Friday, October 2, 2015

Irrational World


In The Stranger, Camus asserts that human existence has no meaning but people have trouble accepting this notion. People constantly try to find meaning and reason in their lives while Meursault is indifferent about the world surrounding him. Meursault has no distinguishable reason for deciding to kill the Arab, except that the sun was in his eye. The idea that things happen with no explanation are threatening to society so they try to impose explanations to Meursault’s irrational actions. In Meursault’s trial, his lawyer and the prosecutor both try to give explanations to Meursault’s crime which represents society imposing rationality in a threatening irrational man. What Camus is trying to show about life is everyone has their own interpretation of it. Meursault is getting his head chopped off but says "I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again" (123). Instead of searching for explanations, his indifference about the world around him is the reason he was happy.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with what you're saying. I think people are scared and they don't know what to do, so they occupy themselves by trying to give their lives meaning.

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