Camus’ to perpetuate a false sense of

Camus’ to perpetuate a false sense of

Camus’ “The Stranger”: Choice and Individual Freedom Are Integral Components ofHuman NatureCamus’ “The Stranger”: Choice and Individual Freedom Are Integral Components ofHuman NatureCamus’s The Stranger is a grim profession that choice and individualfreedom are integral components of human nature, and the commitment andresponsibility that accompany these elements are ultimately the deciding factorsof the morality of one’s existence.

Meursault is placed in an indifferent world,a world that embraces absurdity and persecutes reason; such is the nature ofexistentialist belief, that rationalization and logic are ultimately the essenceof humanity, and that societal premonitions and an irrelevant status quo serveonly to perpetuate a false sense of truth.Meursault’s virtue, as well as his undoing, lies in his unique tendencyto choose, and thereby exist, without computing objective standards or universalsentiment. His stoic, de facto existentialism is a catalyst for endlessconflict between his rationalization- and logic-based existence and that ofothers, which focuses on an objective subscription to “the norm” ; such isevident in heated discussions with the magistrate and prison minister, who areseen as paragons of invalid logic and the quixotic, quasi-passionate pursuit ofhackneyed conformity.No windmills are slain1 in this simulated existence; absurdity of adifferent ilk dominates the popular mentality, one which would alienate a manbased on his perceived indifference towards the mundane, and try, convict, andexecute a man based on his lack of purported empathy towards the irrelevant.

Attention to the trial sequence will reveal that the key elements of theconviction had little to do with the actual crime Meursault had committed, butrather the “unspeakable atrocities” he had committed while in mourning of hismother’s death, which consisted of smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of coffee,and failing to cry or appear sufficiently distraught. Indeed, the deformedmisconception of moral truth which the jury society seeks is based on adetached, objective observation of right or wrong, thereby misrepresenting theideals of justice by failing to recognize that personal freedom and choice are”..

.the essence of individual existence and the deciding factor of one’smorality.2″The execution of Meursault at the close of the novel symbolically bringsforth outpourings of emotion, as Meursault confronts his nothingness and theimpossibility of justifying the immoral choices he has made; he realizes thepure contingency of his life, and that he has voided, in essence, his ownexistence by failing to accept the risk and responsibility that the personalfreedom of an existentialist reality entails.

Bibliography1 From Don Quixote (1605, trans. 1612), a satirical Spanish novel by Miguel deCervantes Saavedra.2 Soren Kierkegaard, Nineteenth-century Danish philosopher, on “MoralIndividualism and Truth.”