patiently. Remember E. A huge prise de conscience. All at once, it fell into place. I was free. And alive. He has the inestimable freedom of the Eternal Present Moment of his Life View all 71 comments. Fergus I'll look it up, Suha.
I'll look it up, Suha. May 05, Chris rated it did not like it. And just like the Oort can occasionally spit a chunk of sh! Cue robot voice It struck me as strange. The sentences were so short. It was very peculiar. This could be read very fast. I began to read this on the train on my in to work. I finished it on my way back home. Who the hell writes like that? More importantly, who the hell reads a book like that and suspects therein lay some complexity?
Each time I noticed how condensed everything was it occurred to me that somehow the literati had spent all this time adoring the published equivalent of a commercial. His testicles are extremely small and sterile, and he fondles them often. Not long after the death of his mother, Our Hero is chilling on the beach when some Arabs come around looking to start sh! More than anything I was just bored with it.
There was no build up, there was no action, there was no climax. There was nothing funny, nothing exciting, nothing interesting, and nothing to really take away from the book; just the same words repeating over and over, grouped in strings of seven or eight.
Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure. Emotionless, he undergoes the arrest and the consequent process, calmly accepting the inevitability of his destiny. Not a hero or an antihero, Meursault is the stranger par excellence, alien to all the emotional manifestations that are common to humans, more similar to an Asimovian android than to a man.
A small book that is consumed in one day, but it eats away at you for weeks. O forse ieri, non so. Un piccolo libro che si consuma in un giorno, ma che continua a roderti dentro per settimane. Voto: I just finished reading this famous - classic story. All this time I had no idea what it was about. What an interesting little book. It's a brilliant small book - especially knowing it was written so long ago: Is everything the same as everything else?
Does it matter who we marry or if we marry? Does it matter if we live or die? Must murder have a meaning?
Whose challenge is it when a person's behavior- is much less traditional than popular opinion? And who decides what is meaningful and purposeful in life anyway? Is it possible things are simply 'made up' This book reminds me- "that life is a game". It is what it is. The game is how we play it: we add our beliefs - thoughts - feelings - choices. We 'add' meaning to "what is". Life is interpretation He accepts his fate - yet not passively.
He's clear he did something wrong. He's expecting others to be outraged. It accepts it all. Love the simple straightforward prose I liked his strangeness!
View all 34 comments. Apr 08, karen rated it really liked it Shelves: littry-fiction. Sep 24, s. These questions rattle across the pages of this fantastic character study revolving around a courtroom character judgement of the narrator, a courtroom of suits flanking a judge that might as well be angels flanking the pearly gates of Christian lore. This is a man not unsatisfied with life but feeling on the outside of it, moving through the world as he sees fit, and being denied life by men with a God-like arrogance for believing their word and opinions are firm law when really they are as meaningless and insignificant as any other creature.
However, this is not a story of the condemners, but of the condemned. Part One of the novel focuses on the funeral, and more importantly its aftermath. As we watch Meursault awkwardly press through a funeral he feels detached from, more inclined to discuss how the weather and present company ill-effect him than the loss of a mother. It occurred to me anyway that one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed.
Whereas the relationship with Maman is cold and detached, the two of them separating much out of boredom with one another, his relationship with Marie is full of excitement and hot-blooded sexual flair, yet the text is full of imagery nudging towards Oedipal impulses. Here we have find Meursault denied the sunsoaked scenes of nature and friendship of the outside world, and the sexuality so rampant in part one as he finds himself now beset by the cold indifferent stone walls of prison.
The world of part one only whispers through the bars. It also seems strange that the murder is not the primary discussion, but the actions of relations leading up to it. Did Meursault love his mother, was he in the circle of criminals, and other moral characteristics of the man seem to be the deciding factor of his fate, a trial that reads like a Holy decision into either Heaven or Hell while actually being a decision that would remove him from this worldly courtroom to the immortal courtroom, if that is to be believed certainly by the lawyers but denied by Meursault.
I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. He would have enough memories to keep him from being bored. Being left with only having your past life, full of its joys and transgressions, to either comfort or haunt you for what feels like eternity reads much like an expression of an afterlife.
The writing is crisp and immediate, and the effect is nearly overwhelming and all-encompassing in its beauty and insight. I read this in high school and have now re-read it in preparation for The Meursault Investigation. I found it to be much more meaningful to me as an adult as I found it then, though I enjoyed it equally both times.
When a reader is young, the ideas seem engaging and attractive, but more like a hat one can put on and remove when they are done and move on. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate. Note as well the quote above where Sunday passing is placed before mention of burying his mother. How could I neglect to mention the song Killing an Arab by the Cure, inspired by this novel.
View all 64 comments. Mersault is a twenty-something clerk of great intelligence but no ambition, little expressed emotion and the attitude of why bother about everything there's nothing wrong with the status quo.
But if pushed, by his girlfriend into marriage he will go along with it. Or when his violent pimp of a neighbour wants him to compose a letter to his mistress that is meant to result in extreme nastiness towards her but backfires , he will act.
It's as if inertia is his default. The only time he really sho Mersault is a twenty-something clerk of great intelligence but no ambition, little expressed emotion and the attitude of why bother about everything there's nothing wrong with the status quo.
The only time he really shows emotion is when he is annoyed at the heat and glare of the sun, a major annoyance for such a commonplace event. It's the only time he acts of his own volition too. His crime: Mersault is on the beach where he had been invited by his friend, the pimp, and sees one of the Arabs, brother to his friend's ex-mistress.
The Arab has just stabbed his friend after the pimp attacked him. Mersault stares at him, he is annoyed to see him and annoyed that the sun is so hot, as hot as it was at his mother's funeral and it annoyed him then too, upset him more than his mother's death. The Arab flashes a knife. Mersault remembers he has the pimp's gun he took to prevent violence, and he shoots him. Then a few seconds later, he shoots the dead body four times more.
He is arrested. Once he has adjusted to prison life, he finds that he gets pleasure from his memories and looking at the small square patch of blue sky he can see from his cell.
He says that if a person had one day only of freedom, it would create enough memories to live on for the rest of their life. But freedom or imprisonment, it's all the same to him. He is sure things will go his way. He refuses to help his lawyer, denies the existence of god, has no belief in Jesus and shows no remorse at all. It is all the same to him. This, here and now, is all there is, he says, but although he says that, he wants more.
Too late, the death knell rings and at the last moment he expresses emotion. When he is led to the guillotine he wants there to be a large and noisy crowd of people who hate him. The same people who were bemused that a law-abiding clerk could commit such a senseless, such an absurd murder.
What is the purpose of this angry crowd? Why does he want them there? How else, without religion, can he expiate his sin? Mersault is finely-drawn as one who watches but whose participation is limited to when it suits him. His lack of emotion means he is not immersed in situations, throwing his whole self into things as the very emotional people around him do.
These people, his late mother's aged fiance, the pimp, his angry boss, the girlfriend who loves him, the mistress who fights back, the Arabs full of thoughts of revenge, the religious lawyer, are full of passion. But he is the outsider. He observes much and acts little. Except for the once. Existentialism is, it isn't a philosophical choice, and Mersault, while holding those views, doesn't do so through conviction or acceptance, but more because of his damaged personality.
Perhaps that is why Camus denied this was an existentialist book. View all 23 comments. Jan 31, Lyn rated it really liked it. The Stranger was first published by Albert Camus in the original French in But in that story, Hemingway describes a change from the war and his reactions are connected with his recent martial experiences. Camus introduces us to his ideas about absurdity, abut how futile it is for us to try, desperately and mostly irrationally, to make sense out of the universe, to try and parcel out a small lot of order amidst a sea of chaos.
This is a short and easy read, but heavy with inference and provocation. View all 13 comments. He was convicted for murder, after shooting a man without apparent reason. His conviction was based on his indifference, rather than the actual crime. Meursault The book is written exclusively from Mersaults subjective perspective, which deprive "In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death" The protagonist of "The Stranger" is a completely introverted and emotionless man named Meursault, who waits for his execution in his prison cell.
Meursault The book is written exclusively from Mersaults subjective perspective, which deprives the reader of all objectivity. You live his indifference. Meursault is psychologically detached from the outside world, incapable of developing feelings or emotions.
This indifference is hold against him in court, as prove for his incapability for showing remorse. At his murder trial he feels that the prosecutor and his lawyer are arguing about things that have nothing to do with him.
Meursault is neither moral nor immoral. Rather, he is amoral. However, his thinking begins to broaden after his verdict. With that acceptance he finds peace with himself and with the society around him. In his essays, Camus asserts that individual lives and human existence have no rational meaning or order. But because people have difficulty accepting this notion, they constantly attempt to identify or create rational structure and meaning in their lives.
For Mersault neither the external world, nor his internal thoughts and attitudes possess any rational order. Meursault has no discernable reason to kill the man, still the society tries to fabricate or impose rational explanations for his irrational actions. The idea that things sometimes happen without reason or deeper meaning is disruptive and threatening to them. Yet these explanations have no basis in fact and serve only as attempts to defuse the frightening idea that the universe is irrational.
The entire trial is therefore an example of absurdity. The Meaninglessness of Human Life Camus died in a car accident when he was 46 years old A second component of the absurdity, is the idea that life has no redeeming meaning or purpose. The only certain thing in life would be the inevitability of death, which is why all lives are all equally meaningless. Ultimately Meursault realizes that, just as he is indifferent to the universe, the universe is indifferent to him.
He sees that his hope for a sustained life has been illusional. With that he is experienced as a threat to our society, that requires inhabitants to react in accordance with social conventions. Ultimately he receives the death sentence, not for the murder, but for being indifferent. This book is just brilliant and touches on similar challenges as "The trial" or "Crime and Punishment".
View all 28 comments. The novel begins with the words: "Mother died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. Albert Camus gilded as one of the most important literary and philosophical thinkers of the post-war period. The Nobel Prize laureate of , which also focused on political questions before. The novel is an absurd work, up to the last sentence. He is also in the position in which the death-journey of a The novel begins with the words: "Mother died today. He is also in the position in which the death-journey of a man who has already stagnated in life, who recalls, at the moment of the expected death, that life whose level is not retarded, war for many the conscience of France.
An absolute classic of world literature! View all 9 comments. Apr 12, Jr Bacdayan rated it did not like it. I'm really quite at odds here.
Before anything else, I would like to state that I was rather pleased with the first half of the novel, but sadly not by the second. Sure, this novella exposes certain absurdities in our society.
I'd agree to that. But for me, the truths that this book expounds upon is not enough to make up for the negativeness that it entails upon its readers. In the way that I understand it, one of the point of his message in the end states that: What we do is not important, because we will all perish anyway. Why invest in morality, in relations, in feelings, when all that awaits us is certain death?
Sure, life can be absurd at times. Sure, we'll all die. But just because of these known realities, should we throw away things that make sense? Throw away our life? Should the negative destroy the positive? It comes to me like this. Because we urinate what we drink, then it doesn't matter whether we drink muddy water or urine or orange juice. We'll all urinate them later just the same. Why do we live? Do we live because there might be a slight chance of immortality?
Do we live because everything makes sense? We live in-spite of everything. We live because we do. Our consciousness is being insulted, our intelligence trampled, and our life spit-upon by this very grim way of thinking. His insistence that one can just about get used to anything shows man's innate capability to adjust. That we plow on through obstacles and hardships. That we fight even if we encounter difficulties and absurdities. He suggests we shouldn't.
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness. One of Albert Camus's most well-known novels--and remarkably, his first--the tale of an ordinary man who's drawn into extraordinary circumstances has impressed readers for years.
Exploring the "nakedness of man faced with the absurd", Camus created an illuminating look into the essence of men. Related Products. Albert Camus. Eddie J. Arthur Gibson. Love and Justice Reinhold Niebuhr. Reinhold Niebuhr. Have a question about this product? Ask us here. Ask a Question What would you like to know about this product? Pin On Pdf Download. The Stranger Albert Camus. On 8 February the year-old Albert Camus gave an inaugural lecture for a new Maison de la culture or community arts centre in Algiers.
Pin On Librarybooks. Source: br. The first edition of the novel was published in and was written by Albert Camus. Source: co. Of semi-proletarian parents. Click Get Books and find your favorite books in the online library. The schoolmaster was watching the two men climb toward him. Published in the book become immediate popular and critical acclaim in philosophy cultural books.
Educated at the University of Algiers Camus developed tuberculosis in which forced him to reduce his studies to part-time.
0コメント