Albert Camus' The Stranger was ultimately a very thought-provoking and emotional novel. The deep thoughts it stirs primarily in the end while Meursault prepares for his death were very dark, but were composed of very legitimate ideas and Meursault's point of view really hit home with me.
Meursault is seen to be in the same situation as Sisyphus from "The Myth of Sisyphus," where there seems to be no point to the depressing, repetitive thing known as life. For, if there is nothing after the current life we live, what is the point of feeling, caring, getting upset, and being happy? Ultimately, they mean nothing whatsoever. Ten years after a day you at-the-time called the best day of your life, you won't even remember the strength of feelings you felt, and ten years after you made someone happy for a long time, they might not even give a second thought about you.
Life is absurd. Any meaning we see in life is imposed on it by ourselves. People choose to be happy when they see someone they like or eat their favorite kind of ice cream; they choose to allow themselves to feel sad when losing someone they cared about or something as trivial as getting a stain on their favorite shirt. Whether a stronger "reason" such as someone dying, or as simple as being taller than they wanted, a person allows for these things to affect them, and therefore is the sole reason for allowing themselves to feel.
And then there's the question of who decides that losing a person should be more emotional than losing a pet cat? Or that crying over a bad grade isn't as bad as having a break up? First of all, to different people, different events have different weights -- the death of a father that was never around might not be as significant as the death of a dog that stuck with its master through thick and thin; or vice versa. Society has imposed these sort of ideas on our lives, but they're not even uniform throughout the world. In one country, the death of a close person might be a devastating event while in another it's just a quotidian occurrence that really means nothing anymore. Hell, even around the same country these "ideals" aren't the same. (It really is a bizarre thought how there can be so many wealthy, well-off, people in the same country, while there are so many people around them that struggle to feed their children.)
Meursault doesn't get very upset about the death of his mother or his imminent death because he realizes that everyone will die eventually. Who can say that a 20 year old's death is untimely just because they didn't die from old age? If everyone is going to die eventually and life has no overall meaning to it, why do we look for simple pleasures in life, why do we hope for things to happen in the future, especially if the majority of our hopes and dreams are never realized? Why does society condemn a man to death essentially because he doesn't cry at his mother's funeral? Seriously, why do other people care about the emotions of others, why do they try to impose their beliefs on others? Why are people who are different considered "strangers" like Meursault, and a threat to society?
Unfortunately, I cannot answer these questions because I don't know my own answers to them, but also because everyone has different opinions and beliefs (and while I'm just speculating, I don't want to be offensive.)
Meursault is seen to be in the same situation as Sisyphus from "The Myth of Sisyphus," where there seems to be no point to the depressing, repetitive thing known as life. For, if there is nothing after the current life we live, what is the point of feeling, caring, getting upset, and being happy? Ultimately, they mean nothing whatsoever. Ten years after a day you at-the-time called the best day of your life, you won't even remember the strength of feelings you felt, and ten years after you made someone happy for a long time, they might not even give a second thought about you.
Life is absurd. Any meaning we see in life is imposed on it by ourselves. People choose to be happy when they see someone they like or eat their favorite kind of ice cream; they choose to allow themselves to feel sad when losing someone they cared about or something as trivial as getting a stain on their favorite shirt. Whether a stronger "reason" such as someone dying, or as simple as being taller than they wanted, a person allows for these things to affect them, and therefore is the sole reason for allowing themselves to feel.
And then there's the question of who decides that losing a person should be more emotional than losing a pet cat? Or that crying over a bad grade isn't as bad as having a break up? First of all, to different people, different events have different weights -- the death of a father that was never around might not be as significant as the death of a dog that stuck with its master through thick and thin; or vice versa. Society has imposed these sort of ideas on our lives, but they're not even uniform throughout the world. In one country, the death of a close person might be a devastating event while in another it's just a quotidian occurrence that really means nothing anymore. Hell, even around the same country these "ideals" aren't the same. (It really is a bizarre thought how there can be so many wealthy, well-off, people in the same country, while there are so many people around them that struggle to feed their children.)
Meursault doesn't get very upset about the death of his mother or his imminent death because he realizes that everyone will die eventually. Who can say that a 20 year old's death is untimely just because they didn't die from old age? If everyone is going to die eventually and life has no overall meaning to it, why do we look for simple pleasures in life, why do we hope for things to happen in the future, especially if the majority of our hopes and dreams are never realized? Why does society condemn a man to death essentially because he doesn't cry at his mother's funeral? Seriously, why do other people care about the emotions of others, why do they try to impose their beliefs on others? Why are people who are different considered "strangers" like Meursault, and a threat to society?
Unfortunately, I cannot answer these questions because I don't know my own answers to them, but also because everyone has different opinions and beliefs (and while I'm just speculating, I don't want to be offensive.)
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