The guillotine is one of the things Meursault thinks about while he is waiting in prison to be executed. Specifically, he is disappointed because he always thought to get to the guillotine, prisoners had to climb stairs to a scaffold, but actual guillotines are set up on the ground. What is the significance of having Meursault dwell on his disappointment with the guillotine? He frequently refers to the guillotine as "the machine" and says it destroys everything, so I thought it was symbolism for the "machine" of society that wants to eliminate him.
Meursault's disappointment with the guillotine being on the ground, and thus "on the same level as the man approaching it" could be his way of surmounting his punishment with scorn, just like Sisyphus. Maybe I'm reading way too much into this, but by putting the guillotine on the same level as Meursault, is Camus saying the morality of the "machine" is no better than Meursault's own?
I agree that the guillotine is a symbol of societies machine. I think that Meursault learning that the guillotine is not on a platform revokes some of his perceived glory in death. He realizes that his death will be just as meaningless as the Arab's and his mother's.
ReplyDeleteRosalie and Meghan, I love these ideas! The only other thing I would add is how dated of a death penalty using a public guillotine is. Perhaps there is another layer that tells us something about how society in the past (arguably negatively) affects the present?
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