The Two Faces Of Meursault Essay, Research Paper

The Two Faces of Meursault

At the flood tide of The Stranger, Meursault dies for his violent death of an Arab. Often have we considered this an act of absurdness ; he could hold made some supplication for clemency, could hold attempted to explicate himself to the tribunal. But Meursault did none of these things, therefore confirming the fact that his actions were so absurd. Merely as the text contains so many dichotomies of significance in its duologue, so excessively does Meursault incorporate a dichotomy of philosophical belief. I propose that he is BOTH absurd and nihilistic.

Let us get down by determining the exact grade to which Meursault is an absurd individual trapped in an absurd universe. Surely he could hold avoided the violent death of the Arab and walked off ; from our point of position, he has merely killed a adult male for no better ground than the heat of the Sun:

The searing blade slashed at my

ciliums and stabbed at my cutting eyes. That & # 8217 ; s when everything began to stagger. The sea carried up a midst, ardent breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split unfastened from one terminal to the other to rain down fire. My whole being tensed and I squeezed my manus around the six-gun. The trigger gave..in that noise, crisp and deafening at the clip, is where it all started & # 8230 ; Then I fired four more times at the motionless organic structure where the slugs lodged without go forthing a hint. And it was like strike harding four speedy times at the door of sadness ( The Stranger, p.59 )

This alone is ground adequate to see Meursault absurd ; he & # 8217 ; s merely ended another individual & # 8217 ; s life over a peculiarly hot conditions form. I would propose that a weather forecaster of similar head would be rather unsafe. Meursault refuses to admit that he even had a grade of engagement in this decease. He states that & # 8220 ; The trigger gave & # 8221 ; , bespeaking he had non made a witting determination to fire the arm.

In and of itself, the predating quotation mark means rather small. It is so an illustration of the absurd, but an stray incident. What makes Meursault and his decease peculiarly absurd is the courtroom sequence ; he doesn & # 8217 ; t admit his engagement in the violent death, but refuses to support himself from it. Meursault refuses to apologise or atone for his actions ; society will penalize him, a fact that Meursault has already accepted their opinion. He doesn & # 8217 ; t even take a function in the proceedings, a fact which he realizes:

Everything was go oning without my engagement. My destiny was being decided without anyone so much as inquiring my sentiment & # 8230 ; But on 2nd idea, I didn & # 8217 ; Ts have anything to state ( p.98 ) .

Meursault has given up on T

he thought of supporting himself ; he merely doesn’t see the reason of making that. In fact, he is wholly incapable of recognizing rationality’s function in his being. He has let himself float down the watercourse of life, and refuses to paddle. Now he is an absurd character, and now do we recognize that he will decease for his belief in the absurd. He doesn’t experience any compunction over the violent death, and merely won’t make-believe to for his ain endurance.

Conversely, I have accused Meursault of being a nihilist, an person whose lone belief is a dedication to nil. He sees no deeper significance to his life ; there is no ground for his being. The nihilistic point of position holds its sway in Meursault & # 8217 ; s refusal to apologise or atone. Why should Meursault apologise? The Arab & # 8217 ; s decease was the terminal of nil, and he himself lives for nil. What would the point be of apologising? The priest triggers one of the few cardinal statements from Meursault in the full book, and farther validates the theory of a nihilistic supporter:

Harmonizing to him, human justness was nil and Godhead justness was everything. I pointed out that it was the former that had condemned me. His response was that it hadn & # 8217 ; t washed off my wickedness for all that. I told him I didn & # 8217 ; t cognize what a wickedness was. All they told me was that I was guilty. I was guilty, I was paying for it, and nil more could be asked of me ( p.118 )

Meursault is an atheist, which helps explicate the quotation mark. He has no belief in a higher power that shall penalize him in the hereafter. From this point of view, there is no ground to repent. He won & # 8217 ; t appeal to the jury, but at the same clip doesn & # 8217 ; t care. Merely as he ended the Arab & # 8217 ; s life, so excessively will the jury stop his. There is no point to this series of actions, no deeper significance to be had. It all merely happens, and Meursault is merely an perceiver.

Meursault & # 8217 ; s was an being filled with dichotomies. It is my steadfast belief that he lived his life as a follower of the absurd, but accepted the decision thereof with a nihilistic mentality. Possibly similarities between the two beliefs explains this: absurdness is the belief in something greater and its irrelevance, nihilism values nil whatsoever. I know non if the priest incident changed Meursault & # 8217 ; s mentality. What I do cognize is that Meursault was a chilling person, one possessed of many faces for many occasions. Is it merely swerve happenstance that he adopted the two faces society considers alien? Once once more, I do non cognize. I think Camus was seeking to bespeak that such a & # 8220 ; face & # 8221 ; is possessed by every person ; all of us have the potency to make as Meursault did. All of us have the potency to go aliens to society.