Are Meursault in Camus' The Outsider and Antigone in Anouilh's Antigone both victims of society and also free agents who choose their own fate?

James MacDonald

Are Meursault in Camus’ The Outsider and Antigone in Anouilh’s Antigone both victims of society and also free agents who choose their own fate?

Both Meursault and Antigone are the protagonists in their stories. They have much in common, such as the fact that they explain their impending deaths as decided by fate, even though each seems to have an easy way of surviving. Both are willing to die for what they believe is right. The concept of fate is quite different between the texts. In Antigone, a Chorus tells you at the beginning of the play that Antigone will die. Antigone uses the excuse of fate to explain her own death to Creon, where as in The Outsider fate is much more subtle.

First I will look at The Outsider and Meursault. Albert Camus wrote this novel as a challenge against the death penalty and the society that imposes it. It reflects his existential philosophy including how we do not trust people that are different, that society would rather hear lies then the truth if the truth makes them uncomfortable, and that people with different views to the majority are persecuted. Camus’ choice of Meursault, an unusual person, who does not ‘play the game’, enables him to demonstrate this argument.

Meursault’s first words are ‘Mother died today.’ He is very quiet and detached and likes to observe events around him like a spectator, regardless of their importance to him. At his mother’s funeral, he does not cry, he smokes and drinks coffee, and this turns out to be the reason for his execution. It may appear that the fact that Meursault is killed because of the way he acts at his mother’s funeral is a sign of hubris, much like Creon’s in Antigone, who does not respect Polynices’ death properly.

Camus shows us Meursault’s philosophy is a hedonistic one; he acts like each day is his last. His boss says he has no ambition, to which Meursault replies ‘I couldn’t see any reason for changing my life. Come to think of it, I wasn’t unhappy’.

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Meursault’s mother’s funeral is the first chapter of the novel, and the introduction to Meursault’s character. On the bus journey to his mother’s old people’s home he says only ‘yes’ to a soldier that asks him a question because he does not want to talk. This is an example of the short sentences he uses as dialogue and as narrator throughout the book. When he gets to the home, he does not cry or act sad, showing us that he is quite emotionless. He points out to the caretaker that he is just another inmate, with a little extra authority due to his position. Meursault does not recognise the caretaker’s authority as anything special, which is why he does not see the caretaker’s point, Meursault feels the same way about the judiciary in part 2. Camus makes the caretaker look stupid because he does not see the truth that he is just an inmate with extra work. He may be making a statement here about the way we try to make ourselves better by creating titles and roles. Authority is linked to fate in that they are abstract concepts and both can be considered opposites to freedom.

During the first part of the novel, Meursault gets a girlfriend named Marie. Meursault does not care whether they marry or not, much like Antigone with Heamon. It could be said that Meursault agrees to marry Marie for the same reason that Antigone agrees to marry Heamon, because they both know they are going to die. This is evidence of fate in The Outsider, and Marie and Heamon are both innocent victims of their partner’s fate.

Meursault makes a friend named Raymond, who many readers dislike because he is a misogynist and a criminal. It is Raymond’s fault that Meursault has to kill the Arab, though Meursault is at fault for keeping Raymond as a friend. This shows that Meursault was a free agent who made the mistake of having the wrong friends.

Possibly the most important passage in the novel is when Meursault kills the Arab on the beach. He took Raymond’s gun from him to prevent him from murdering the Arab in an argument, when he went for a walk later with the gun in his pocket he met the Arab again. During his walk he describes the pain and discomfort the sun causes him “The heat was pushing full against me as I tried to walk”. He finds the Arab in the only shade on the beach, which draws him closer, the descriptions of the heat and light are very painful “All I could feel were the cymbals the sun was clashing against my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear still leaping up off the knife in front of me”. The language used in this passage is very elaborate compared to the short sentences usually used, stressing the importance of this passage. To the readers, it seems as though the hot sun is the only reason Meursault has to kill the Arab. The sun can be seen as the hand of fate in this novel. Meursault does not enjoy the killing at all, but he does not react with shock or fear. He realises that he ruined the day and says the four bullets were “four sharp knocks at the door of unhappiness”.

In the closing pages of the book, Meursault comments on his situation as more of an observer then he did before. At one point he yells at a priest because the priest is very confident about what he believes, and Meursault thinks he knows better. The presence of the priest challenges Meursault. When the priest offers to pray for Meursault he ‘explodes’, because he has accepted death, and prayer is meant to give him hope, which he does not want.

Jean Anouilh’s play Antigone is based on a Greek tragedy. In a play there is no narrator like there are in novels, viewers watch the action on the stage, we learn about the emotion of the characters by their overt behaviour. The play opens with the Chorus introducing all the characters and telling us some of the background story. It tells us that Antigone is going to die and she knows it. Antigone is a quiet character but the Chorus tells us during the play that she can finally be herself because of the events of the play.

In a Greek tragedy, fate is an integral part of the story. Greek tragedies include an omnipotent character or group called the Chorus. In this story Anouilh uses the Chorus and Antigone to argue the case for fate. The Chorus has a passage where he explains the concepts of tragedy and fate. The Chorus describes fate as a “spring [which] is would up tight. It will uncoil itself”.

Proof of the presence of fate in this play lies in the fact that this story is part of an epic, the story of Oedipus. Antigone’s father, Oedipus, the King of Thebes, could not escape the fate that the oracle predicted for him; he was destined to kill his father Laius and marry his mother, Jocasta. Antigone is the product of that union between Oedipus and Jocasta. Antigone is fated to obey the divine law, burying her brother, and spurn the human law of Creon, regardless of the consequences.

Creon and Haemon both try to argue that fate does not exist. Creon puts forward many arguments to Antigone after she is caught trying to bury her brother. He is a politician and he argues his case well, saying that her brother is undeserving, that burial is meaningless and that Antigone is not fated to die. Creon uses complex methods of arguing to try and be persuasive in his arguments, bombarding Antigone with reasons why she should not force him to have her killed. After Antigone and Creon’s argument, Creon is persuaded that Antigone is destined to die, and he tries to persuade Heamon of that. Creon says “Death was her purpose, whether she knew it or not”. Heamon however is very stubborn and never accepts that Antigone is fated to die, that is why when Antigone’s body is found Heamon kills himself while Creon does not cry or mourn over anyone he has lost. Whether or not death is Antigone’s destiny is argued by all the individual characters, each arguing only for the side that benefits themselves. The Chorus argues for fate to justify it’s existence, Creon argues for it to justify his decision to have Antigone executed, Heamon argues against it because he wants Antigone to live on.

These two stories rely on inevitability to draw attention away from the storyline, and bring the focus onto the issues they raise. Camus wished to persuade people that the death penalty was unjust and wrong, while Anouilh wanted to encourage a sense of rebellion among the people of occupied France during World War 2. In The Outsider and in Antigone both of the main characters believe that they are destined to die, becoming martyrs for their author’s causes.