Individual Seminar Prep: The Stranger and Existentialism

Essential Questions: (you dont need to answer these directly right now)
How does Albert Camus illustrate his view of The Absurd in The Stranger? What, if anything, can you learn about how to create meaning in your life from Mersault?

What message do you think Camus is trying to share with his readers about how to live a life of meaning? What can you learn from Meursaults personality and his experience throughout the novel about how to live (or not live) your own life? Meursaults personality and character shifts throughout the book, and as he comes closer and closer to his death, his perception begins to change. Within the beginning of the book, he lives through the secondhandedness of other peoples opinions and thoughts. He has no motivations within his life, and theres a passivity thats specifically directed towards emotion or opinion. He lives in the physicality of the world. When he thinks of Marie, its not her charm or delighted character that keeps him involved, but simply the fact that shes an attractive, aesthetically beautiful women . Yet towards the end of the book, there is an awareness and thoughtfulness about him that could never have been discerned from the beginning. He realizes that hes being sentenced to death due to other peoples pretentious attemp t at judging his essence. In the length of time before the execution, he starts to actually think about his life and it s meaning. This is because death has finally casted its shadowed presence onto Meursaults conscious. Ive learned that the true meaning of responsiveness is responding to difficult times with the realization that you must take responsibility for its meaning, purpose. For only you can define whats meaningful and whats not, and that ultimately that boils down to the possibilities of your individual happiness. (You have to make the most of each moment, take full responsibility, and sometimes be The Absurd Hero)

Existentialism Key Term

The Absurd

Page # and excerpt of the quote

But I couldnt quite understand how an ordinary mans good qualities could become crushing accusations against a guilty man. (100)

Brief description of how this passage represents the key term

This represents The Absurd through exemplifying how society and man can project these unbelievably meaningless ideas onto something that, in actuality, can only be perceived as a truth by each individual and through their own terms. (did that make sense?). In Meursaults case, he was indeed an ordinary man, the fact including that he didnt actually have any motive behind doing the things he did. What drove him to do things was this extremely passive, simpleminded logic that was driven by the physical side of things. Yet the jurors, the judge, and the prosecution painted him as this man who had no soul at all, and created this vindictive meaning of his actions and character really just from thin air. This is such an interesting quote. Meursault is

Existence precedes

essence

So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. (122)

thinking about Mamans recognition of her individual existence and how it preceded her essence. With death just around the corner, it must have been glaringly obvious that the only thing she could really do is make the rest of her time meaningful, singularly to her. Thats why she got engaged. He states that nobody should cry over her because they only projected their idea of what her essence was onto her, and therefor couldnt possibly know who she really was. People just remember the essence of who you are, not your actual existence. Your actual existence, in my mind, is only something that you can really know.

Alienation That is how I explained to myself the strange impression I had of being the odd man out, a kind of intruder. This quote is a perfect example of alienation. Does it really need an explanation? Meursault is in the courtroom, and being the tried man, finds himself in the position of being objectified as the criminal. While everyone else is catching up with each other in the courtroom, he feels lost in the crowd. The crowd of judges, reporters, lawyers etc. He has, as a project, the duty of appearing before society as a murderer. Which is a predefined label. So as society states that as being true, you start to believe it, and soon, your existence in seemingly overridden by your essence. Which is indeed false and unnatural, which could possibly be the cause for his sense alienation.

Angst/Individual Freedom and Responsibility of choice (Either of him avoiding responsibility or accepting free will or experiencing that angst in recognizing his free will.)

And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.

All of a sudden, right before his death, and after his existential crisis, he feels free. Free from the burden of painfully trying to apply a meaning to his death and a meaning to the shortcoming of his life. He has finally discovered his existence within the realization that the only thing that will truly console him of his death is embracing it. Embracing the indifference of the world. A world without meaning. Oh my goodness, none of this is making sense. Theres a poetic feel to it that makes it much more difficult to explain, or maybe its just late...

7. What is the significance of the line, "everything is true and nothing is true" (91)? Read page 91 then compare to pages 98-101 (Closing Arguments of the lawyers).
This statement correlates to Camus belief that truth can only pertain to each individual. This is because truth is something that changes from moment to moment, and if each person was aware of their own purpose and meaning in life, they would also have to create their own truths. This contrast between everything and nothing is associated with the idea that you must find whats true in the world, and that could be anything. That you must find your own truth because there is no universal truth, no guidelines surrounding truth that everyone must follow.