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The Stranger: Part One, Chapter Three

The Stranger: Part One, Chapter Three

In chapter three of The Stranger, after Mersault gets home in the evening, he watches his neighbor Salamano and his dog go out for a walk. Mersault comments on how these two have been together for years and share a monotonous routine that had led them to hate each other. Moreover, annoyed by the dog’s presence, Salamano beats him and curses throughout the walk. However, in the next chapter Salamano is extremely sad when the dog goes missing. The relationship between Salamano and his dog shows the juxtaposition of loathing and love on contemporary society.

Mersault also interacts with another neighbor, Raymond, who invites him to dinner. Unlike with the other people who have appeared in the story, Mersault seems interested in Raymond and accepts his invitation. This shows a greater break from societal expectations since while Raymond is considered to be a bad influence by others and is deemed dangerous, he is the only character thus far that has interested Mersault. At dinner, Raymond describes a fight he had with his ex-girlfriend’s brother. After explaining how the fight was the result of him beating his ex-girlfriend due to her infidelity, he asks Mersault for advise on the situation and on executing a plan for further revenge, with which Mersault helps. Although Raymond now considers Mersault a friend, the reader is able to notice how the conversation has revolved around Raymond while there has been no mention of Mersault’s own life. Thus, further highlighting Mersault’s disinterest in healthy human relationships.

Annotated bibliography on critical essay 1

Annotated bibliography

Thody, Philip. “Albert Camus: A Study of His      Work.” Albert Camus: A Study of His Work (1957). Grove Press, Inc, 1959.                   Rpt. in Contemporary Literacy Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 27 Feb 2015.

This excerpt of Thody’s critical essay describes Albert Camus’s absurdist philosophy and how it is illustrated in his works, The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus. The document helps the reader understand why absurdism was so influential in the second half of the 20th century by describing how this philosophy reflected the historical situation of the moment. According to Thody, “The Stranger” describes the situation of the absurd hero, and The Myth of Sisyphus analyses this situation. Furthermore, the article helps the reader understand the predicament of the absurd hero and how he deals with the realization that trying to understand the universe using human rationale is absurd and pointless.

This critical essay comes from a legitimate and well-informed source that has written a number of books on Camus and has translated volumes of his notebooks. Moreover, the writer is an educator and critic who specializes in twentieth-century French literature, and thus has vast knowledge on Camus and the ideology of his time and place.

The Stranger: Part One, Chapter Two and beginning of Chapter Three

The Stranger: Part One, Chapter Two and beginning of Chapter Three

Chapter two of The Stranger, by Albert Camus, starts off with Mersault at the beach being reunites with Marie, a former co-worker with whom he had been with before. After flirting on the beach they go to the movies to watch a comedy and then go back to Mersault’s apartment for the night. This opening continues to depict Mersault’s lack of emotion regarding his mother’s death and highlights his apathy even further. Through Mersault’s interactions with the people around his, such as those attending his mother’s funeral and Marie, Camus emphasizes the attitude of the absurd hero and his nonconformity to social norms. Mersault wakes up alone on Sunday morning; he spends the day in bed, smoking and watching people through the window, and states that he hates Sundays. This stresses his self-alienation and disinterest in social activities, and makes the reader question the quality of the relationship he might have with Marie. Chapter three opens with Mersault washing his hands at the office, an activity that he really enjoys, and remembering how when he told his boss about the hand towel getting too wet by the end of the day he did not consider it to be a major problem. This shows a sharp contrast between Mersault and his boss, since while the boss considers the towel’s dampness to be a minor detail, to Mersault this sort of practical details entail great preoccupations; thus, here Camus is illustrating how the absurd hero focuses on practical matters rather than on human emotions.

The Stranger: Part One, Chapter One

Andrea Machado

AP English

N. Crowe

24 February 2015

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The Stranger: Part One, Chapter One

The Stranger, by Albert Camus, opens with Mersault getting the news of his mother’s death, and him making arrangements to go to her funeral. At the funeral, his unemotional attitude and rational thoughts do not match societal expectations of what a grieving son should look like. These attitudes make him stand out, which might cause trouble for him as the book goes on. Furthermore, his conversation with the director and his thoughts about those around him in the mortuary lead the reader to question his lack of empathy and the nature of his relationship with his mother. During the funeral procession, the intense heat illustrates the absurdist idea that trying to understand the world around us using human rational is absurd; the climate being unaffected and unchanged by the grief felt by those in the funeral procession also conveys the idea that there is no correlation between human feelings and the universe. As the chapter goes through, Mersault’s lack of emotion seems increasingly inconsistent with the situation. When one of the people attending the funeral asks Mersault about his mother’s age and he is unable to remember, the reader is able to infer how unattached he was to his mother, and to others in his life. Furthermore, Mersault’s memories of concrete details of the funeral serve to characterize him by highlighting his regard for practical matters rather than emotional concerns.

Capstone Proposal: Albert Camus and Absurdist Philosophy

Andrea Machado

AP English

N. Crowe

13 February 2015

 

Capstone Proposal: Albert Camus and Absurdist Philosophy

 

albert-camus

Albert Camus (1913–1960) was an influential journalist, editor, playwright, director, novelist, author, political essayist and philosopher. Although he is labeled as an existentialist, in an interview with Jeanine Delpech, in Les Nouvelles Littéraires in 1945 he stated: “Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked… Sartre is an existentialist, and the only book of ideas that I have published, The Myth of Sisyphus, was directed against the so-called existentialist philosophers.” (Lea) Nonetheless, although Camus separated himself from existentialism, in The Myth of Sisyphus he wrote “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide,” thus launching one of the twentieth century’s leading existentialist questions.

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Camus’ philosophy of the absurd focuses on the contradictory nature of human tendency to seek a meaning of life, and the simultaneous inability to find it. To him trying to understand and explain the world is absurd, and considers the attempt to gain rational knowledge to be futile. Thus, when Camus analyzes the solutions to this disharmony between the search for a meaning of life and the meaninglessness of existence, he concludes that these are all absurd as well. He dismisses suicide as an answer to this absurd condition, stating that it does not counter absurdism but rather, ending one’s own life is absurd. To him, there is no way of escaping the absurd and the only solution is to accept the absurdity of life; as he illustrates in The Rebel, “the absurd is an experience that must be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence, of Descartes’s methodical doubt.” He also considers religious, spiritual, or abstract beliefs in a transcendent realm, being, or idea to be «philosophical suicide,» and disregards it as an answer to escape the absurd. (Aronson).

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Through this project, I am hoping to learn more about Camus’s critiques and absurdist arguments influenced and posed important philosophical questions.

 

Works Cited