The Stranger by Albert Camus - Essay Example

Suzana Zdravkovska 02 May 2008 Self & Society "He, who is a servant, will always find a master" Sitting in front of the TV, watching an old Hollywood Western you take sides and cheer for the "good fellow". Then, inevitably, you ask yourself whether the "good" one is really so good. Searching through your mind you come to the notion of your "ideal" people. Yes, your ideal of perfect person has always been the one with a strong sense of moral responsibility not only for his own behavior but also for moral responsibility of society as a whole. Those are the strange people who have committed their lives to the search of the common and not the personal welfare. Each "healthy" society needs people capable of looking forward into the future and capable of showing us the path that leads outside the polluted atmosphere of intrigues of the group of the "little" people we all belong to. Namely, people who serve the truth and not the group or the public opinion are predecessors of the society who warn us of the dangers on our way to freedom. While the group is characterized with sluggishness and inertia, the individual is capable of rapid changes of his/her opinion towards the light that glows over the new facts and warns of new danger. However, those who serve the truth only, are rare and few. Many philosophers and famous writers have tried to find answers to these and similar questions concerning the individual versus society. Camus, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Thoreau and Emerson are only a few of those who have tried to criticize the society they have lived in, to cynically laugh at and mock their own time, to warn of the dangers of the moral and ethical erosion they have been witnesses of. Knowing the characteristics of existentialism to which Camus belongs, it is understandable why in his short novel "The Stranger" Albert Camus criticizes the judicial system and depicts the irony of a case when a man is condemned for his indifference and avoidance of societal code. Mersault, the protagonist, is condemned not only by the judge but the spectators in the courtroom as well for something else, that is, his lack of emotional response at his mother's funeral, etc., other than the crime he committed (killing the Arab) and the sentence is for him to be decapitated in the name of many people whom he has never known or whom he will never meet. Mersault is forced to be the outsider when he wants to speak on his behalf. Mersault's story is the story of everyman. To Mersault (i.e. to Camus) life's only meaning is seen from the death point of view. According to Camus, people strive to make their lives meaningful in the face of God but it is absurd, because hope and faith are only pointless measures constructed by each individual to provide purpose and avoid responsibility. Yet, Mersault is not a person who avoids responsibility for his deeds. On the contrary, he accepts responsibility for what he has done, changes into a person readers would like him to be, i.e. he shows that he is fully capable of feeling, he has emotions, he comes to terms with death, and gives a clear picture of what others are like - people hiding their true selves behind the veal of moral and societal code, when in fact they are nothing else but people full of hatred. "With death so near, Mother must have felt like someone on the brink of freedom, ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration" (Camus, "The Stranger", p.76). Does not hatred equal less than zero "Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning he was arrested" (Kafka, "The Trial"/ "Der Prozess", p.5). This first sentence in Kafka's novel "The Trial" or "The Process" leads directly to the point Kafka wants to present, and alludes to slander, that main feature of poltroons and cringers. A trial process is started based on a fictitious charge. An imaginary court is in session through its "small" clerks in every possible mortuary of the human mind. This is a trial process in a country that has never existed and does not exist in any geographical map, yet tries its citizen K., for "something" and "nothing", which could be an allegory for trial processes on either side of the ocean. Josef K., is an epitome of many such unjustly sentenced people, and the role of all the rest of the characters in the novel is to depict realistically the passiveness, resignation and lethargy and stupor of the society and its subjects. When an individual falls into a similar situation to K.'s, it is impossible for anyone to participate in such a process, not even as defense since neither the accusation (charge) nor the prosecutor are known. If the world on both sides of the ocean deals with Kafka and his "Process", then neither politicians nor lawyers, neither writers nor psychiatrists will find answers to the question this process raises. No one will be able to give the correct answer to the question: does Josef K., suffer during this trial, because very similar to the way Camus shapes Mersault, Kafka also sets K., free of all the concrete, real and realistic features of a decade, and human emotions. Does this mean such "Josefs" denuded of everything that means human emotion will lead to new dying, new deaths, today and tomorrow On the other hand, Dostoyevsky can be seen as a counterpoise of Nietzsche who throws away religion as unnatural. Dostoyevsky still believes in God and the Christian religion. He still has faith and hope in humanity. In the context of imprisonment, maybe Dostoyevsky should be viewed from the angle of his "Memoirs from the House of the Dead". This novel presents detailed picture of prisoners' life from the first stepping into the cell to the moment of the stepping out of it as a free person. Dostoyevsky points to the strong sense of fair, the love of justice, and the huge unused energy of those who have one way or another found themselves in prison. However, Dostoyevsky manages to see live people at the bottom of life in the House of the Dead, and their joyful thread that glows in everyone's soul, that is, everyone's wish to live and be human among people, "The fetters fell away. I lifted them up I wanted to hold them in my hand and look at them for the last time. It seemed amazing now that it was my legs they had been on a moment ago. 'Well, God be with you, God be with you!', said the prisoners, in gruff, abrupt, yet pleased tones. Yes, God was with us! Freedom, a new life, resurrection from the dead What a glorious moment!" ( Dostoyevsky, "Memoirs from the House of the Dead", p.357). Thoreau would be the last author I would discuss here in the context of (unjust) imprisonment. In his essay "Civil Disobedience", Thoreau deals with the unjust judiciary, laws and prison as governmental institution. According to him, not all laws are equal. Some of the laws have been created with only one purpose, to serve the government of a state (such as the tax evasion law, etc.). Thoreau retells his own experience in prison for declining to pay the poll tax. He knows and we also know that penalties for such "crimes" are more severe than those for violence. Dealing with court and sentences of the defendants in his time, Thoreau says that "Under a Government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison", (Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"). Max Lerner says "Civil Disobedience" is a "sharp statement of the duty of resistance to Governmental authority when it is unjustly exercised (Lerner, "Thoreau: No Hermit", p.21). After a night in prison and his release, Thoreau feels obliged to deal with the character of his neighbors, saying that not before that event has he discovered the people he has lived surrounded with are not to be trusted as good fiends, and their friendship is only for the summer season, alluding to their instability and hypocrisy. American society and the American Government of Thoreau's time are being strongly criticized in this essay. Yet, isn't this whole critique (with exception of the part that deals with slavery) a clear picture of the American and many other societies' modern protests of individuals against society Finally, although Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" has not many things in common with the discussed above, in times when we are being bombarded with information, commercials that tell us what to eat, how to dress, where to go on vacation, etc., and all the while no media gives a thought of the fact they are directly intruding our way of living and our privacy making us feel dissatisfied with our own appearance, our finances, it would not be fair not to mention this essay. Self-reliance is maybe even more important than our wish for the truth and life itself. Self-reliance is also very important for the community, i.e. society we live in. Self-reliance teaches us to respect ourselves, and to expect the same from the others around us, and it is also the best teacher and guide towards healthy independence. Emerson says: "Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but", (Emerson, "Self-Reliance"), and to all this I say, turn off your TV sets and your computers. They are huge walls (even bigger than the Chinese Wall) that separate us from our close ones. Pay your relatives and friends a visit. Otherwise, alienation from yourself and alienation from the outside world follow. Computers have no soul, no feelings. Let us not lose the piece of soul and the few emotions we have been left with these days. Sources: 1. Camus, Albert. "The Stranger" ("L'tranger"), Trans. Branko Pendovski. Skopje:Publishing House Slovo, Skopje, 2003 2. Kafka, Franz. "The Trial" ("Der Prozess"), Trans. Todor Dimitrovski. Skopje: "Misla"- "Makedonska Kniga", 1988 3. Dostoyevsky, M., Fyodor. "Memoirs from the House of the Dead" ("Zapiski iz mertvego doma"), Trans. Cvetko Martinovski. Skopje: "MISLA"-Skopje, 1971 4. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (DL SunSITE). 20 August, 2001. Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE. 27 November, 2008 http://sunsite.berleley.edu/Literature/Thoreau/CivilDisobedience.html 5. Sherman, Paul, ed. "Thoreau: A Collection of Critical Essays". Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1962 6. Ralph Waldo Emerson Texts: Self-Reliance (1841). 1996-2001. Jone Johnson Lewis Emerson Texts. 27 November,2008 http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm Read More