"How is the theme of 'universal indifference' portrayed in The Outsider and Candide"?

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Kirby Kruger

“How is the theme of ‘universal indifference’ portrayed in The Outsider and Candide”?

Albert Camus’s thought-provoking story of The Outsider and Voltaire’s whimsical satire Candide both question faith and mankind’s tendency to explain away events through the mystical nature of spirituality. Both authors seem to consider the idea of evil as part of a Divine Plan, or as an ultimate cause of good, as weak, and on the whole, unsatisfactory. They respond differently to this, though; Camus rejects religion completely, while Voltaire approaches the notion more cautiously by mocking mankind’s fickle justifications for evil and blind faith.

The first section of The Outsider almost seems irrelevant to the philosophical climax that dramatically completes Meursault’s simple character. Through the striking contrast of the initial structure and fallaciously predictable content of the earlier sections, Camus delivers the message unexpectedly and dramatically. As a first-person narrative, the reader expects to finish the book with Meursault sincerely narrating his unremarkable life as he grows accustomed to jail; yet the change of setting does not really bring upon any renewed interest. Instead, the subtle introduction of the Patrician, whose irrational and blatantly irritable beliefs eventually annoy Meursault to the point of an philosophical outburst, whereby he declares his beliefs wholly and soundly to both himself and the Patrician.

Voltaire, however, mercilessly satirises the idea of optimism throughout Candide, and mocks these theories through physically manifesting them as characters. Candide himself is the embodiment of optimism; however much he dares to find a good side to any situation, he inevitably finds himself in increasingly miserable situations. While he never dares to blatantly dismiss the existence of God, he prefers to suggest that He is, instead, an indifferent deity. Particularly amusing is Cunegonde’s recount of the Bulgarian pillage of her father’s castle, where she starts off by saying, “I was in bed and fast asleep when it pleased God to send the Bulgarians to our delightful castle of Thunder-ten-Tronckh; they slew my father and brother, and cut my mother in pieces.”( Candide, Dover Thrift Ed, pg.17) Voltaire mocks optimism and faith by bringing upon an endless string of misfortunes to every character brought up to indulge in blind faith, thereby portraying the notion as an undisputedly ridiculous concept; however, the novel is fictitious, and is written as an exaggeration of a pessimist’s ideas and issues.  

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Meursault is Camus’s “puppet” in The Outsider. He is, in the novel, an embodiment of truth. Without any heroic pretensions, Meursault stubbornly refuses to see anything for anything other than what it is. As a simple character, he finds no reason to see complicated reasoning behind essentially simple phenomenon, such as death, and does not pretend to show emotions he does not feel, such as remorse or grief. This is perhaps why he is so harshly persecuted during his trail; his reason for killing the Arab was, to him, very simple, but ironically too simple for the jury. This ...

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