Anyways I was just bored and went to Luke's profile because I miss him uwu and just started going through Seven again. He has a bunch of memes at the start and this one not only had me cracking up
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but reminded me of an essay I had to write my senior year of high school that I briefly mentioned Sisyphus in because it was relevant to The Stranger and I quoted Camus on The Myth of Sisyphus. Because MeRsAuLT iS LiKe SIsYPhUs and blah blah blah existentialism blah blah blah absurdism.
Anyways felt like sharing my essay because fuck y'all and I wanna finish this damn book so badly and move on with my life lmao
Get ready for about 5 pages of absolute bullshit by 17 year old me:
The Use of Absurdism and Existentialism in The Stranger
Push the rock up the hill, inevitably watch it fall, walk back to the bottom of the hill, and do it again, and again, and again: that was the punishment of Sisyphus. He was trapped in his routine and punishment with no way out, like everyone else on Earth. Within The Stranger, and in real life, Albert Camus used existentialism and absurdism as forms of freedom and ways to find happiness within the routine.
Humans hold a similar punishment to Sisyphus, only most are unaware they are trapped in their routines. People do the same thing day in and day out: wake up, go to work or school, go home, sleep, repeat. That five-step routine encompasses most of the world. Everyone fits into a prison-shaped box where they complete their daily lives on a loop with little variation. This repetition, this routine, is seen everywhere and is especially brought to light in The Stranger. Meursault, the main character, was like every other person on Earth. He was trapped. However his routine, his little prison, was not always explicitly written. Camus mirrored the routine in the beginning chapters of The Stranger itself with Meursault either "waking up," or "at the office" (Camus 19, 25). Even when he was not at work, he still thought about "[his] boss" (Camus 19). After his generic day at work—or thoughts about work—Meursault would move on with the rest of his day; which typically consisted of him "spend[ing] the day with his girlfriend" (Camus 40). For Meursault, the routine was predictable from day to day with little variation just like everyone around him. Everyone was stuck in a routine of their own: Salamano with his "twice a day" dog walks for the last "eight years," and everyone on Sunday who followed the same pattern enough for Meursault to say "It was Sunday all right" simply by watching them (Camus 27, 22). People became so accustomed to their lives that they began to simply follow what was always done. Even though Salamano and his dog "hate[d] each other," they remained consistent (Camus 27). In the minds of many, there was no other option. It was what they were already doing or nothing.
People could not see outside of their routines because they could not even think of changing them. What would Salamano and his dog do "at eleven and six" if not their walk (Camus 26)? Or what would the "robot woman" do during dinner if she did not go through the magazine of "radio programs for the week" (Camus 87, 43)? If, for some reason, they had to change a part of their routine, it would not matter in the long run. After a while they would get "used to it" (Camus 5). Salamano may have been "used to" his dog, but after a while he would be used to life without one because, "after a while you could get used to anything" (Camus 44, 77). Eventually, he would forget he ever used to do something else. People got stuck in the idea of following routines, of a path that they had to follow, only changing it if they absolutely had to or if it was changed for them.
It is not often that people willingly changed their routine. On one hand, they were comfortable with their routine, and on the other, they barely knew they followed one. To the most basic extent, yes, people knew they followed the routine of home, work, home, repeat, but they were not fully aware of it. Meursault was not fully aware of his own routine until parts of it, like his smoking of cigarettes, was taken away from him as "part of [his] punishment" (Camus 78). Within his new literal prison life, he had gained a new routine completely different from his first. Even then, with the impromptu change he had no control over, Meursault did not realize the predicament he was in until the entire prospect of routine was removed entirely. He would not be given a new one, it would simply be gone. Once he realized he would finally be free of his worldly prison, Meursault "was happy again" (Camus 123). Very few were aware of the prison that they were trapped in, so they did not know to try and change or escape.
Many people found a purpose and a meaning in their life prison, a way to make it bearable, yet some found peace without it. No one is privy to the purpose of the "strange little woman" at Céleste's, yet there clearly is one (Camus 43). There was a reason she "was staring right at [Meursault]" during his trial, and there was a reason she always "added up the bill in advance" and "ordered her whole meal all at once" (Camus 86, 43). Again, no one knew her motive, but they knew one existed. People gave reasons for everything they did. Their self-assigned purpose gave the "robot woman" and everyone else justification for their repetitious actions and perhaps a goal they will never reach yet continue to strive for (Camus 88). It is his lack of purpose that makes Meursault stand out from the rest of the world. He continuously went with the flow under the excuse that he did not "have any reason" to do something (Camus 28). Or conversely, he had no reason to not do something: like talking to the "pimp" Raymond (Camus 36). Meursault "had no ambition" in life once he realized "none of it really mattered" (Camus 41). Everyone constantly asked "Why?" as if there had to be a reason even if one did not exist (Camus 68). They would push, and stress, and panic over trying to scramble for an answer to something that was not even a question. Yet Meursault understood.
While Meursault was at peace with the idea that nothing truly mattered, it was a frightening thought for most people. "The gentle indifference of the world" was not something that brought comfort to the masses (Camus 122). For if there was no God, no end goal in sight, no meaning to anything, then why had they lived at all? Why had they put all of this effort into life, work, and school, if they would simply die and then nothing? So, they closed themselves off to the thought. They continued in their comfortable ignorance, pushing away and punishing anyone who would dare suggest otherwise. During the preparation for his trial, Meursault made the magistrate "feel uncomfortable" due to his lack of care and belief in God (Camus 66). "He didn't understand" Meursault; he simply could not comprehend how someone could live their life without belief (Camus 66). When one does not understand, they typically become afraid. Meursault's lack of belief brings into question the magistrate's, the chaplain's, everyone's own belief. Who are they to know whose belief is true? They had to follow their beliefs wholeheartedly, for if they "were ever to doubt it, [their] life would become meaningless" (Camus 69).
Meursault found his own comfort in a meaningless existence. He was "happy again" in the absurdity of the world and the universe (Camus 123). Through the first person perspective of The Stranger, it is clear to see Meursault's change: he knew that there was not any meaning in life, but it is not until the end that he really understands the implications of it. He finally understood that because nothing mattered, he could live his life any way he wanted. And he realized that Maman knew it too; it was why she had "taken a 'fiance'" in Peréz, she had "felt free" (Camus 122). Meursault became free when he accepted and embraced the existential and absurd world: he went from having a "stupid urge to cry" when he felt how much the "people hated [him]" to wishing to be met with "cries of hate" at his execution (Camus 90, 123). He had freed himself from worldly problems because when one knows that nothing matters, anything is possible. Meursault knew he could do as he wished, for the moment was now. Unlike the rest who were all "living like dead [men]" in hopes of pleasing a silent God and gaining a life after death that did not exist (Camus 120).
Meursault's walk to his execution and Sisyphus' walk back down the hill are neither moments of defeat nor sorrow, but instead moments of happiness. In The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, Camus "imagine[d] Sisyphus happy" once he realized the same truth Meursault had (Camus 123). In that collection of essays, Camus said that absurdism—and to an extent existentialism—and happiness are "sons of the same earth" (Camus 122). People cannot truly have one without the other and that is seen through Meursault in The Stranger.
Anyways I literally fucking hate MLA and the way MLA does intext citations but I also hate how much my teacher made us quote the book. Like I could live without having to include 20 billion quotes in a single five sentence paragraph JAMES.
Literally fuck The Stranger, I hated that book so damn much. It was so fucking dumb and we spent literal months on it. It made me wanna fucking kill myself goddamn. I did like the The Myth of Sisyphus though. Camus ain't half bad for a frenchman.
