In French class, we read the Stranger and focused more on Meursaults feelings and how society depicts them as him being emotionless, but is the way he is grieving really wrong? when someone experiences a loss, people expect someone to grieve in a "certain" way, crying, sadness, etc, which is unfair. As it is shown, Meursault does not grieve in this way. While reading the book in french, we discussed the worldwide perception of what grief looks like, but how some people do not experience grief this way. As Meursault shows us, he does not show sadness, or yet even a reaction to the loss of this mother, and this struck me while reading it in French. We discussed the difference in how many people grieve and how society perceives it as wrong, or just not grieving, or having no emotion when there is no reaction to a serious event, like the loss of a family member. People often look back on their personal experiences and relate it to Meursault's situation, and how he is emotionless and does not have any real reaction to the situation. It is natural to cry, but it is okay to not show any emotion, it all depends on the person. So, there really is no way correct way to grieve, it all depends on how the person deals with traumatic or life changing events.
We discussed how it is extremely unreasonable that society judges people who do not react or grieve in a "certain way", everyone is different, therefore everyone shows their emotions in different ways, some maybe choosing not to show them at all. In The Stranger, Meursault shows no evidence of grieving, but that does not mean he isn't internally grieving for the loss of his mother. We do not know yet!
This is a really interesting lens to view the book through! However, I do think that we know (to some extent) Mersault's feelings and reactions towards his mother's death that we learn through his inner monologue. He repeatedly expresses his annoyance at other people's grief, and carries on with his life as if nothing had happened at all. Someone else said this in a different post, but it seems like she was already dead to him, as he had placed her in a home and seemingly forgot about her, so it would make sense that he was not in mourning.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Maybe this is just how Mersault displays his emotions. Maybe he is still in shock and the emotions just have not kicked in yet.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with this. However, for some people when a traumatic event happens they take longer to display their emotions. Meursault may still be in shock that his mother has passed away and the feelings haven't quite hit him.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading The Stranger in french and it is an extremely different experience. Whether it is because of the language difference, or the classroom settings, the reaction I had was very different in each class. I appreciate that we had the opportunity to read the book in both classes because now I have two different interpretations.
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