Prompt Two: The Stranger, By Albert Camus

Improved Essays
The stranger prompt two
The second part of “The Stranger”, translated by Albert Camus, reverses the theme presented in the first part of the novel. This switch in the theme from Meursault being the watcher to the watched emphasizes the impact of the title in understand Meursault’s emergence, or lack-thereof, into societal standards.
The title of the novel is the first task for the reader; they must try to identify who the stranger is and why the person has been identified as such. Upon reaching the second part, the reader has identified Meursault as the stranger. Two different interpretations of how Meursault is the stranger are conceived. One reason for Meursault being defined as the stranger is the way in which people to whom, “he couldn’t

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    In the stranger, Camus argues the futility of social conformity, both sides leading to the same verdict: death, one by exile of one’s self, the other by the suicide of one’s beliefs. Camus uses and interesting scene, Meursault’s trial, to show how avoiding conformity leads to shunning by society. The trial portrays the contrast between the morals of society and Meursault’s evident lack of them, and society’s fear of a world without meaning and those who support such a prospect.…

    • 80 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Hubris Leads to Failure Bernard Malamud’s novel The Natural shows how arrogance can lead to the downfall of even the most talented people. As the novel progresses, the audience sees how characters that display arrogance eventually suffer for their conceited attitudes. Malamud relates his characters to Greek mythological characters by showing how arrogance ultimately causes one to suffer. In the novel, Malamud demonstrates how hubris overcomes Roy Hobbs, the Whammer, Judge Banner, and Gus Sands.…

    • 1714 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kate Sheppard once said, " All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhumane, and must overcome. " In other words, in human history, people were treated inhumanely in cases such as the Holocaust and slavery in the U.S. The Holocaust, mostly known for treating Jews like if they were animals, and with cruelty. For example, in the memoir "Night" by Elie Wiesel, tells us about how cruel the Jewish people were treated.…

    • 119 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the synthesis project, one overriding question that is answered using outside resources and novels read throughout the year is: what are the differences between hope and envy? At first, when brainstorming, the question of the different definitions and connotations of hope and envy arose. Some define hope as being “dangerous” (Shawshank Redemption 1994), while others believe that hope is a mechanism that shines light during difficult and dark times. Meursault, in The Stranger, argues that hope blinds someone from living in the present because hoping requires looking to the future. However, hope gives some people’s lives a purpose.…

    • 546 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Dictionary.com defines the word “adversity” as an unfavorable fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity, or distress. Most people would agree that death by an incurable disease or murder is an unfavorable fate. In Tuesdays with Morrie, a graduated college student, Mitch, discovers that his favorite former professor, Morrie, has ALS and begins to visit with him throughout his adversity, death, and so much more. Night, authored by Elie Wiesel, also tells of adversity and many other aspects. Night is a personal account of a Jewish boy, Elie Wiesel, and his duration in concentration camps with his father during the Holocaust.…

    • 1107 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Compassion is impactful and affects many. I always try to show compassion to others. And when someone shows compassion to me, I'm very happy. A smile appears on my face when I see it in action too. Compassion can have different definitions to it.…

    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In part one, chapter six of The Stranger, Camus utilizes a multitude of literary devices in hopes of describing and explaining Meursault’s killing of the Arab. Although Camus employs the use of a plethora of literary techniques, some of the most conspicuous include those of foreshadowing, imagery, and intricate diction. In the final chapter of part one, Camus makes use of various literary devices to present the notion that Meursault’s needless murder of the Arab lacks a rational explanation, though the reader attempts to find one. Across the course of chapter six, Camus makes use of foreshadowing as a means of hinting at the disastrous course that Meursault’s life will take at the end of the chapter.…

    • 1276 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.” This quote is from Eliezer Wiesel, the author of the memoir Night, which is the story of his time in concentration camps during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was during the 1940’s, in Germany. It’s hard to say Wiesel was lucky to live through this horrible period, as it’s more of how we are lucky that he survived, so we could experience the Holocaust through his eyes reading Night. The main point of this speech will be talking about humanity's plague, indifference.…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “All the people like us are we, and everyone else is They” (Kipling). This quote by Rudyard Kipling is the essence of the problems facing strangers every day. In the articles “Strangers” by Toni Morrison and “Stranger in the Village” by James Baldwin, the latter serves to provide a first-person point-of-view of the experiences in Morrison’s essay. By examining James Baldwin’s experience as a stranger in a secluded Swiss village, which serves to strengthen the theme of “Strangers,” Baldwin’s experience demonstrates how people in a community can frame a stranger 's identity. This experience allows the reader to see what Morrison is doing to her stranger.…

    • 1476 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Camus The Plague

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In our class discussion about The Plague we focused on how Camus uses easy to overlook details to make one reexamine their own beliefs. The group began by asking us if the community came together or fell apart. In this discussion we came to the conclusion that while the people came together as one community suffering under the plague, civilization fell. Through this ironic scenario, he offers to the reader an idea that civilization is not needed and that solely with community humans can help one another. After this we discussed the importance of objectivity and whether or not Rieux being the narrator changes how we should view the novel.…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Meursault's Death

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages

    ‘It is better to burn than to disappear.’ The Stranger is a probing look into the folds of existence, and one that forces the reader to consider their own life and it’s place under all those indifferent stars. The writing is crisp and immediate, and the effect is nearly overwhelming and all-encompassing in its beauty and insight.…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Night assessment Prompt 1: During his year at the concentration camp, the main character of the novel, named Eliezer faced two internal conflicts. Eliezer’s first internal conflict was about keeping his religion. Wiesel recalls that, “Behind me, I hear the same man asking: ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where- hanging here from this gallows…’”…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Albert Camus once stated that a novel “is never anything but a philosophy expressed in images” (Kellman). In his works, such as The Stranger, he envelops the ideal of absurdism, which the Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary & Cultural Criticism states that, drawn upon from The Myth of Sisyphus, includes the idea that “in a world without God, human life and human suffering have no intrinsic meaning.” The philosophy stemmed from and closely resembles existentialism, which sees the predicament of existence as “beginning with a confrontation with a disconcerting sense of meaninglessness” (Abbs 11). Invoked with Camus’s absurdism, Meursault manifests an indifferent personality which repeatedly leads to his alienation from those his loved ones,…

    • 1640 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Stranger By Toni Morrison

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Breaking the Rules With The Stranger: The Difference Between Perception and Reality The article, ”Stranger’ by Toni Morrison, narrates her encounter with a stranger. She explains the impact a stranger can leave behind, based on her own experience, how she experience welcome as she approached the stranger, and wished they could meet again. She felt “cheated, puzzled and also amused” (136) when the stranger never shows up as promised. Which kept her wondering that most of time the people we think are not what they turn out to be.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    After being able to understand most of the French language, he realizes that he is not normal. "When I looked around, I saw and heard none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and all men disowned?" He no idea where he came from or how he came into existence. These unanswered questions made the monster increasingly lonelier.…

    • 1054 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 3 Works Cited
    Superior Essays