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Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 15:49:45 No.7281661 View Reply Report Delete

I don't think I really 'get' The Stranger.
The prose was pretty good, but I'm not sure if I fully grasp its ideas. I know it's about existentialism and the absurd, but the text never really connected to me.
Help?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 16:08:27 No.7281730 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7281963

>>7281661
The Stranger was lame imho.
Camus got his absurdism point across far better in other works like The Fall or The Plague.

I really can't see why The Stranger is so popular.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 16:18:33 No.7281777 Report Delete

Quoted By:

It's the story of a man whose feelings/actions align with 'reality' and without delusion. We all now know (more or less) that life is meaningless yet our biological/psychological endowment makes living in line with this truth near impossible.
This is the story of a man who could never really exist in real life who is the embodiment of the -at the time- new realisation that nothing matters.
People may like it because it gives a catharsis to that inner feeling that no one acts upon out of self-interest that all their actions and everyone else's are arbitrary and meaningless.
Although a lot of the connotations that come with the phrase: 'to not give a fuck' are shitty bravado nowadays, Mersault is the actual, fully realised and thought through embodiment of an attitude that most realise at bottom is a truthful one but no one has the balls or the natural lack of care to follow through on

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 16:54:49 No.7281893 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7281970

The courtroom is society as a whole put into one room.
Society judges the man who is true to his philosophy, his perspective on life. He lives how he believes, but society does not allow this.
Absurdism rejects religion, as religion attempts to give meaning to a meaningless life.
His moms life was as meaningless as his. Why would you mourn something that is meaningless? Because society dictates it?
You're not above society, you're a part of society. The only world is the one you live in.

I don't think there is any meaning necessarily. Just like life. Ponder each symbol and come to your own conclusion.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:20:14 No.7281963 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7281730
Because it is the simplest and it will therefore be absorbed into popular culture more easily

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:22:30 No.7281970 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7282098

>>7281893
You're mixing Absurdism and Nihilism. Absurdism doesn't proclaim meaning doesn't exist. It says that finding meaning is humanly impossible. If there is meaning or not, we cannot know.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:25:47 No.7281977 Report Delete

Quoted By:

It's terrible 20th century Existentialism, which may as well be Nihilism.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 18:01:15 No.7282098 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7281970
Thank you for the correction. I'm not very well-versed in the differences between philosophies.
I'm assuming that absurdists believe that meaning does potentially exist in spite of it being impossible to find though, because if we will never find meaning, then how can be sure that meaning exists?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 19:07:08 No.7282361 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7281661
It's about Meursault realising that the universe is as indifferent to him as he is to others, and then becoming an ice cold motherfucker who sees in this indifference a bond with the universe

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 19:08:32 No.7282367 Report Delete

Quoted By:

OP Sun 25 Oct 2015 21:52:08 No.7283065 Report Delete

Quoted By:

In re-read the last few pages and now I realize the beauty

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 07:08:08 No.7284190 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>7284273

The courtroom scene was excellent.

The rest is eh. But personally I'm not a fan of existentialism, it's way too meta-philosophy, the kind that never amounts to anything.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 07:48:38 No.7284273 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>7284190
Have you tried some of Sartre's plays and The Plague? Camus essays in the Myth of Sisyphus are particularly good at explaining the absurdsit position most clearly

I do agree that the existentialist tradition is more of an emotional rebuke than a logical one, but really we could argue that logical systems are equally as limited in their disregard for the emotive.

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