Lesson
Plans

Course Links
Lesson Plans
Course Documents
Links
Home Page

Quick Links
Library Links
Citing Sources

Dr. Bordelon's World Lit II Course Site

The Stranger

Remember how Kafka wrote that we should only read books that "bite and sting us."

Take out your benadryl.

Albert Camus, gagnant de prix Nobel, portrait en buste, posé au bureau, faisant face à gauche, cigarette de tabagisme.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus#/media/File:Albert_Camus,_gagnant_de_prix_Nobel,_portrait_en_buste,_pos%C3%A9_au_bureau,_faisant_face_%C3%A0_gauche,_cigarette_de_tabagisme.jpg

Country/Date Written/Published
French Algeria/1942

Terms to know

Existentialism
A current in European philosophy distinguished by its emphasis on lived human existence. Although it had an important precursor in the Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard in the 1840s, its impact was fully felt only in the mid-20th century in France and Germany: the German philosophers Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers prepared some of the ground in the 1920s and 1930s for the more influential work of Jean-Paul Sartre and the other French existentialists including Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In terms of its literary impact, the thought of Sartre has been the most significant, presented in novels (notably La Nausee (Nausea), 1938) and plays (including Les Mouches (The Flies), 1943) as well as in the major philosophical work L’Etre et le neant (Being and Nothingness), 1943).

Sartrean existentialism, as distinct from the Christian existentialism derived from Kierkegaard, is an atheist philosophy of human freedom conceived in terms of individual responsibility and authenticity. Its fundamental premise that ‘existence precedes essence’, implies that we as human beings have no given essence or nature but must forge our own values and meanings in an inherently meaningless or absurd world of existence. Obliged to make our own choices, we can either confront the anguish (or Angst) of this responsibility, or evade it by claiming obedience to some determining convention or duty, thus acting in ‘bad faith’. Paradoxically, we are ‘condemned to be free’. Similar themes can be found in the novels and essays of Camus; both authors felt that the absurdity of existence could be redeemed through the individual’s decision to become engage (‘committed’) within social and political causes opposing fascism and imperialism. Some of the concerns of French existentialism are echoed in English in Thom Gunn’s early collection of poems, The Sense of Movement (1957), and in the fiction of Iris Murdoch and John Fowles. See also phenomenology.

Baldick, Chris. "existentialism." The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford Reference, Oxford University Press, 2015, http://www.oxfordreference.com.libproxy.ocean.edu:2048/view/10.1093/
acref/9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-43024. Accessed 24 Feb. 2018.

Absurdism
A term created by theatre critic Martin Esslin in his 1961 book, The Theatre of the Absurd, to encompass a wide range of works produced in the two decades after World War II which seem to dramatize Albert Camus’ philosophical position in Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), translated as The Myth of Sisyphus (2005), that life is inherently absurd. Esslin identified Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov, later adding Harold Pinter to the list, as authors whose work typifies what he means by absurd. Although the work of these authors varies quite widely, it shares in common the creation of impossible situations, wordplay, and a pervasive but indefinable sense of menace coupled with seemingly random explosions of violence. The absurd is closely related to the work of the Dadaists and Surrealists; it also claims Alfred Jarry’s notion of ’pataphysics and Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty as its precursors. Although the term was originally conceived to describe theatrical productions, its use has grown more general to encompass a wide range of texts sharing the same qualities. Outside the theatre, the work of Czech writer Franz Kafka would certainly qualify as Absurdist, as would the work of Polish author Witold Gombrowicz. But it is not just a literary or ‘high art’ phenomenon. Today, one could point to The Simpsons and South Park as continuing examples of what Absurdism might mean. Certainly, Homer Simpson’s great line ‘It’s funny because it’s true’ is utterly Absurdist in spirit.

Buchanan, Ian. "Absurdism." A Dictionary of Critical Theory, Oxford Reference, Oxford University Press, 2018, www.oxfordreference.com.libproxy.ocean.edu:2048/view/10.1093/acref/9780198794790.
001. 0001/acref-9780198794790-e-5. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.

The Absurd
A term derived from the existentialism of Albert Camus, and often applied to the modern sense of human purposelessness in a universe without meaning or value. Many 20th-century writers of prose fiction stressed the absurd nature of human existence: notable instances are the novels and stories of Franz Kafka, in which the characters face alarmingly incomprehensible predicaments. The critic Martin Esslin coined the phrase theatre of the absurd in 1961 to refer to a number of dramatists of the 1950s (led by Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco) whose works evoke the absurd by abandoning logical form, character, and dialogue together with realistic illusion. The classic work of absurdist theatre is Beckett’s En attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot, 1952), which revives some of the conventions of clowning and farce to represent the impossibility of purposeful action and the paralysis of human aspiration. Other dramatists associated with the theatre of the absurd include Edward Albee, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, and Vaclav Havel.

Baldick, Chris. "absurd, the." The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford Reference,
Oxford University Press, 2015, www.oxfordreference.com.libproxy.ocean.edu:2048/view/10.1093/acref/
9780198715443.001.0001/acref-9780198715443-e-3 Oxford Reference. 2015. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.

The Other
A person or group of people who are perceived to be different in some fundamental way from oneself and the group one perceives one belongs to. Otherness refers to defining characteristics of the Other, and othering is the process whereby otherness is mobilized to produce in- and out-groups within society and to justify the way in which Others are treated. For example, disabled people are often perceived and treated differently from able-bodied people, cast as the Other on the grounds of their impairment. Others are often defined by race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.

Castree, Noel, Rob Kitchin, and Alisdair Rogers. "Other, the." A Dictionary of Human Geography,

Oxford Reference, Oxford University Press, 2013, http://www.oxfordreference.com.libproxy.ocean.edu:2048/view/10.1093/
acref/9780199599868.001.0001/acref-9780199599868-e-1343 Accessed 25 Feb. 2018

Moor
A member of a NW African Muslim people of mixed Berber and Arab descent. In the 8th century they conquered the Iberian peninsula, but were finally driven out of their last stronghold in Granada at the end of the 15th century.

In the Middle Ages, and as late as the 17th century, the Moors were commonly supposed to be mostly black or very dark-skinned; the name was thus sometimes used in the sense ‘a black person’.

The name comes from Old French More, via Latin from Greek Mauros ‘inhabitant of Mauretania’

"Moor." The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Oxford Reference, Oxford University Press, 2005, editor Elizabeth Knowles, 2006, www.oxfordreference.com.libproxy.ocean.edu:2048/view/10.1093/
acref/9780198609810.001.0001/acref-9780198609810-e-4670. Accessed 25 Feb. 2018.

Algeria

Africa's second largest country was shaped, first, by French colonial rule, and then by an autocratic regime trying to avert the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

The colonial era (1830–1962)

Algeria's colonization began with the French occupation of Algiers in 1830. In 1848, it was given an administrative structure to parallel that of metropolitan France through the creation of three departements, Algier, Oran, and Constantine. In 1882 Algeria formally became part of metropolitan France, even though the Algerian population enjoyed no political or civil rights. In 1919 members of the indigenous elite were offered full French citizenship if they renounced their Muslim faith and customs. This was part of a general attempt to integrate the African state into what were regarded to be superior French culture and customs. The French colonists took possession of the areas suitable for agrarian cultivation, with Algerian peasants working on their farms for minimal wages.

During World War II, Algeria was ruled by the Vichy government. The successful landing of Allied troops in French North Africa in November 1942 enabled de Gaulle to set up his headquarters and the ‘Committee of National Liberation’ in Algiers on 3 June 1943. Led by Abbas, Algerian nationalists demanded more rights, eliciting French promises (formally made in 1947) of full Algerian participation in the politics and government of the country. The promise was not fulfilled, however. France was preoccupied with its own attempts at constitutional and social renewal, and the emerging Fourth Republic in mainland France proved too weak to impose its will upon the conservative and intransigent French Algerian colonists. At the same time, the French government was hindered by its inability to rely fully on the loyalty of its military commanders in Algeria, who often sided with the colonists.

Riches, Christopher, and Jan Palmowski. From "Algeria." A Dictionary of Contemporary World History, Oxford Reference, Oxford University Press, 2016. Accessed 24 Feb. 2018

Language Note

L'Etranger -- the French title -- has the connotation of the foreigner, alien, and immigrant.

People from French Algeria were called pied-noir by native born French.

The Times

Wars (aftermath and looming); economic depression

Rise of Fascism

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/Picasso

Timeline

1914 World War I: photo essay
1932-3 worst years of the depression in Europe
1933 Hitler sworn as Chancellor of Germany; Reichstag fire
1937 bombing of Guernica; Picasso painting
1938 Germany invades Austria
1938 Kristallnacht
1939 Germany invades Czechoslovakia
1940 Germany invades France -- in Paris by June; Vichy France v. unoccupied France

Publication

In Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic, Alice Kaplan notes that since the Germans occupied France in the early 40s, the book had to be approved by a Nazi bureaucrat:

the cultural branch of the occupying forces determined the fate of every new book by veto, by censor, or by an allocation of paper for a few, or many copies. Books in favor of the Nazi regime or supportive of German culture and works of propaganda got first priority. Gerhard Heller, head of the German Propaganda-Staffel, wrote many years later that when he received the manuscript of The Stranger from Gaston Gallimard’s secretary, he stayed up all night reading it and endorsed it immediately. There was no need for censorship, he said, since the book was “asocial” and “apolitical.” What did Heller mean by asocial and apolitical? Did he understand the book as purely philosophical? Did he believe that Meursault’s refusal to conform to society’s conventions had nothing to do with political resistance? Did he assume that a story about a Frenchman killing an Arab in a colonial setting was politically insignificant, or routine?

On its influence, she adds that

only a year and a half after the publication of his first novel, Camus’s book was already an obligatory reference in a special issue [of a magazine] taking stock of the entire history of the genre: Tavernier, the editor, mentioned Camus in the introduction, alongside Kafka, as the best example of fiction that transforms itself in tune with psychological structures of society. Alain Borne’s article cited Camus as “one of the great names” of the contemporary novel.” The Stranger had arrived.

Paranoid in the USA.

When the Oregon docked in the New York harbor on March 25, 1946, Camus was the only passenger held for questioning by immigration officials.1 He refused to answer any of their questions—which likely included what was then the standard for Cold War America: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” He was silent for several hours until a staff member from French Cultural Services intervened and vouched for the writer. Word of the incident reached J. Edgar Hoover, always on the lookout for the Communist menace. Hoover ordered FBI surveillance, and a report.2 The FBI’s major source of information was a light-hearted article published by Hannah Arendt in the left-wing magazine the Nation a month before Camus’s arrival in Manhattan. In “French Existentialism,” Arendt claimed that France had become a place where “books so difficult as to require actual thinking sell like detective stories.” The French existentialists were having more fun than any other intellectuals in the postwar world, and the two main representatives of this new existentialist movement were Sartre and Camus. After quoting Arendt at length, the report deescalated the threat, pointing out that with the Liberation, even the Communists in France had turned to nationalist concerns and the reconstruction of their country.

And finally, Kaplan provides a quick encapsulation of Camus' ability to play with the connocations of a name: "Critics have found many meanings inside the name Meursault: meur (death), mer (sea), mere (mother), and sol (sun)."

Questions to mull over as you interpret the story

Characters: what does each bring to the novel? What do they represent? How do they comment on/explain the actions of the novel?

Maman
Thomas Perez
Celeste
Marie
Raymond
Salamano
The Arab

After the cleansing of the long rant at the priest, he thinks “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world” (122). What does he mean there? What’s the connection b/t this statement and his rant? Between this statement and Mersault’s being?

Why the last line? Why does Mersault hope for a “large crowd of spectators the day of [his] execution and that they greet [him] with cries of hate” (123)? How does this fit into his philosophy?
Juxtaposition of speeches – 114-115 with 117: Why have Mersault and the Priest say much the same thing?
Is he a monster?

Why do some think so?
What is the reader led to think?
In what ways is he a monster?
In what ways is he not a monster?

Does jail change him? 115
The trial

What does a trial symbolize? Rationality, civilization – note contrast b/t Raymond’s view of justice and society’s. What is the novel saying about both?

What does this novel suggest about criminals? How does it do so? Remember there is both Raymond and Mersault
“What is on trial in the novel, then, is far more complex than Meursault’s absurd crime and the ensuing warped court procedure: it is the never-ending trial of the false certitude implicit in any judgment. With the help of the theatrical enactment of the trial, the text pitilessly exposes the masks worn by everyone involved: Meursault, those who represent society’s central institutions, and, ultimately, the readers themselves, whose identities become problematic each time they come up with a different interpretation” (Gay Crosier 96). How is this true?
What role does religion play in this novel: consider his interrogation?
Killed by the sun/son: cf. opening of novel, “Maman” He’s killed b/c he’s a son, etc.

Challenge time: think you know the novel?

For an excellent review of the novel, see how well you can answer these questions: if you can correctly answer most of them, we're in for some fun this week. Fun is defined here as that feeling of intellectual stimulation from books as described by Emily Dickinson "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?”

Wear a cap.

Questions from http://www3.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/questions/Stranger1.html

Part 1

Chapter 1

Who is the narrator?
What is the novel's setting? what are the different settings – what do they represent?
What can you tell about the narrator from the opening paragraphs (and pages)?
Why does the narrator say "It's not my fault"?
Why does the narrator say that his mother's death will have a more "official feel to it" after the funeral? What is "official" about that feeling?
Is there anything significant about the narrator's confession that he ate "at restaurant, at Celeste's, as usual"?
How does Meursault describe his encounter with the Director? What is significant about the encounter?
What was Meursault's life like when his mother lived with him?
Why does Maman quit crying when she "becomes used to it" (living at the home)?
Why does he not go to visit her at the home in Marengo?
The director says that Madame Meursault "often expressed to her friends her desire for a religious burial." Her son thinks "Maman had never in her life given a thought to religion." What is significant about this contradiction? What does it imply?
When Meursault first enters the room where his mother is lying in the casket, what captivates his attention?
How was the caretaker "breathing down [his] neck" and "starting to annoy" Meursault?
What does it mean "to keep vigil over a body"?
Meursault keeps falling asleep (on the bus, during the vigil). Why?
Why does Meursault think that his mother's friends came to the vigil to judge him?
Compare the grief of the woman who claimed that Mme Meursault was her only friend with the response of Meursault.
After the vigil, Meursault sees that it "was going to be a beautiful day." He could feel how much he'd "enjoy going for a walk if it hadn't been for Maman." How should this be interpreted?
Meursault is very observant. Why then does he miss so much? What does he not know about his mother?
Who is Thomas Perez?
What does Meursault not tell the reader about?
When does Meursault experience joy?

What does Meursault decide to do on Saturday morning? Why?
Who is Marie Cardona?
Why is Marie surprised to discover that Meursault is "in mourning"?
What does Meursault decide to do on Sunday?
Why doesn't Meursault like Sundays?
When does he decide to have dinner?
What "occurred to" Meursault before he goes to bed on Sunday night? What does this signify?

What is the narrator's occupation?
What does Emmanuel suggest to Meursault?
Who is Celeste?
Who is Salamano? Who does he look like?
What do Salamano and his dog do everyday? When Meursault sees Salamano cursing at his dog on the stairs, what had the dog done?
Both Celeste and Raymond say that Salamano's treatment of his dog (and vice versa) is "pitiful." Meursault disagrees. Why?
Who is Raymond Sintes?
Why does Meursault accept Raymond's invitation to dinner?
Why does Raymond invite Meursault to his apartment? Are Raymond and Meursault "pals"? How do you know?
What is Raymond's problem?
What evidence does Raymond have that his girlfriend is cheating on him? Is the evidence compelling? What else does the evidence show?
What does Meursault do for Raymond?

How much time has passed by the beginning of chapter four?
Where do Marie and Meursault go on Saturday?
Does Meursault love Marie?
What happens in Raymond's room?
Is Meursault bothered by what has happened in Raymond's room?
What does Raymond want Meursault to do?
What has happened to Salamano?
Why does Meursault think of Maman when he hears Salamano crying?

What offer does Meursault's boss make to him?
How does Meursault respond?
What does the boss accuse Meursault of?
When did Meursault give up his ambitions? Why? What does Marie want to do?
How does Meursault respond?
What does Meursault's response suggest about his beliefs concerning marriage?
How does Meursault describe Paris?
Does Meursault lie to Marie?
What is significant about the woman who sits with Meursault at dinner?
What does Salamano share with Meursault?
Contrast Salamano with Meursault. How are they different?

Explain the irony of Marie's claim that Meursault had a "funeral face."
Where do Meursault, Raymond, and Marie go?
Who is Masson?
What happens when Meursault, Raymond, and Masson go for a walk on beach?
How does Meursault describe the sun and the sand during this first walk?
Back at Masson's house after the fight, how does Meursault explain what happened to the women?
What happens when Raymond and Meursault approach the Arabs the second time?
Why does Meursault not go up into the house after they walk back? How does Meursault describe the sun and sand as he walked alone?
Who does Meursault meet on the beach?

Meursault compares the sun's heat to what?
Why does Meursault not turn around and walk away?
As Meursault approaches, what does the Arab do?
What blinds Meursault?
How does Meursault respond?
Explain this statement: "It was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness."

Part 2
1

What has happened to Meursault between Parts 1 and 2?
Why does Meursault think his case is "pretty simple"?
What does the lawyer question Meursault about?
Did Meursault love his mother?
How does Meursault explain to the lawyer how his "physical needs" relate to his "feelings"?
Why does Meursault think that the lawyer is upset with him?
Meursault makes this statement about the lawyer: "He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else." What is significant about this statement?
What does the magistrate want from Meursault?
At first, what does the magistrate want to do for Meursault?
Why does the magistrate pull out a crucifix and begin talking about God?
According to Meursault, what was the one part of his confession that the magistrate did not understand?
Does Meursault believe in God?
How does the magistrate respond when Meursault answers the previous question?
What does the magistrate think of Meursault when he doesn't cry at the sight of Christ's suffering?
What idea can Meursault simply not get used to?
Is Meursault sorry for what he did?
In the months after Meursault's first encounter with the magistrate, how do their meetings proceed?
What does the magistrate call Meursault?

What "starts" after Marie's first and last visit?
Why do Marie and Meursault have a hard time communicating during her visit?
What are the things that Meursault "never liked to talk about"?
How do the thoughts of a "free man" differ from those of a prisoner?
What idea (or maxim) of Meursault's mother does he frequently reflect upon in prison?
How does Meursault learn to kill time (in the present)?
Meursault says that the days "ended up flowing into one another. They lost their names." What does he mean?
What does Meursault remember the nurse at his mother's funeral saying to him?

How does Meursault describe the jury?
Meursault describes himself at the trial as "being odd man out, a kind of intruder." What does he mean?
Why is there such a crowd for Meursault's trial?
Who does Meursault recognize in "the shapeless mass of spectators"?
At several points during the trial, Meursault confesses to the reader that he was getting irritated. When? Why?
What does the director of the home testify about Meursault's behavior at his mother's funeral?
Why does Meursault suddenly have the urge to cry now?
When does Meursault realize that for the first time he was guilty?
What picture of Meursault emerges from the testimony of his friends?
What does Meursault realize as he is being taken back to prison during that time of day "a long time ago, I was perfectly content."

According to Meursault, how do the closing speeches of his lawyer and the prosecutor differ?
What is the "blinding clarity of the facts" of which the prosecutor speaks?
The prosecutor judges Meursault to be "intelligent;" why does this become a damning accusation?
According to Meursault, why does he not feel remorse for what he's done?
Why does the prosecutor think that Meursault does not have a soul?
What other crime does the prosecutor suggest that Meursault has committed?
What punishment does the prosecutor ask for?
What does Meursault say was the reason for the murder? What is the audience's response?
What does Meursault find himself thinking about (and listening to) while his lawyer goes on and on?
What is it that Meursault says "seized me by the throat" making him only want to return to his cell to sleep?
Why does Meursault lie to his attorney about how grand his speech was?
Why can Meursault not look at Marie?
How long did the jury deliberate?
What is the verdict? The punishment?

Meursault discovers that now he only cares about one thing. What is it?
What is the "machinery" of which Meursault speaks?
What is the story about his father which Meursault remembers his mother telling him?
Why does he now understand what before only disgusted him?
What new laws does Meursault imagine would give some hope to the condemned?
What misconceptions about the guillotine does Meursault recognize? From the condemned man's perspective, what are the "problems" with the guillotine?
How does Meursault now spend his nights?
In considering his appeal, Meursault reflects on the inevitability of death. What is his argument that leads to his acceptance of the rejection of his appeal?
Why does the thought of a pardon bring Meursault "delirious joy" when he has already recognized that "since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter"?
Why does Meursault refuse to see the chaplain?
How does the chaplain respond? What does he ask Meursault?
What kind of (other) life does Meursault confess to having wanted?
Why does Meursault become angry with the chaplain?
Reflect on Meursault's verbal assault on the chaplain. What is the essence of the message he is conveying? How does the chaplain respond?
What is "the gentle indifference of the world"?
What is Meursault's happiness?

Both parts from http://www3.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/questions/Stranger1.html

Group Questions

Day 1

Trace the trial imagery/connotations throughout the book. See, for instance, pages ____. Why a trial? It may help to think of our friend Ivan Ilyich.
In a later preface, Camus wrote about Meursault that "the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game." What "game" is he avoiding? How can you tell?
In the same preface, Camus argued that Meursault "is animated by a passion that is deep because it is stubborn, a passion for the absolute and for truth." What is this truth? What does Camus mean by a "stubborn" "passion"? How does the novel show this?
Gay Crosier writes that

What is on trial in the novel, then, is far more complex than Meursault’s absurd crime and the ensuing warped court procedure: it is the never-ending trial of the false certitude implicit in any judgment. With the help of the theatrical enactment of the trial, the text pitilessly exposes the masks worn by everyone involved: Meursault, those who represent society’s central institutions, and, ultimately, the readers themselves, whose identities become problematic each time they come up with a different interpretation” (96).

What does "false certitude implicit in any judgment" mean? How does the novel illustrate this? What's the mask that Meursault wears? The institutions? Readers?

Day 2

Connect the incidents/tone/outlook in/of the novel to today. Given the definitions of Absurdism and The Absurd above, are we living in Camus' world? Provide specifics connections: "It's like when ____;" "It's like the show/meme/news item/political statement/ ___."
Why the last line? Why does Mersault hope for a “large crowd of spectators the day of [his] execution and that they greet [him] with cries of hate” (123)? How does this fit into his philosophy?
What role does the physical environment play in Meursault's behavior? Sun, beach, light, etc. Why have this such an intrusive presence in the novel?
And how about another friend of ours, Gregor Samsa? In what ways do the tone, treatment of antagonist, protagonist, view of work, authority, etc. seem similar to The Metamorphosis?

Late arrival
In A Life Worth Living Robert Zaretsky notes that " A moralist is not a moralizer. The latter has the answer before he is asked the question, while the former has only questions after she hears the available answers. And it is the questions that, as the French say, deranger—disturb, or more literally, disarrange what has already been arranged" (8). Is Camus a moralist or a moralizer? Quotes please.

What the author/critics say

Preface to The Stranger
by Albert Camus
January 8, 1955

I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: "In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death." I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game. In this respect, he is foreign to the society in which he lives; he wanders, on the fringe, in the suburbs of private, solitary, sensual life. And this is why some readers have been tempted to look upon him as a piece of social wreckage. A much more accurate idea of the character, or, at least one much closer to the author's intentions, will emerge if one asks just how Meursault doesn't play the game. The reply is a simple one; he refuses to lie. To lie is not only to say what isn't true. It is also and above all, to say more than is true, and, as far as the human heart is concerned, to express more than one feels. This is what we all do, every day, to simplify life. He says what he is, he refuses to hide his feelings, and immediately society feels threatened. He is asked, for example, to say that he regrets his crime, in the approved manner. He replies that what he feels is annoyance rather than real regret. And this shade of meaning condemns him.

For me, therefore, Meursault is not a piece of social wreckage, but a poor and naked man enamored of a sun that leaves no shadows. Far from being bereft of all feeling, he is animated by a passion that is deep because it is stubborn, a passion for the absolute and for truth. This truth is still a negative one, the truth of what we are and what we feel, but without it no conquest of ourselves or of the world will ever be possible.

One would therefore not be much mistaken to read The Stranger as the story of a man who, without any heroics, agrees to die for the truth. I also happen to say, again paradoxically, that I had tried to draw in my character the only Christ we deserve. It will be understood, after my explanations, that I said this with no blasphemous intent, and only with the slightly ironic affection an artist has the right to feel for the characters he has created.

http://www3.baylor.edu/~Scott_Moore/Contemp_Philosophy/Stranger_Preface.html

Albert Camus – Banquet Speech

English

French

Albert Camus' speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1957

(Translation)

In receiving the distinction with which your free Academy has so generously honoured me, my gratitude has been profound, particularly when I consider the extent to which this recompense has surpassed my personal merits. Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I. But I have not been able to learn of your decision without comparing its repercussions to what I really am. A man almost young, rich only in his doubts and with his work still in progress, accustomed to living in the solitude of work or in the retreats of friendship: how would he not feel a kind of panic at hearing the decree that transports him all of a sudden, alone and reduced to himself, to the centre of a glaring light? And with what feelings could he accept this honour at a time when other writers in Europe, among them the very greatest, are condemned to silence, and even at a time when the country of his birth is going through unending misery?

I felt that shock and inner turmoil. In order to regain peace I have had, in short, to come to terms with a too generous fortune. And since I cannot live up to it by merely resting on my achievement, I have found nothing to support me but what has supported me through all my life, even in the most contrary circumstances: the idea that I have of my art and of the role of the writer. Let me only tell you, in a spirit of gratitude and friendship, as simply as I can, what this idea is.

For myself, I cannot live without my art. But I have never placed it above everything. If, on the other hand, I need it, it is because it cannot be separated from my fellow men, and it allows me to live, such as I am, on one level with them. It is a means of stirring the greatest number of people by offering them a privileged picture of common joys and sufferings. It obliges the artist not to keep himself apart; it subjects him to the most humble and the most universal truth. And often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others. The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge. And if they have to take sides in this world, they can perhaps side only with that society in which, according to Nietzsche's great words, not the judge but the creator will rule, whether he be a worker or an intellectual.

By the same token, the writer's role is not free from difficult duties. By definition he cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it. Otherwise, he will be alone and deprived of his art. Not all the armies of tyranny with their millions of men will free him from his isolation, even and particularly if he falls into step with them. But the silence of an unknown prisoner, abandoned to humiliations at the other end of the world, is enough to draw the writer out of his exile, at least whenever, in the midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages not to forget that silence, and to transmit it in order to make it resound by means of his art.

None of us is great enough for such a task. But in all circumstances of life, in obscurity or temporary fame, cast in the irons of tyranny or for a time free to express himself, the writer can win the heart of a living community that will justify him, on the one condition that he will accept to the limit of his abilities the two tasks that constitute the greatness of his craft: the service of truth and the service of liberty. Because his task is to unite the greatest possible number of people, his art must not compromise with lies and servitude which, wherever they rule, breed solitude. Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression.

For more than twenty years of an insane history, hopelessly lost like all the men of my generation in the convulsions of time, I have been supported by one thing: by the hidden feeling that to write today was an honour because this activity was a commitment - and a commitment not only to write. Specifically, in view of my powers and my state of being, it was a commitment to bear, together with all those who were living through the same history, the misery and the hope we shared. These men, who were born at the beginning of the First World War, who were twenty when Hitler came to power and the first revolutionary trials were beginning, who were then confronted as a completion of their education with the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the world of concentration camps, a Europe of torture and prisons - these men must today rear their sons and create their works in a world threatened by nuclear destruction. Nobody, I think, can ask them to be optimists. And I even think that we should understand - without ceasing to fight it - the error of those who in an excess of despair have asserted their right to dishonour and have rushed into the nihilism of the era. But the fact remains that most of us, in my country and in Europe, have refused this nihilism and have engaged upon a quest for legitimacy. They have had to forge for themselves an art of living in times of catastrophe in order to be born a second time and to fight openly against the instinct of death at work in our history.

Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself. Heir to a corrupt history, in which are mingled fallen revolutions, technology gone mad, dead gods, and worn-out ideologies, where mediocre powers can destroy all yet no longer know how to convince, where intelligence has debased itself to become the servant of hatred and oppression, this generation starting from its own negations has had to re-establish, both within and without, a little of that which constitutes the dignity of life and death. In a world threatened by disintegration, in which our grand inquisitors run the risk of establishing forever the kingdom of death, it knows that it should, in an insane race against the clock, restore among the nations a peace that is not servitude, reconcile anew labour and culture, and remake with all men the Ark of the Covenant. It is not certain that this generation will ever be able to accomplish this immense task, but already it is rising everywhere in the world to the double challenge of truth and liberty and, if necessary, knows how to die for it without hate. Wherever it is found, it deserves to be saluted and encouraged, particularly where it is sacrificing itself. In any event, certain of your complete approval, it is to this generation that I should like to pass on the honour that you have just given me.

At the same time, after having outlined the nobility of the writer's craft, I should have put him in his proper place. He has no other claims but those which he shares with his comrades in arms: vulnerable but obstinate, unjust but impassioned for justice, doing his work without shame or pride in view of everybody, not ceasing to be divided between sorrow and beauty, and devoted finally to drawing from his double existence the creations that he obstinately tries to erect in the destructive movement of history. Who after all this can expect from him complete solutions and high morals? Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road. What writer would from now on in good conscience dare set himself up as a preacher of virture? For myself, I must state once more that I am not of this kind. I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up. But although this nostalgia explains many of my errors and my faults, it has doubtless helped me toward a better understanding of my craft. It is helping me still to support unquestioningly all those silent men who sustain the life made for them in the world only through memory of the return of brief and free happiness.

Thus reduced to what I really am, to my limits and debts as well as to my difficult creed, I feel freer, in concluding, to comment upon the extent and the generosity of the honour you have just bestowed upon me, freer also to tell you that I would receive it as an homage rendered to all those who, sharing in the same fight, have not received any privilege, but have on the contrary known misery and persecution. It remains for me to thank you from the bottom of my heart and to make before you publicly, as a personal sign of my gratitude, the same and ancient promise of faithfulness which every true artist repeats to himself in silence every day.

Prior to the speech, B. Karlgren, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, addressed the French writer: "Mr. Camus - As a student of history and literature, I address you first. I do not have the ambition and the boldness to pronounce judgment on the character or importance of your work - critics more competent than I have already thrown sufficient light on it. But let me assure you that we take profound satisfaction in the fact that we are witnessing the ninth awarding of a Nobel Prize in Literature to a Frenchman. Particularly in our time, with its tendency to direct intellectual attention, admiration, and imitation toward those nations who have - by virtue of their enormous material resources - become protagonists, there remains, nevertheless, in Sweden and elsewhere, a sufficiently large elite that does not forget, but is always conscious of the fact that in Western culture the French spirit has for centuries played a preponderant and leading role and continues to do so. In your writings we find manifested to a high degree the clarity and the lucidity, the penetration and the subtlety, the inimitable art inherent in your literary language, all of which we admire and warmly love. We salute you as a true representative of that wonderful French spirit."

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam

http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1957/camus-speech-e.html

"Lost in Translation: What the First Line of “The Stranger” Should Be." The New Yorker. By Ryan Bloom, May 11, 2012

Pictures

First page in French CAMUS : L'étranger - Autographe, Edition Originale ...

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edition-originale.com%2Fmedia%2Fh-1200-camus_albert_letranger_1942_edition-originale_autographe_6_44182.jpg&f=1

Early 20th century French Algeria

The Daily Postcard: The City of Algiers

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-nYnIs0fIRoQ%2FTZOewIcUhfI%2FAAAAAAAAD2o%2F-bsYEs6hp2c%2Fs1600%2FAlgeria1a%2Bcopy.jpg&f=1

French Algeria - Fine selection of 87 postcards 1900 ...

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.catawiki.nl%2Fassets%2F2017%2F11%2F14%2F9%2F5%2F8%2F95830ef9-4995-4485-b199-7faece6d4c04.jpg&f=1

Links

Jay, Martin. "A History of Alienation." Aeon, https://aeon.co/essays/in-the-1950s-everybody-cool-was-a-little-alienated-what-changed. Accessed 19 March 2018.

Jordison, Sam. "In or Outsider? Camus and Algeria." The Guardian, 19 Nov. 2013, accessed 5 Jan. 2020.