Home

Beckett

Camus

Dostoevsky

Ionesco

Sartre

Stoppard

Links

Quotes

Albert Camus - "At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise...that denseness and that strangeness of the world is absurd."

Camus suggests that we waste our energy against that which is futile and frustrating. Even though life is absurd, however, it is still worth living. By becoming consumed in the absurdity of our own lives, states Camus, we might attain happiness.

Mersault, the protagonist of The Stranger, accepts the absurdity of life. His character represents the open defiance characteristic of emerging youths in society. He lacks ambition, perfectly content with his job as a clerk and much more interested in acts of pleasure. His complete indifference places him in friendships with the wrong people, causes his failure to respond emotionally to his mother’s death, and has rendered him as a passive character. Under the realm of existentialism, these traits classify Mersault as one who has accepted his fate in the world and chosen not to deceive himself, instead accepting his life. After he is confined in prison for killing a man and condemned to death, Mersault reexamines his role in the world. Up until this point, his indifference has left him thinking that nothing is wrong with murder. Society has refused him his rights to judgment and individuality, two of the most basic principles of existentialism. As an existentialist, Mersault rejects suicide as an escape from life and instead finds that life is not only worth living, but offers a chance for true happiness. Mersault agrees that "the absurdity of life, which actually has nothing to do with either society of behavior within society, cannot be denied or eradicated." This realization comes only before his death, as Mersault realizes his previous passivity inhibited any hope for happiness, and that he truly ignored the possibilities for finding joy in the face of a nonsensical world.