DISTANCED BY DEFAULT OR THE MANDATES OF MARGINALIZATION IN CAMUS’ L’ÉTRANGER Mary Jo Muratore* T he enigmatic Meursault has preoccupied readers for over a half a century‚ and there is little danger that critics will exhaust any time soon the interpretive possibilities Camus’ narrative provides. Because of Camus’ pivotal role in the existentialist movement‚ L’Étranger is often read as a kind of philosophical bildingsroman wherein the protagonist moves from a state of selfindulgent unawareness
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equation. Take the story of Abraham‚ God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and everything will be okay. Everyone’s first question might be how do you know it was an angel and how do you know if you are truly Abraham‚ where’s the proof? Starkre’s existentialism explains that God is a useless hypothesis but in order for there to be an ethics‚ a society or a civilization there are specific values and that need to be prevelant. This can be called a Priori existence. Society without God will still have
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Semaj Davis Tivey English 3 IB 29 October 2014 Word Count: 593 Existentialism in As I Lay Dying Existentialism‚ a philosophical movement that started in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries‚ focuses on the connection between consciousness and existence. Its basic assumption is that reality is recreated for each moment a human being is aware; there is no real connection between the past and the present. In As I Lay Dying‚ characters like Addie Bundren grapple with questions and fears
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The Black Death‚ one of the deadliest plagues in world history‚ engraved a wide swath of cataclysmic damage and inflicted a large loss of life. Discriminating against no one‚ it claimed the lives of the lower class and the gentry‚ the young and the old. Albert Camus’s novel‚ The Plague‚ illustrates the effects of and the responses to a plague that strikes the Algerian city of Oran. The allegorical representations and actions of five central characters in the novel‚ Dr. Bernard Rieux‚ Jean Tarrou
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The Stranger vs. A Family on their lawn one Sunday in Westchester‚ N.Y. Alienation comes in many different shapes and sizes. It can be caused by one’s self or it can be caused by a community. Both individuals and communities can be alienated and for all we know there may be a community of alienated people somewhere in the world. Although it can be hard to recognize at times‚ it is clearly evident in both The Stranger by Albert Camus‚ and a photograph by the name of A Family on their lawn one Sunday
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The Paper of the Absurd: A Literary Analysis of The Stranger By: Michael Lovett Advanced Placement English Language and Compositions 5th Period 13th of December‚ 2010 Michael Lovett In Albert Camus’ existential novel The Stranger‚ the pointlessness of life and existence is exposed and expounded upon in such a manner that the entire foundation of spirituality is shaken. The concept that drives this novel is one coined by Albert Camus himself‚ the “absurd”. Under the absurd‚ life is pointless
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The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus? Why That’s Absurd! Before the mid-twentieth century‚ “tragedy” was a special word reserved‚ as Aristotle wrote‚ only for those in power. Modernist literature (spearheaded by Arthur Miller’s Tragedy and the Common Man)‚ however‚ muddied the waters — depicting many different types of people as tragic heroes. Among the first of these so-called commoner tragic heroes was Albert Camus’ Meursault. Like the classically tragic Sisyphus in ancient Greek mythology
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A picture is worth a thousand words‚ but is it really? A picture to me is not a thousand words‚ but a thousand ideas. The idea of a picture itself is so simple‚ yet so remarkable in the way that we can look a picture and instantly relive a previous memory or experience. Pictures are almost a way to freeze time and reflect on who we were then and who we are now. This photograph is not much of an experience‚ but a reflection on my life as a child itself. I had no idea back then that I would be who
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Albert Camus demonstrated in many of his works. In the mid nineteen hundreds‚ Albert Camus introduced his own philosophy and also his own critique of religion and God. His philosophy of absurdity and his belief of religion is central to his novel‚ The Stranger. Albert Camus uses both Meursault‚ the main character in his novel‚ and Sisyphus‚ the main character in his essay as marginalized figures to essentially question the meaning of human condition. Through the act of storytelling Camus is able
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Sartre was an exponent of atheistic existentialism. He believed that "Existence is prior to essence. Man is nothing at birth and throughout his life he is no more than the sum of his past commitments. To believe in anything outside his own will is to be guilty of ’bad Faith.’ Existentialist despair and anguish is the acknowledgement that man is condemned to freedom. There is no God‚ so man must rely upon his own fallible will and moral insight. He cannot escape choosing." Sartre’s Theory of the
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