Philosophical problems in Camus's story The Outsider. The concept of alienation of the individual and society in the philosophy of Albert Camus (using the example of the story The Stranger)
Tale Albert Camus"The Stranger" was written in 1940 and published in 1942. Analysis of this work, as the most striking and famous, helps to trace all the main ideas of the author’s work.
The plot line of "The Outsider" (as, by the way, the composition) is linear. The story consists of two parts. In the first part, the Frenchman Meursault, who lives in Algeria, receives news of the death of his mother and arrives at the funeral. The hero spends the next day in Algeria with a lady named Marie, who becomes his girlfriend. Neighbor-pimp Raymond invites Marie and Meursault to spend the weekend on the seashore, but on the way they notice that they are being followed by Arabs, one of whom is the brother of Raymond's former mistress. On vacation, a strike occurs between the Arabs and Meursault's friends, which ends in nothing. After some time, the hero, seeing one of the Arabs on the beach, kills him. The second part is the case of Meursault, which dragged on for 11 months, as a result of which he was sentenced to death.
Despite the simple plot, the author's idea is very deep. It's not important to us storylines, and the reaction of the main character to what is happening around him, or rather, the absence of any reaction. Camus paints a person who does not experience traditional, socially accepted emotions. He doesn't cry at his mother's funeral, he doesn't care about Marie's proposal to get married, he doesn't feel anything during the murder. The trial seems dreary and drawn out to the main character; he does not pay attention to what is happening.
The story has two semantic levels - social and metaphysical. The first level is reality and the reaction of others. The second level is divorced from the real component; it reveals inner world Meursault.
The actions of the main character reveal the existential romanticism of his image. Meursault is an outcast in society, his actions cause misunderstanding and are condemned. Neither the jury, nor the judges, nor Marie understands him. Raymond creates the appearance of understanding and friendship, but ultimately he does not care about Meursault (just as he does not care about Raymond). Another component romantic image– the hero’s actions are driven by nature. He is the only one who likes to look at the sky. Even the murder seems to be channeled by the scorching sun that is shining on the beach at that moment.
The story shows a bright author's style. The text is a mixture of description and first-person past tense narration. The hero laconically lists everything he has done, making no difference between drinking a cup of coffee, going to the cinema and murder. All of Meursault’s actions are imbued with an atmosphere of absurdity - his actions, his inner world are absurd. The jury's arguments are also absurd: ultimately, the main argument in favor of the death penalty is that Meursault did not cry at his mother's funeral.
The climax of the story is the last night in the cell, when indifference leaves the main character. Meursault tosses and falls asleep in nightmares. He feels the desire to relive everything again, opens his soul to the world and suddenly realizes that the world is the same as HE. The hero is indifferent to the world, just as the world was indifferent to the hero. Meursault feels loneliness and sees only one thing as his peace of mind: so that during the execution all those who come do not look at him with glassy faces, but experience sincere hatred.
Thus, in the story “The Stranger” Camus’s existentialist views and ideas of absurdism are fully manifested. Interestingly, the author does not condemn the actions of the main character. Blame is destiny traditional society, the absurdity of which is shown in the story.
The story is narrated by a 30-year-old Frenchman living in colonial Algeria. His name remains unknown, but his last name is mentioned in passing - Meursault. Three are described key events in his life - the death of his mother, the murder of a local resident and trial, as well as a brief relationship with a girl. At the trial, Meursault truthfully states that he pulled the trigger of the gun “because of the sun,” which causes laughter in the audience. The jury is most impressed by the testimony that Meursault did not cry at his mother’s funeral, therefore, he is a hard-hearted person and not worthy of living. last chapter books, a priest comes to the cell of Meursault, sentenced to death, to awaken his faith in God. Flatly refusing to share the illusions of an afterlife, the narrator for the first time emerges from his half-asleep balance and falls into a frenzy.
The meaning of the novel's title. The outsider he seeks to portray is precisely one of those simple-minded people who cause horror and outrage society because they do not accept the rules of its game. He lives surrounded by strangers, but he is also a stranger to them. This is precisely why some people love him, like Marie, his mistress, who became attached to him “because he is strange”; others would hate him for the same reason, like that crowd of jurors whose malice he suddenly felt. And we ourselves, having opened the book and not yet imbued with a sense of the absurd, would in vain try to judge Meursault by our usual standards: for us he is also an outsider.
The hero of the novel Meursault- a generalized image representing existentialism. Rousseau's version of natural man. Having severed his internal ties with society, Meursault lives in obedience to his instincts. Almost unconsciously he kills a man. In the second part of the novel, Meursault’s story appears, as it were, in a distorting mirror during the course of the trial, Meursault is essentially tried not for murder, but for an attempt to neglect the conventional forms of relations between people accepted in society, for violating the rules of the game. A. Camus puts his hero in a typical existential situation. a borderline situation, that is, a situation of choice in the face of death, when, according to existentialism. philosophy, insight comes. Meursault chooses the freedom to know that the world is absurd. Refusing to compromise, he accepts death.
Two-part composition The novel allows you to see the events first through the eyes of the main character, and then recreate them from the official - judicial, bureaucratic, philistine - point of view. And if Meursault does not strive to pretend, but, on the contrary, is frank, truthful, even cynical, then the law, with its interpretation, turns his actions into something opposite, thereby exposing not so much Meursault’s crime as his own reluctance to look at things directly, without hypocrisy. Kayu captures in his hero a man who, without pretending to be heroic, agrees to die for the truth. Moreover, the expectation of death becomes an acquisition for him.
Meursault exists in the world in a cat. there is no God and there is no meaning, he knows this; He alien the society in which he lives outsider, stranger, does not accept playing by the rules. He is above establishments and orders, unpredictable in his actions, foreign to his environment. The Outsider is a novel about rupture and alienation.
The work of Albert Camus is one of the peaks European literature XX century. The writer managed to reflect trends in the spiritual life of the generation that took direct part in the Second World War. In addition, Camus became one of the founders of the philosophy of existentialism - the doctrine of the tragic loneliness of man in a hostile world.
The story "The Stranger" can be considered artistic manifesto existentialism. It’s interesting how one reader responded when asked if he liked The Outsider.
- “Stranger”? - he asked again. - Is this a story where the main character killed an Arab just because it was hot? No, I didn't like it.
This remark very successfully characterizes the story. Upon a superficial reading, the plot of the work seems absurd and boring, and the language in which it is described seems dry and lifeless. And only upon careful study does “The Stranger” turn out to be a real masterpiece of European literature.
The hero of "The Outsider" is a man devoid of attachments. His behavior at his mother’s funeral is striking: the hero watches what is happening with complete indifference, recognizing himself as a spectator of a mediocre and poorly performed performance. The beauty of the surrounding world seems to him just a bait that makes people live. His love for a woman turns out to be just a remedy for boredom. Meaning human existence eludes the protagonist of The Outsider. As a result, he commits a senseless murder and stands trial. It is interesting that the position of an outsider plays a cruel joke on the main character of the story: the court regards his coldness at his mother’s funeral as another proof of his depravity, callousness and extreme cynicism.
But the “outsider” is not cynical, not callous, and not at all fed up with life, as it might seem. Unfortunately, in the vast world there was nothing that awakened his true nature, and with it humanity, emotionality, and, finally, the elementary ability to compassion. The world accepted him, but accepted him as a stepson, a renegade, an unloved child.
The attention with which Camus demonstrates peace of mind hero of the story, proves: for the writer, an “extraneous” special case is not an accidental deviation from the universal human norm, but a certain pattern that has triumphed in the world.
“A naked man on bare earth” - this was the slogan used by existentialists in the fifties of the 20th century. But placing a person in an essentially hopeless situation, they by no means called for indifferent patience and detached acceptance
reality. Existentialists have always talked about man's struggle for his human dignity- let this struggle be devoid of any semblance of meaning. A soldier attacking an indestructible pillbox alone can serve as an image illustrating the “existential challenge.”
Where another existentialist philosopher, Sartre, saw only the “nausea” that overcomes a person left alone with the world, Camus found a starting point for the struggle. The writer's life proves the honesty of his thoughts: Camus was an active participant in the Resistance movement, a real fighter against Nazism.
Camus's "The Stranger" is a statement-story, a story - a starting point, not an ending. Judging by other works of Camus, for example, by the novel “The Plague,” the “outsider” would eventually take the path of active intervention in the affairs of the world, and he would probably begin by remaking himself.
The story “The Outsider” sounds more than relevant today. The world has re-emerged great evil- terrorism is perhaps even more terrible than Nazism. And every person must show all his vigilance, willpower, and endurance in order to resist him. “Evil perishes a moment before the last defender of the fortress of Good falls slain.” Let us remember this aphorism so as not to one day become “outsiders” in our complex, changing world!
Ministry of General and vocational education
Municipal government institution "Department of Education
GO "Lesnoy City"
Municipal Autonomous educational institution“Secondary school No. 76 D.E. Vasiliev"
“The theme of the absurd and the expression of the ideas of existentialism in Albert Camus’s story “The Stranger”
Direction: sociocultural (“Speech. Language. Text”)
Performer: 9th grade student Kazak Daria
Head: Svetlana Valerievna Vertokhina
Teacher of Russian and literature
Content
Introduction
Chapter I. Philosophical meaning story "The Outsider".
I.1. About the writer.
I.2. Features of the hero's world.
I.3. About the concept of existentialism.
I.4. The principles of existentialism and their implementation on the pages of the story.
I.5. Absurdity as a way of depicting reality.
Chapter II. Practical part.
II.1. Questioning of senior students.
Conclusion
List of references and Internet sources
The work belongs to the genre of philosophical reflection in the spirit of the existentialist movement, which considers human existence in the form of absolute uniqueness.
The key character of the story is a young man named Meursault, presented by the writer as office worker characterized by a romantic union with surrounding nature, while feeling loneliness and indifference to the people around him, not understanding their true meaning in life. The only moments that do not leave the hero indifferent are described in the form of carnal joys (food, sleep, relationships with the female sex). Meursault is described in the story as a person removed from life's existence, located in his own atmosphere, isolated from the outside world, living by sensation, mood, feelings, not recognizing socially significant values.
The compositional structure of the story is presented in three parts, the first of which tells the story of the main character, the second part tells about the hero’s commission of a crime, and the final part reveals the protest of Meursault, who is in captivity, against the prevailing public morality, without making attempts to save his own life.
The problematics of the work are represented by several themes in the form life meaning, crisis of faith, the concept of permissiveness and correctness of human choice, as well as the absurdity of reality.
The storyline of the work tells about the fateful act of the main character, expressed in the accidental murder of the Arab who was pursuing him, which results in the execution of Meursault.
The author's plan builds the content of the story in the form of a confession of the main character, who is awaiting his own execution, while Meursault's repentance is absent in the narrative, and there is only a desire to explain his actions, and first of all to himself.
The style characteristics of the story seem to be numerous simple sentences, devoid of complex subordination, creating the impression of dryness of the syllable and allowing the readership to replenish the sensations through their own emotions and experiences.
The climax of the plot takes place in the final part of the story in the form of a conversation between the prisoner Meursault, awaiting execution of his death sentence, and the priest who visited him for repentance. In the scene of the conversation with the spiritual father, it appears true meaning the image of the main character, who categorically denies religious dogma, who feels the irreversibility of the destruction of his world, but feels only annoyance and a little regret.
The literary significance of the work lies in the depiction of an indifferent person, existing world indifference, the symbol of which is a random passer-by, who is in reality temporarily and idlely, presented by the writer as an absurd person speaking out against insincere, false public opinion.
Option 2
Albert Camus's story is an artistic presentation of the author's philosophical postulates. Camus himself was a notable thinker of the early twentieth century. He adhered to the ideas of existentialism, which assumed the simple existence of people in the world, denying the principle of divine direction of life.
The story "The Stranger" is a shining example the author's ideas, conveyed to the reader in a simple and in clear language. Main character Meursault is an adherent of existentialism and perceives life differently than those around him. He doesn’t cry and get upset at his mother’s funeral, he doesn’t strive to marry his girlfriend and start a full-fledged family. By demonstrating such behavior, Meursault seems to be rebelling against generally accepted norms. But this is not a defiant protest, its purpose is to draw attention to one’s own person. More like a hero equally does not understand those around him, how he himself is incomprehensible to them.
The key event of the work is the murder committed by Meursault without any apparent motive. The only thing that prompted the hero to commit a crime was the scorching sun, which temporarily clouded his mind. However, neither the investigation nor the jury can accept such a reason. In the second half of the story, they desperately try to explain the hero’s behavior at the level of the usual foundations of society.
Meursault is not so simple. He feels like an outcast among people. He is well aware that he will never be able to understand the “normal” way of life. Likewise simple people will never be able to accept him, so the hero decides not to justify his behavior. In contrast, he feels very strongly about his connection with nature. He doesn’t want to get promoted so as not to leave the sea for a stuffy city.
In all the events described by the hero, key place given to the weather. The unbearable heat, the scorching sun, the gentle sea occupy the character much more than what is happening around him. The narrative style is laconic and dry. The hero does not consider it necessary to express strong emotions, because in this world he is just an observer.
For this reason, Meursault gets used to being in prison. After all, this is just another part of his life. The only thing that makes him angry is an attempt to impose alien ideals on him. He enters into a heated argument with the priest, who urges him to repent and accept God's will. Meursault angrily defends his beliefs, because a person does not carry out anyone’s will, he simply lives alone in the world, among the same lonely people. True to his ideas to the last, the hero decides to simply accept death rather than agree with the generally accepted point of view.
