Albert Camus

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Albert Camus

• The Stranger

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Albert Camus (1913-1960)

• Born in Algeria to a working class colonial
  family
• Father was killed in WWI
• Mother mute, illiterate, supported family by
  cleaning houses
• Was able to study due to scholarships
• Joined the Communist party in 1934 (left it two
  years later)
• Established the Theater for the Worker in Algiers
• Took part in Resistance in France
• Later edited journal Combat
• Nobel prize in 1957
• Died in a car accident in 1960

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Principal works

• The Stranger (1942)
• The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
• Caligula (1944)
• The Plague (1947)
• The Fall (1956)
• Exile and the Kingdom (1957)

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Questions surrounding The Stranger

• Is it a novel of ideas, does it contain a thesis,
  and what has the author set out to prove?
• Is it a psychological study of a pathological
  case, or is this case merely a symbol behind
  which are hidden larger meanings?
• Is it a philosophical novel, and if so, does
  Camus propose any solutions, or are his theories
  only negative and destructive?
• How are we to read the colonial system inscribed
  in the text, and the attitude toward Arabs and
  women it projects?

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The Absurd

• in a universe suddenly deprived of illusions
  and enlightenment, man feels himself a stranger.
  This exile is without remedy since he is deprived
  of memories of a lost country or of hope for a
  promised land (Myth of Sisyphus)
• Man facing the world and realizing the gap
  between the eternal nature of the universe and
  his own finite nature and the futility of his
  efforts
• If nothing makes sense, then everything is
  permitted. All scales of values disappear. All
  experiences become equivalent and are to be
  measured quantitatively

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Where do we see the absurd in The Stranger?
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Meursault

• Lives neither in past nor in the future
• Present is nothing but an eternal void
• Nothing has meaning, there is no aim
• Perfectly passive
• Does not perceive causal links
• Emphasis on the loneliness of each moment an
  interminable succession of voids
• Believes that the world judges him, though he
  does not know why
• Apathetic, taciturn
• Does not feel anything emotionally

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Alexithymia

• One may be strongly affected by an outer or
  inner event and yet give no more than a seconds
  attention to what one is feeling When this
  occurs, affects may be split within their own
  particular structure in such a way that the
  psychic pole is divorced from the somatic pole
  and the affect is reduced to a purely
  physiological expressionIn this case the emotion
  cannot be used as a signal to the mind, and its
  message can be dealt with neither by thought nor
  by action, leaving the subject open to the danger
  that the soma may think its own solution to the
  event

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What are some examples of Meursaults purely
physical responses/sensitivity and lack of
feeling?
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Other signs of this disorder

• An impoverished fantasy life, a paucity of dreams
• In the face of stressful situations, person has
  no recourse other than to attack any perceptions
  that risk arousing emotion
• What other people expect or request makes no
  sense
• An avoidance of emotional references
• The world and people become devitalized, and the
  exchange with others is meaningless
• When the defense breaks down, the body enacts
  primitive thoughts and feelings on a purely
  physical level

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From this perspective, the murder can be seen as

• a lifetime of unfelt feelings that enact
  themselves. A longing for intimate contact, a
  wish to be cared about, a need to be something a
  father could truly be interested in, combined
  with an enormous pent up rage, an urge to kill in
  revenge for having been emotionally murdered
  himself as a child.

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The colonial system

• What is Meursaults attitude toward Arabs?
• Toward women?
• Ambiguity of the first person narration.

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Part II

• Forum responses how and why does Meursault
  change in the second part?
• He begins to have emotions
• Kristen
• Embriette
• Katie V.
• He makes an effort to understand Chelsea
• He begins to understand Tiffany
• Other ideas?

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Camus concepts of existence and revolt

• Existence makes humans different from things
• The power within us to be free
• Power to understand
• Ability to feel passion
• Things
• Can be pushed by forces around them
• Are in bondage to their environment
• Cannot understand
• Are passionless
• They are, they do not exist

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• When we give up liberty, lucidity and passionate
  involvement with the world, we become a mere
  thing

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Revolt

• The movement from thinghood to full existence
• Phases
• Rock-like somnolence
• A shock or crisis during which the absurdity of
  the world around us becomes clear and inescapable
• Free choice of a reaction or attitude toward this
  absurdity
• The use of our freedom to act (to do something
  about this absurdidity)
• Where do we see these phases in The Stranger?

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Forum responses

• Interpretation of last line
• Kalli in his isolation, an angry mob is the only
  thing he could hope for
• Katie M. The only thing that matters in life is
  death
• Gena death as the great equalizer
• Lindsey relationship with existentialist
  philosophy, no universal justice
• Danielle having others around him, crying with
  hate would mean that he actually did something

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• Camus repeatedly affirms that after recognizing
  the absurd and revolting against it, his
  Meursault is a kind of moral suicide victim a
  man not merely condemned to death by his judges,
  but one actively engaged in carrying out his own
  death sentence which has been pronounced by the
  very society to which he is a stranger

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The trial

• Novel moves from the absurdity of nature (the
  symbol of the sun) to an exposition of an absurd
  social order
• The writing out of the actual murder of the Arab
  (collective racist attitude)
• Meursault condemned for parricide and matricide
• Things happen without his participation
• His lawyer speaks for him in first person
• Is he a monster as the prosecutor says?

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Camus on Meursault

• I have sometimes said, and always paradoxically,
  that I tried to give an image, through my
  character, of the only Christ we deserve. It is
  clear that I said it without any intention of
  blasphemy and only with the slight ironic
  affection that an artist has the right to feel
  towards the characters he creates