This reaction could be a result of societal pressures put on men to appear powerful and dominating or maybe results of parental teaching. However, he actually openly defies authority when the police knock on Raymond’s door to question him about hitting the girl. He opens the door with a cigarette and when the policeman tells him to stop smoking it he ignores him and continues to smoke until the cigarette is smacked out of his mouth. Though almost immediately after being hit he becomes meek and asks if he can pick up the cigarette. These two contradictory personality traits illustrate the internal struggle of Raymond to appear powerful while actually being submissive.
A similar pattern is seen in Meursault though less obvious and open. When questioned by his boss about taking leave for his mother’s funeral and the director about placing his mom in the home he quickly becomes defensive. He feels the need to constantly justify his actions and choices. However, he also wants avoid confrontation, for example, when Raymond is beating up the girls and Marie asks Meursault to get the police he says that he “didn’t like cops” (36). There are other examples of Meursault appearing to have a lack of opinion in situations when he could be questioned for having one. While this level of defensiveness is much less present than Raymond’s, Meursault still feels the need to prove himself.
A similar pattern is seen in Meursault though less obvious and open. When questioned by his boss about taking leave for his mother’s funeral and the director about placing his mom in the home he quickly becomes defensive. He feels the need to constantly justify his actions and choices. However, he also wants avoid confrontation, for example, when Raymond is beating up the girls and Marie asks Meursault to get the police he says that he “didn’t like cops” (36). There are other examples of Meursault appearing to have a lack of opinion in situations when he could be questioned for having one. While this level of defensiveness is much less present than Raymond’s, Meursault still feels the need to prove himself.
Interesting comparison between Mersault and Raymond, I'd never thought about it that way. Makes me wonder if all the characters in the books are meant to exaggerate personality traits of Mersault's. (Salamano is a pretty obvious metaphor for his guilt over leaving his mom, Marie might represent his lingering optimism, etc)
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your analysis of Raymond's character. All of the violent and reckless things he does seem to be motivated by his desire to mantain a public image. After the incident with the police he even asks Mersault whether he should have hit the policeman back, clearly seeking his approval. I feel though that he is much more motivated by social acceptance than Mersault is. True, sometimes Mersault seems conserned with public opinion, but typically he doesn't really seem to care whether the stuff he says and does seems weird or not. The way he acts around Marie (like choosing to not intervene in Raymond's violent outburst when she asked him to call the cops), the way he honestly expresses his thoughts to her (like when he said that he didn't love her and that marriage didn't mean anything to him), show that he is not trying to mantain an image of masculinity or conform to societal conventions.
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