About the relationship between the
Stranger and the Stranger
While the
novel The
Stranger depicts
a man’s attitude towards life through a story, the poem “Stranger”
gives a more concrete version of a person who has escaped from
social conventions. Through different in the ways of expressing,
both works gives a picture in which an alienated person lived
differently but honestly. This may be further explained by a closer
look on the poem and the novel.
The poem
progressed through questions and answers directly. Family, friends,
country, gold are all believed to be significant elements of a
happy life, things that people are supposed to love the most.
However, the “stranger” responded that he hated them, that those
things didn’t mean anything or that they didn’t exist. The only
things he did love were beauty and the clouds (that later can
actually be part of the previous). Therefore, the person, in
“normal” people’s eyes, or according to “moralism”, turned from an
“enigmatic man” to an “extraordinary stranger”.
The
fiction was divided into two parts. The first occurred when
Meursault was free, while the second took place in the time period
in which he was a prisoner because of murder. In the first part,
Meursault acted “indifferently” towards his mother’s death, agreed
to marry Marie without feeling or showing love and killed an Arab
“because of the sun”. In the second part, Meursault was arrested
and he showed pure honesty in the trial, which partly led to his
failure of regaining freedom. People’s eyes showed nothing but
hatred towards Meursault, because he was immoral, for he didn’t cry
at his mom’s funeral, and he was absurd, for he attributed the
crime to the sun.
From the
above analysis, it can be seen that the fiction and the poem both
demonstrated people who were not strained by moralism, and
therefore were made strangers. However, they do have differences.
The main one is that the poem expressed intensely one theme, while
the fiction had several other themes. Another difference was
basically what poems and fictions differ in general: the poem
simply illuminated, while the fiction moved and
developed.
In conclusion,
the two “Stranger’s” have the sense of alienation in common. The
poem helps comprehend the novel.
Timothy's
Comments:
I never read the poem, nor did I know it
existed. How interesting! I like your comprehension of and ability
to recognize themes of poems and fiction. However, I think you
should elaborate on your thoughts more. Your response is mostly
telling us what the poem and fiction are about in order to support
your points. Keep that, but put in more
thoughts!
陆家屹：
Fear of
truth
Who is Meursault? He is the one who truly
believes in his own feelings, the one who refused to accept the
common belief, and the one who was rejected and killed by the
society. Meursault is special in this society. Nothing really
matters to him, and he has no faith, except in the simplest logic:
“I love my mother, but I didn’t feel like crying, thus I did not
cry; I have never seen the divine face, thus I do not believe in
god.” He follows his plausible logic, and is finally trapped. He
pursues freedom, and is finally imprisoned. He chooses to be
sincere, and is finally drowned in others’ indignation. It is not
difficult to see that the logic and the so-called common sense of
this society depicted in the novel are
distorted.
The judge sits in the court and speaks of
justice; the priest holds a crucifix and speaks of god. But do they
understand the meaning of justice? Do they know the face of god?
They know nothing. God once said to Moses: “I am that I am.” God is
only what he is. He represents the true feeling and the real
emotion, the actual love and unfeigned hatred. Just like the god
said about himself, Meursault is no one but what he is. How can
someone simply assert that such a sincere man’s existence is
against the system of justice and the will of god? The only reason
is that society fears the true emotion, and simple truth threatens
the common belief! “Everyone that doesn’t cry at his mother’s
funeral may be condemned and receive the death penalty.” What a
shame! How absurd! The guilty sits on the court and sentenced the
innocent to death! The Hypocritical dominates the world and accused
the sincere of being callous! The truckling gets power and claim
the ingenuous to be liars! The belligerent guides the public and
condemned the benign to be aggressive! What a bitter irony it is!
Just like Jesus Christ, Meursault is a martyr. Those in powers fear
him and hate him; those who once befriend and loved him are now
incapable of saving him. It is a tragedy in which everybody cannot
do what he wants to do.
Fortunately, the tragedy is only a story. When
we wake up in reality, we are ready to turn our sympathy and
indignation to the awareness of being ourselves.
Timothy's
Comments:
From what
I can tell, a very passionate piece of writing. You put your heart
into this response, and it shows. Sadly, there are downsides to
being too emotional in writing. I believe there are too many
rhetorical questions asked within the essay, and it makes the
writing seem overly aggressive, which is not what the average
reader wishes to see. Tone down your emotions but keep the great
ideas, and you're set.
吴京乔：
The
Stranger
The
book The Stranger, which was written by a distinguished Nobel
Laureate, Albert Camus, is renowned as his masterpiece. Though
Camus himself always denied the fact that he was kind of an
existentialist, some ideas of fantastic philosophy is introduced in
the book more or less. The book mainly talks about the life of a
quiet odd man named Meursault, who seems to be a man eternally
isolated from the world while living right in a city. He is
sentenced to death at the end of the story, but his death is more
than just a head taken away from a life.
The
book starts with a very brief sentence in which Maman, a naive
address for “mother” in French and one that is mostly used by
little children, is called by an adult man, along with a quite
openmouthed development of the plot. Meursalt’s mother just died at
the beginning of the book, and he shows great love and attachment
to her. However, the following paragraph is quite stupefying for a
so-called normal and traditional human being, because Meursault
does not even clearly remember when his mother died and he thinks
that the date “doesn’t mean anything”. His reaction is quite
paradoxical, for he just shows attachment to his mother. And as I
kept reading, I was petrified many more times. Meursault actions
were very uncommon during the funeral of his mother, and he even
went to watch a comedy with his new girlfriend, who he met just a
day after the funeral. Amazing things keep happening. He agrees to
write a letter for his neighbor in order to punish the neighbor’s
mistress as soon as he asks him to do so, but he does not really
care whether they would become friends or not after
that.
If
the story continues in this way only to tell readers about the life
of a strange man, it would be quite a dull and annoying one.
Fortunately for readers and probably unfortunately for the man,
Meursault kills a man at the end of the first part of the book,
only because of the annoying sunlight, and is sent into prison,
waiting for a trial by the jury. But I cannot actually make sure
whether it is lucky for Meursault to live on the world or not,
because he is just a lonely stranger living in the world, separated
from things going on, and having astonishing ideas that can never
be understood by people who have been institutionalized by the
social moral. During his trial, Meursault refuses to tell some lies
in order to get himself pardoned. Instead, he tells the judges and
the jury what he thinks exactly, and as a result he makes himself
sounds like an indifferent monster without soul. He also refuses to
believe in god, and finally becomes outraged at the chaplain who
always urges him to do so. At the end of the story, after his rage,
he gets spiritual relief, and becomes happy again for his past and
his future which is held in his hand.
To
get more into the book, I learned that it was written right after
World War II. At the time people thought about the absurdity of the
world, they have lost hope and always found themselves in danger,
in this way anything related to optimism or rationalism did not
seem to make sense. So the book on fantastic philosophy and other
ludicrous matters was badly needed, because it fitted people’s
indifferent and hopeless attitudes on life so well.
Considering the time when the book The Stranger
was written, I was reminded of Camus’s Nobel Prize acceptance
speech, in which he said that writers should write for those who
are forced to endure the outcome of the history instead of those
who make the history and that the lost generation of the world
should not be condemned but be comprehended. As far as I am
concerned, he played his role of a writer pretty well.
The
death of Meursault is quite thought-provoking. It is true that he
kills a man, and I think that it is quite acceptable that he is
sentenced to death. But what makes me annoyed is that Meursault
dies not because of what he does, which is killing a man, but
because of what kind of person he is. On the court, when the
prosecutor is having a debate with the lawyers, their main concern
is actually what Meursault does after he buries his mother instead
of what Meursault does when he kills the Arab or why he does so. I
can see a ludicrous judicial system from such a matter. As is known
to all, absolutely good guy or bad guy has never existed and
probably will not exist on the earth. Each man has both good side
and bad side. Therefore, everything a man does is consists of two
parts, the positive part and the negative one, and a man shall
never be judged on what kind of person the other thinks he is. In
the book, when Meursault is accused of a murder, every trivial
thing he has done is exaggerated tremendously. The cigarette he
smoked, the coffee he drank, and even the movie he went to see with
his girlfriend……everything that a common man would do all become
his sins. Had he not killed the man, he would just live his aloof
life as usual, and all these genuinely do not matter. In the end,
the verdict is made based on what kind of person Meursault is, and
even such analysis bases only on what he did after his maman’s
death rather than what kind of person he is usually. In fact, what
kind of person one is does not really mean anything, what he or she
did or will do is what people want to be aware of.
Meursault’s death, I maintain, is inevitable because he is so
detached from the world that he is devastating the present common
senses and the morality of the society then. People all have the
nature of maintaining an already existed world and its rules. Take
ourselves as a vivid example, we do not know why and how the
morality of our society originated, but what we do know is that we
should follow the ethic of the community and any form of
overstepping the boundary of rules will lead to disastrous
punishment. Throughout history, psychologists have made several
experiences and have formed theories in the field. We do not know
why, but we just do it as if it were the truth. Hence, I think that
perplexity and conscience might be part of the reason for which
Camus refused to be called as a moralist in his acceptance speech.
Meursault does not belong to the world he lives in. He is a pure
and honest man but has overwhelmingly strong passion whenever
pursuing the truth. Even in a judicial system as chaotic as the one
in the book, he has never tried to advantage himself by telling
lies. He is so detached from the world and so distinguished from
all the other people that a sense of dread even spread among
others; his calmness and rational nous were misinterpreted into
aloofness and ruthlessness. It is a great satire. We, human beings,
can accept diversity. Indeed, we can adopt the fact that everyone
is different, but we can only treat such difference with measured
intellect. When any kinds of distinction overstep the cognizance of
men, they would become “deleterious” heresies at which people would
get mad. Such examples can be seen throughout history. When
heliocentric theory was first introduced to people, most of them
totally could not accept it, and many of them even regarded it as
something ludicrous. It is comprehensible as geocentric theory was
the one that prevailed at the time. As a result, people who try to
popularize heliocentric theory all became heretic and evil
according to the Vatican, because such a theory could overthrow the
“truths” that the Vatican used to rule the people. Therefore, it is
not surprised for us to see that people as Copernicus had very hard
and murky days at the time. And someone who had irritated the
Vatican so badly, Bruno for instance (though scientists nowadays
question whether he died for the heliocentric theory), was killed
by the outraged Vatican. All these happened only because the theory
was too prominent at the time and it overstepped the boundary in
which people can forgive and understand. Year later, a remarkable
Ptolemy introduced his own theories to the people, which are known
as Ptolemy’s theorem. These theorems exert as much momentous
impacts on the world as the heliocentric theory did. But these
theorems were not overturning, and therefore no one regarded
Ptolemy as someone crazy and punished him. More typical examples
can be seen throughout Chinese history. During Qing dynasty,
machines like cars and weapons like guns were all thought to be
useless and baneful when they first came into China. Why? It was
simply because they challenge the traditions of the Court and the
traditional methods which Chinese dealt with things. Never a
similar thing had been seen in China before their emergence and
they cannot be accepted even in the slightest aspect. But nowadays,
as we get more attached to the world, we Chinese get more used to
creative inventions. We, hence, would swarm shops to buy a new iPad
which is innovative and whose technology is still immature. Things
like these happened all the time, because of our fear to the
unknown future, and our fragile knowledge of the
world.
Meursault’s detachment from the world is quite distinctive. Rather
than aggressive or radical fight back, it is more likely to be a
kind of negative endurance. Meursault knows that he has learnt
about the fantastic part of the world, but he did not cry it out.
Instead, he chooses to remain silent and therefore all his ideas
just converge in his heart like a growing stream, and eventually
they would outburst when the dam of his heart was
breached.
The
best part of the book, as far as I am concerned, is the last
chapter of the second half. In the chapter, though Meursault has
refused to see the chaplain, he still met him in the cell.
Meursault has no interest in believing in the god and getting
redemption from Him. And according to him, he does not want to
waste time doing so. He is still the detached and calm man, who
reacts calmly and steadfastly to the repetitive requirements or
questions of the chaplain. He still exists as the symbol of
existentialism, believing the freedom of choice, and saying that
people have to right to believe in god but he does not want to do
so. I can’t help myself thinking about Sartre’s words when I was
reading the book, that everyone has the freedom to make their own
choices, but all their choices would become hell for others. It is
consummately proved in the book, for the chaplain keeps asking him
to comply with his own belief. When Meursault finally get
overwhelmed, he does not remain as indifferent and silent as he
was. He shouts at the chaplain, telling him about the matters and
their meanings. Only in this way was his heart cleaned and washed
by the rage, and he finds himself no longer bewildered by the
fantastic world. He has been happy and he was happy again, as he
has opened himself to the indifference of the world. He knows why
he was sentenced to death, and he does not want to change anything.
He just wants to have a new start, and he will forever remain as a
stranger in the distorted world.
If
I am the director when making the book into a movie, I would like
to start the movie with the scene of the Meursault’s cell, the dark
and gloomy room with a window, which appears at the beginning of
the second half of the book. Meursault should be watching out of
the window at the time and the camera should focus on Meursault’s
eyes. Then the movie should develop with flashbacks of Meursault of
his old days, which start the first part of the movie. Between each
chapter, the camera can get back to the little room and make a
contrast between the narrow room and the free world. Since the book
was written with plain and brief sentences, any visual effects
apart from the shot cut should not be used. The dialogues between
actors should be brief and Meursault should try to talk less and
more aloofly while others can be very ardent about things going on.
When the plot moves into the second half of the book, the movie can
go on in regular sequences of the events and finally comes to the
end. Since the sunlight is always mentioned in the book, the light
effect should be exaggerated. Besides, anything that is mentioned
repetitively should be emphasized, like Marie’s smile or so.
Sometimes, stories happened in the real world and those in the
inner world of Meursault can develop at the same time. For
instance, when the prosecutor and the lawyer have arguments, the
volume of the court can be reduced while Meursault’s thoughts of
them can appear as an off-screen voice. I also think that to make
Meursault more isolated, contrast of colors can even be used. The
world and other people can be colored as usual, while Meursault
should only be colored black and white in the movie. There should
be close-up of people’s faces and eyes, especially of the amazement
on people’s face when they learn about the way Meursault acts, or
of the eyes of Meursault with detached light coming out from them.
The audio effects of the movie can be silent or slight, due to
Meursault’s passive reaction to the world.
The
book gives me a very different view of life and I think that I am
edified by some part of it. We can never learn about the future and
everything is just accidents. I still think that Meursault is an
odd man, though. But I do not think that I will try to punish or to
estrange such people because they are just so distinctive. Whether
the world is indifferent or not, whether I exist or not, it does
not matter. I have had a wonderful life and I would like to live it
once more.
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