Albert Camus, born in 1913, is a famous French writer, a representative of existentialism and "absurd philosophy", and a Nobel Laureate in Literature.
Camus grew up in Algeria and had a very difficult childhood, his father died in the war, and his mother raised him to become a servant of a wealthy family. In his early years, Camus was able to enter school and receive an education, but unfortunately, at the age of seventeen, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
In 1932, Camus began publishing his works. Ten years later, in 1942, Camus was in Paris as editor of the Paris Evening News, publishing his famous book The Outsider, in which he first proposed the existentialist concept of "absurdity." The publication of the book "The Outsider" made him famous in one fell swoop.
Camus's life was turbulent and rather unexpected, but in a desperate situation, he always adhered to justice and truth, and during the Second World War, Camus was always on the road of resistance, knowing that he could not do it. His fearless spirit of defiance made him the spiritual mentor of a generation.
01
If for a moment you don't know where to go in the face of a raging crowd, and you hear the hustle and bustle around you but feel like you are in the wilderness, will you ever want to escape from the crowd and hide yourself in a moment of panic?
At the end of the day, humans are social animals that fear solitude. For each individual, it is almost impossible for us to strip ourselves of this society. Therefore, countless people have spent their lives trying to find the approval of others or society. People try to use this sense of collective identity to seek a psychological sense of belonging and security in order to get rid of their deep-seated fears.
As the tide gradually obliterates the maverick, human beings successfully adapt to live in an orderly manner in a set of established social operating mechanisms, surrounded by a web of laws and a high wall of social rules, which we are accustomed to. We also strive to believe that the truth of society is what we see, and dare not imagine that many of the things we are seeking are illusory in the long river of life.
If there were such a person in the world, and everything he did was completely from the heart, never pandering to the established rules of the world, would he be happy or more miserable?
Camus's Meursault is such an extremist who believes that the nature of the world is absurd. Countless people are happy to pursue things tirelessly, and he disdains them, only making a cloud of smoke. He has no hope in the world, is indifferent to everything that happens around him, only indulges in his inner world, and always obeys his truest joys and sorrows.
02
"Today, Mom is dead. Maybe it was yesterday that I couldn't figure it out." The inner monologue of the protagonist Meursault becomes the shocking opening of the novel. From the very beginning, The Outsider introduces us to a world full of absurdity and drama, and Meursault's conflict with this world unfolds.
In the eyes of the world, in the face of the death of a loved one, deep mourning is the deepest remembrance and remembrance, and those who are indifferent and insensitive are indifferent and insensitive, and they cannot calm the anger of the people. Meursault in this book acts as a centipede.
Instead of crying, without grief, he calmly lit a cigarette and drank hot coffee on the side of his mother's body; he repeatedly refused to witness her remains, and the whole feeling of the funeral was the anxiety, thirst, and tiredness that could not fade for a long time. The day he buried his mother was nothing more than a sparse, usual weekend mixed with burnout.
The funeral begins and ends with a scene from the protagonist Meursault's life. Throughout, such a social outlier in the eyes of others has never really integrated into this society. Whether it is the life of others or his own life, he is in it as a spectator, but mentally out of the matter, acting as an observer.
On the day after his mother's funeral, he went to the beach to have fun, and did not shy away from going to the theater to watch a funny movie and seek carnal stimulation with his girlfriend; when his girlfriend asked him if he loved her, he could have laughed at her with touching love words, but he denied it with sincerity, and thought it meaningless; when the neighbor Raymond wanted to make friends with him, he did not show flattering joy and courtesy, but only lightly stated: it is okay to be friends or not; when the boss intends to promote and intend to send him to work in Paris, He replied calmly: People can never change their lives, all kinds of lives are similar, and my life here does not bother me...
03
From these aspects, we can see that the protagonist has a very different way of life from the people around him. He doesn't like to socialize and doesn't force himself to do anything he doesn't like. He may not know much about what kind of life he wants, and he has a "no-mind" or "dispensable" attitude towards many things, but he is definitely a person who is very clear about what he does not want.
He didn't like the police, so he simply stood idly by in the neighborhood strife; he didn't like brothels, and he didn't succumb to himself in order to please his friends. All the indifference and insensitivity that appeared to others was actually the weapon with which he was able to defend his spiritual world against what he saw as absurdity.
If you were to say that he was world-weary, he was a man of great love for the world. He is indifferent to some major events that others think, but in many details of life, he seems to love the world more than anyone, and he can understand the beauty of this world more than anyone. He is keen to observe the changes of the day, he can go to and from a stranger to observe, he can easily feel the nuances of the smell of the air at different times, he loves the night and loves the evening wind...
In the book "My Spiritual Homeland", Wang Xiaobo once said:
One of my personal secrets is that in public where great pleasure and sorrow are needed, they do not reach the level of such happiness and sorrow, and thus their hearts are terrified and sweaty.
Meursault is such a person who does not live on the "standard line", such a small person is not accepted by social thought. But even when it was clear that this difference did not benefit him, he never flinched about it.
04
Although such a small person who walked on the fringes of secular rules was not a supporter of real society, he could have lived a life of innocence and loveliness according to his sincerity, but everything took a turn after Meursault was brought into a peach-colored dispute by his neighbor Raymond. From beginning to end, he was not the initiator of the incident, nor was he involved in the planning, but under the special circumstances, this guy whose feelings were often disturbed by physiological instincts shot and killed an Arab in the middle of the dispute.
For meursault, a man of special spirits, he did not face the interrogation afterwards with the panic of an ordinary person facing imprisonment. The truth is that he was not bothered by his defense lawyer, confessed to the fact that he had committed murder, and did not defend himself.
The prosecutor, under the wishful reasoning, insisted that Meursault was a psychological twister with a strong murderous motive in society, and all this was traced back to his mother's funeral, where Meursault did not cry out in sorrow and pleasure the next day.
The prosecutor sought to elevate Meursault's crime to intentional homicide through this, while Meursault's defense lawyers used all witnesses to try to prove that Meursault was a "gentle and frugal" person in the traditional sense, trying to "move the law with affection". Ironically, Meursault remained a bystander on this, and although his confession sounded incredible, he told the truth that the environment had affected the spirit and ultimately led to his killing.
In fact, all these trials have long been a contest between prosecutors and defense lawyers. Case investigations were conducted without Meursault's involvement. His fate has long been determined by himself, and a party to a case has become an outsider through and through.
In such a comical trial, the judiciary does not proceed from the case itself and discusses the matter on the facts, but forcibly uses social ethics and emotions to kidnap the judiciary. If the law is a rolling ball, the judiciary becomes a player who manipulates the law at will, and the absurdity of human secularism and social ideology is vividly expressed in this trial.
Meursault was eventually convicted of "premeditated murder," "without the slightest bit of humanity," and "the most contemptuous of the most basic rules of society," accused of "his hollow heart about to become an abyss for the destruction of our society," and he was eventually sentenced to death.
05
In the face of death, Meursault had a physiological instinctive fear, but in his outlook on life, everything was clear and clear. Even if he were to die tomorrow, his spirit was still independent of this society, and the fear of death did not obscure the essence of society and life in his eyes. So when the priest tried to persuade him to convert to Christ before he died, he did not compromise, but only mourned for the thousands of priest-like beings in the world.
The nature of a person dying at the age of 30 and dying at the age of 70 is no different. The essence of life is ultimately to die, and all people, without exception, are sentenced to death. Since fate is predestined and the world itself is absurd, where is the meaning of religion? Meursault spoke out before facing death.
In the last moments of his life, what he experienced was not resentment and resentment, but a kind of happiness and fulfillment that began and ended well. Outsiders in this society treat people sincerely all their lives, refuse to lie, and do not play tricks. He refuses to pretentize his true feelings.
Camus said: "He was a man who voluntarily died for the truth without any heroic deeds." ”
Meursault's death, died of sincerity, died of not being happy with this society. This is a noble person, but the real society is not compatible with this kind of purely idealistic person.
Romain Rolland said: "There is a kind of heroism in this world, that is, to recognize the essence of life and still love it. ”
Meursault, then, is a man who lived proudly in a heroic posture, who used his own body and what we see as "indifference" to fight against the absurdity of the world.
END.
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