Thursday, September 25, 2014

Meursault's Existence


In examining the character of Meursault I have come to discover his tendency to contract the personality of an existentialist.  One of the instances that have lead me to this conclusion is in the event of his mothers death.  When he attends her funeral he doesn’t show sadness or shed a tear, however, all of his mothers friends were crying and paying their respects.  Meursault’s indifference to his mothers death shows his resistance to the social confinement that that life systems create.  

Meursault also demonstrates existentialism when he kills a man at the end of part one of the novel.  Instead of thinking of morality and justice he becomes a radical subject and kills a man with indifferences and without a thought of how his actions could affect others.  

I think that Camus wrote Meursault as an existential character to portray his own existentialism.  Meursault doesn’t express his emotions nor does he seem to have feelings.  He is able to live happily on his own despite the random suffering that occurs in his life.  

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