Mark Twains The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, James McBrides Color of Water and Albert Camus The Stranger - Term Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... According to the research books provide for an excellent getaway for an individual and also help him to attain spirituality and understand individuality to a great extent. Albert Camus first published ‘The Stranger’ in the year 1942 and the book has been known to be written along the lines of existentialism. The book is based on various schools of philosophical thought including absurdism. The book is about a murder committed by a Mediterranean character, Meursault, and the journey follows his narrative as the first part and the post murder story of his life as the second. This is how Camus tries to display him as a stranger to his own thoughts and feelings, throughout the course of the book. In the beginning, Meursault’s character is seen hardly even caring about his mother’s death; not full of grief, merely to display the nonchalance and callous attitude that he was going through; perhaps purposely in order to escape feeling sad sentiments for his mother. Furthermore, he begins to develop sexual relations with a character, Marie, and he even tries to help his friend out of an infidel relationship. Through these traits, one can easily witness that he had feelings deep within his heart and was not a cold hearted man because even he was looking for love; however, he was not able to express the same for fear of being rejected or left by someone else, especially after his mother’s death. This situation has helped me understand how it is important to open one’s feelings up regardless of the worst of situations at hand, because only when a man is completely vulnerable is he able to accept risks into his life and grow and learn from the same. Further down the story, he meets and shoots and Arab for which he is then condemned and made to explain himself and his actions in court; he is able to adjust to the prison life easily because he was already so detached to the rest of the world. This explains how an individual should be able to learn from the worst of situations. His attorney takes the situation of his mother’s death in order to explain his uncaring attitude, however is not able to get over his passiveness. Camus takes this occasion in order to brand Meursault as a man soulless monster, incapable of feeling for whatever he has done in life. The final decision made by the judges is that he has to be decapitated in public, and as the day approaches, he says, “As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with stars, I opened myself to the benign indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself – so like a brother, really – I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had to only wish that there be a large crowd of spectators he day of my execution and that they greet me with howls of execration.” This monologue given by Meursault is enough for any reader to understand the kind of trauma that he was suffering within the confines of his sub conscious mind. He demonstrates emotional detachment from the world because of his mother’s death prior to which as well he did not feel the love and affection that she had to give him during the course of his childhood. These situations are enough to turn any man bitter and make him feel ...Download file to see next pagesRead More