Comparing Camus' "The Stranger" to Orwell's "1984"

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                                                                                                 Madhur Mahajan  

         Meaninglessness of Life

              The Stranger” – Albert Camus

        

The author of “The Stranger” Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French author, journalist, and philosopher who have also won a Nobel Prize in Literature. This book of his is based on the life of Meursault. Meursault being the protagonist narrates the ups and downs of his life. This story is basically a thriller that shows us the lack of emotion in Meursault’s personality which in the end leads to ruin his life. The main characters in this book are Meursault and his mother, his girlfriend Marie Cardona, his neighbor Raymond Sintes, Thomas Perez and The Chaplain. The story starts with the death of Meursault’s mother and her funeral in which Meursault shows no affection at all towards his mother. Marie is immensely in love with Meursault and wants to marry him, she then asks him to marry her and he first replies by saying “it didn’t mean anything” and then says yes as though it makes no difference to him if he is married or not. His emotionless character later takes him to a point at which everyone thinks that he is an antichrist and he is thus visited by the priest to try to increase his belief and faith in God. The pope then talks to him about his disbelief in God and he for the first time truly embraces the idea that human existence holds no greater meaning. He abandons all hope for the future and accepts the “gentle indifference of the world.” This acceptance makes him feel happy.

This story can be easily related to the book 1984 by George Orwell as in 1984 Big Brother tries to control everyone’s thoughts and essentially turns them into his slaves. It doesn’t matter to the Big Brother if the people of Oceana live or die. This makes their life have no meaning just like in “the stranger” Meursault thinks that the human existence has no meaning. Secondly, the proles in “1984” are so oppressed by the ministries that they have no feelings or emotions left in them. They are bound to believe what the government tells them and are happy with what the government provides them. On the other hand, Meursault lacks emotion and is basically living like a rock with no feelings. In the book, he also killed a man for no reason and just for the hell of it. This show that he does not value the importance of life and goes about killing people for no apparent reason. The people in 1984 get married only for reproduction and have no affection towards their partner just like in “the stranger” where Meursault marries Marie just for the heck of it even though he is not attracted to her.

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Meursault – He is the protagonist and narrator of “The Stranger”, to which the title of the novel refers. Meursault can be called as a detached figure who tries to view and describe mostly everything that takes place around him from a rather removed position. His mother and his lover, Marie can easily manipulate him and gets the feeling of him being emotionally indifferent to others including them. “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: "Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours." That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday” (Camus 1). Meursault clearly shows ...

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