Camus
Camus attempts to convey and explain the existential philosophy by creating the fictional character Meursault. Feelings of aesthetic indifference and a personality that rejects and fails to understand any notion of absurdity are qualities that define not only him, but of Camus' vision of the ideal existentialist. While on trial, Meursault's prosecutor urges the jury to convict on grounds that "when the emptiness of a man's heart becomes...an abyss threatening to swallow up society," toleration is no longer an option. I say "toleration," as Meursault was never fully accepted into society from the onset of the novel. A stranger to everyone but himself, he never once yields an inch to those with contradicting philosophies. The view Camus most likely attempts to suggest is that which is quite similar to the nineteenth century philosoph who provided the basis upon which future thinkers would later expand, Soren Kierkegaard. "Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of the majority is illusory, formed by gangs who have no opinion- and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is e
While an existentialist, Svidrigailov does not show the ignorance with which Meursault occasionally exhibited, but rather utilizes his perceptions of human nature to impose his beliefs upon others. In the end, we find that it is Raskolnikov who in a sense submits to society with emotion as a guiding force, while the existential Svidrigailov walks away without yielding a single inch. Maybe in doing so, Camus utilizes a privilege granted all writers, who in writing create. Does this make the latter character stronger in any way? One may point out that indifference to the world may imply superiority to society. This occurred specifically while traveling from the courthouse to his jail cell. Omnipresent and overbearing, Meursault finds that stepping further away from it is futile, as its rays always seem to reach him. At the exact moment when the Arab removes a knife from his pocket, Meursault apparently has his back to the sun and is scorched by the sun's reflection on the mirrored surface of the knife. Camus depicts a situation in which a man is stripped of his freedom, and describes Meursault's transition from a man once indifferent, to one who retains this indifference while at the same time is more enlightened, and to a certain extent ignorant. He started his life a man condemned to freedom. Thus it was ultimately Raskolnikov's "submission" to society that leads to his moral redemption: an action the existential Svidrigailov, and his parallel character Meursault, would never consider. In retrospect, he begins to notice aesthetic qualities of his life he was theretofore not able to recognize while originally performing certain actions for the first time. We all know that Raskolnikov's most profound internal change directly resulted from an alteration in the manner in which he interacted with society, which began with his donation to the Marmeladov family. The deprivation of free will is something explored by Camus in other works such as The Plague and the Myth of Sisyphus. It is in these works that "the human being encounters walls that limit and trap him.
Common topics in this essay:
Myth Sisyphus,
Dostoyevsky's Raskolnikov,
Kierkegaard Truth,
It's Raskolnikov,
Stepping Arab,
Meursault Feelings,
,
Camus's Meursault,
prior committing,
society causes,
sun's reflection,
character meursault,
condemned freedom,
expressed meursault,
ideal existentialist,
minority stronger,
novel main,
stripped freedom,
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Acceptance Essays
