The Stranger

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The Stranger

In The Stranger, as in all Camus works, Camus views on freedom and death  one dependent on the other  are major themes. For Camus, freedom arises in awareness of ones life, the every-moment life, an intense glorious life that needs no redeeming, no regrets, no tears. Death is unjustifiable, absurd; it is but a reintegration into the cosmos for a free man. Until a person reaches this awareness, life, like death, is absurd, and indeed, generically, life remains absurd, though each individuals life can be valuable and meaningful to him.
In a sense, The Stranger is a parable of Camus philosophy, with emphasis on that which is required for freedom. Meursault, hero of The Stranger, is not a person one would be apt to meet in reality in this respect; Meursault does not achieve the awakening of consciousness, so essential to freedom and to living Camus philosophy until the very end of the book, yet he has lived his entire life in according with the morality of Camus philosophy. His equivalent in the Christian philosophy would be an irreligious person whose homeland has never encountered Christianity who,
upon having it explained by a missionary, realizes he has never sinned.
What is the morality, the qualities necessary for freedom, which Meursault manifested? First, the ruling trait of his character is his passion for the absolute truth. While in Meursault this takes the form of a truth of being and feeling, it is still the truth necessary to the conquest of the self or of the world. This passion is so profound that it obtains even when denying it might save his life.
Second, and not unrelated to the first, is Meursaults acceptance of nature as what it is and nothing more, his rejection of the supernatural, including any god. Actually, rejection of God is not accurate until later when he is challenged to accept the concept; Meursault simply has never considered God and religion worthwhile pursuing. The natural makes sense; the supernatural doesnt. It follows that death to Meursault also is what it is naturally; the end of life, cessation, and that is all.
Third, and logically following, Meursault lives entirely in the present. The past is past and dwelling upon it in any mood is simply a waste of the present. As to the future, the ultimate future is death; to sacrifice the present to the future is equivalent to sacrificing life to death.
Finally and obviously, since the present is his sole milieu, Meursault takes note of each moment ...

The complete article is about 1044 words and 4.18 pages long.

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