Thoughts on "The Stranger" so far...

So who is Meursault? Is he really a Stranger...

Is anyone really a stranger on this earth?

Is a stranger a person who just lurks around corners and feels they are in a world all on their own?

This blog post is just well, me thinking out loud, it is not very organized, I asked a few too many questions but it’s supposed to be honest…
When I read the book, I don't know how to feel, should I be excited to keep reading on, bored because his tone is unenthusiastic?
He seems very hard to get, he is very blah, and does not really seem to care about much. In the beginning of the book he talks about his mother’s death, he seems extremely dis attached and ok with the whole situation, but is he really trying to hide emotions that are much deeper, is his attitude his security blanket. I think he feels a tremendous amount of guilt because he was not able to financially support the care needed for his mother. He handed over complete care of his mother to other people; all he received in return was a call from the home with dreaded news that his mother had passed. I get the sense that he may wish that he could have changed many of the decisions he made.

His mood through out the book seems to change here and there ever so slightly, when it comes to his emotions he hides them, but when he talks about experiences with other people he is always able to explain very well what is going on with them. He does not seem to have the best sense of self. When he talks about his neighbor’s dog it is hard to tell if he feels bad for the abuse the dog takes of if he just sees it as part of life and just their “daily routine”. Why is he the way he is, I wish that we would have had some more insight and information on his life before the book started.

From reading the back of the book and reading a few more chapters I sense that a murder will happen, I am very curious to see how a personality like Mersault will handle that. Does he have anything to do with it?

Just a few thoughts!

Response to part III

Are we able to turn any situation into a happy one? Banach talks about Sisyphus a young man sentenced to a life time punishment of rolling a huge rock up and down a hill forever, till the say he dies, he makes the point that would most people really be able to see any good out of that.

Albert Camus brought up the idea that because we can give our own lives value we can achieve happiness at almost any time in any situation. How true is that? Most people i know are not that selfless that they would give up the life they live now to roll a rock up the hill and make the best out of that. Personally i would not accept that as a fair punishment, i would do anything in my power to change the nature of my situation and rebel. "our life is a series of meaningless actions culminating in death, with no possibility of external justification." why he he comparing life with death?

I have so many thoughts reading this part if the lecture that my writing may seem a little all over the place, the questions he poses just keep me thinking and make me ask more. "what are we rebelling against? There must be more to the extistialist conception of happiness that this..." What sense does it really make to rebel against something that is non existent? I'm convinced there is more to it! In order to find ultimate happiness we must search for values within one self! Once you find your value no one take it away from you no matter what!

This part of the lecture leaves me to ponder and wonder what the point of everything he said was! all he really did at the end was argue and contradict it. "to say one must act authentically is to say that one must act in a way that ignores the differences between oneself and other people." At first he was trying to say that we must get rid of everything external to be happy but now he states that we must think of others before ourself! For one person to be free all must be free!

If our freedom is restricted are we really free?
:/