Analysis Of The Absurd In Camus's The Stranger

• The Absurd: What then is meant by the notion of the Absurd? Contrary to the view conveyed by popular culture, the Absurd, at least not what Camus had stated, that it does not simply refer to some vague perception that modern life is fraught with paradoxes, incongruities, and intellectual confusion. Instead, as he emphasizes and tries to make clear, the Absurd expresses a fundamental disharmony, a tragic incompatibility, in our existence. In effect, he argues that the Absurd is the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent “silence of the universe”:
“The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in their presence together…it is the only bond uniting them.”(The Myth of Sisyphus, Chapter 2, Absurd Walls)
• The Revolt: The companion theme to the Absurd in Camus’s oeuvre is the idea of Revolt. What is revolt? Simply defined, it is the Sisyphean spirit of defiance in the face of the Absurd. More …show more content…
Once again Meursault in The Stranger provides a striking example. On the one hand, there seems to have been no conscious intention behind his action. Indeed the killing takes place almost as if by accident, with Meursault in a kind of absent-minded daze, distracted by the sun. From this point of view, his crime seems surreal and his trial and subsequent conviction a travesty. On the other hand, it is hard for the reader not to share the view of other characters in the novel, especially Meursault’s accusers, witnesses, and jury, in whose eyes he seems to be a seriously defective human being—at best, a kind of hollow man and at worst, a monster of self-centeredness and insularity. That the character has evoked such a wide range of responses from critics and readers—from sympathy to horror—is a tribute to the psychological complexity and subtlety of Camus’s