Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Stranger by Albert Camus

This book is unique unto itself, I have never read another like it. And I intensely love it. Applying my question to this book is very difficult because it is hard to idenitify the adveristy and whether or not Mersault overcame it. On the surface, it would appear that Mersault was unable to overcome any adversity because the story ends with him awaiting his execution. However, it is my belief that he overcame adversity and the quality that allowed him to do so was his self-assuredness and his faith in life. Perhaps I am a little biased because I really do love this character. In the last few chapters of the book, Mersault is assaulted with fear and desperation to escape. He cannot accept his impending death. I am defining this as the adversity he needs to overcome. Mersault lived his life day by day, never looking backwards, complacently accepting each event as it came his way. Now his freedom to live his life his way has been snatched away from him and his easy acceptance is gone. This fear and loss of freedom is personified in the form of a chaplain and this interaction triggers an emotional explosion of understanding from Mersault. As his private thoughts, agonies, and desires are shouted out loud, he overcomes his fear and is able to accept his impending death. "As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with the signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle 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 only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate." (122-123) I love this book so much, it's hard not to get distracted from my original intent. this quote is after his angry flood of understanding, he is cleansed from that adversity and is able to face the world with indifference. Instead of wishing for an escape to ease his lonliness, he has accepted his death and is instead able to wish for a crowd of spectators to bear witness to his death. Morbid yes, but adversity takes on many faces and it can take hundreds of qualities or events that allow some to overcome it and others to fail

1 comment:

  1. I love that you love this book! It's apparent in this entry! The following excerpt from your entry fits nicely with Camus' assertion in "Summer in Algiers" that to live life as a pure man one must not evade what life is/brings:

    Instead of wishing for an escape to ease his lonliness, he has accepted his death and is instead able to wish for a crowd of spectators to bear witness to his death.

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