IDEAS AND LITERATURE

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Camus' search for freedom with meaning

By Kelsey Seo

The man himself

I believe that Albert Camus is the key to earning our liberation in today's society. Camus was acutely aware that we’re always in a state of degeneration at the same time that the world, the natural world, moves forward and grows in abundant ways. This gives our existence a whiplash quality: we’re always moving one way and the world is always moving in another. We’re creeping towards death, as the world keeps on bringing forth new life. It’s as if existence itself is suffering from its own meaninglessness. Camus understood this and in his strange, first novel, The Stranger (1942), gives us three deaths to contemplate and each of those deaths are represents a key to understanding how Camus wants us to live.

The beauty of Algeria

Camus was born and educated in Algeria, but his intellectual journey took him to France, where he immersed himself in the rich intellectual climate of Paris. He started out as a journalist, but he was soon writing novels and philosophy and hobnobbing with the intellectual elite of Paris, especially his good friends but soon to become enemies, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir. His novel L'Étranger (The Stranger) was celebrated as one of the key works of the occupation and post-war France. It made him famous not only in Paris, but throughout the world. Delving into themes of alienation, absurdity, and existential isolation, these themes would become the basis of his literary legacy.

A very French way to go

On January 4, 1960, at the age of 46, Camus died in a car crash while smoking a cigarette. It was a very French way to go. Throughout his life, he confronted various forms of death, deeply influenced by the historical events surrounding him, such as the aftermath of World War I and the atrocities of World War II. These experiences left an indelible mark on his life and philosophical beliefs.

Although Camus is long dead, his ideas persist, seamlessly bridging the gap between abstract philosophical principles and practical everyday advice. In a way, he’s always waiting for us, ready to help lead us from confusion into clarity. The Stranger presents us with three deaths and demands that we think of the importance of each one, culturally, politically, and philosophically. Ultimately, the novel is a lens through which, if alert, we might discover something of our lives and eventual death.

A normal funeral procession

The opening line of Camus's novel immediately challenges conventional perspectives on death. "Maman died today. Or yesterday, maybe, I don't know." Camus disrupts the emotional response one is expected to have when your mother dies. Meursault, his narrator, breaks convention without really trying to break with convention. He does not do this in anger, but from pure boredom. So, right from the start, we’re confronting fundamental ways in how to behave and how we respond to death.

Meursault's lack of conventional expressions of sorrow is represented by his concern about attending his mother's funeral, solely due to the inconvenience it poses to his work schedule! This pragmatic approach to death contrasts sharply with societal expectations of grief and mourning. Camus highlights the societal to-do list around death, pointing out the consequences of stepping outside these established norms, which often results in seeming callous or losing the trust of people.

Camus's message is not a call to eliminate conventional acts of mourning from our lives or disregard the importance of losing a loved one. Instead, he advocates for abandoning set expectations, whether directed towards others or ourselves. Regardless of cultural or religious background, Camus prompts readers to question the unquestioned ideology around death. Tears or no tears, the essence of his message lies in recognizing that the moment a loved one is gone, there is no afterlife or resurrection. There is only the finality of the end.

Bullets: one for the sun and four for...?

The second death is the big one, the Arab boy. The sequence of events leading to this tragic moment on a beach at mid-day, when sun is at its highest and most brutal, involves chance. In other words, it didn’t have to happen this way, the stars (or the sun) just happened to be aligned in that way. The presence of our hero armed with a gun, and the discomfort caused by the bright sun plays games with Mersault’s mind. He shoots the boy once in confusion, and then four more times for reasons unknown. For Camus, it isn’t so much the death that’s important (a rather strange position for such a humanist), but the story that follows it. As we see the investigation (or at times non-investigation) of the Arab boy's death, how we interpret it prompts us to reflect on the purpose and meaning of life's inevitable end.

The death of the Arab boy is explored as an incident devoid of a discernible cause. It is emphasized that his identity – Arab, boy, or his location at the beach – is inconsequential to the cause of death. The analogy with rain falling from the sky underscores the absence of inherent purpose or reason in the Arab boy's demise. The narrative challenges the reader to confront the idea that, much like natural phenomena, death may lack an inherent purpose, even when it seems so full of purpose and meaning: a man and a boy, a European and an Arab, armed and unarmed, a colonial subject and a colonized one.

Even this poster knows that the sun is the cause, but not the reason

The incident with the Arab boy serves as a vehicle for Camus to illustrate the unpredictability of death. Drawing parallels with the natural order of the sun rising and setting, the narrative underscores the inherent, unexpected nature of death in every individual's life. Camus emphasizes the absence of intentional thoughts behind Meursault's actions, mirroring the lack of inherent purpose or faith in the natural cycle of life and death. By acknowledging the absence of predetermined plans for our lives, Camus proposes that life happens without a grand design. The novel encourages us to reflect about established norms and responses to death, particularly in the context of the Arab boy's tragic end. It’s a tough, awful death, but not necessarily a meaningful one.

Unlike many colonial Algerians, Meursault is actually tried and sentenced to death for killing the Arab boy. Like with his mother’s death, Meursault’s response to his death sentence defies expectations. That he finds solace and joy, rejects fear and hopelessness, and ultimately embraces the impending end with a sense of freedom is amazing and crazy. Camus places Meursault's acceptance of his fate in contrast to a Priest who tries to convince him to accept Christ in his life and some form of redemption for his crime. Despite the priest's anguish over Meursault's lack of belief, he finds comfort, even beauty, by embracing whatever joy is right before him.

Mersault in jail in Visconti's film

Meursault's death becomes a lens through which Camus challenges the way we create meaning out of fear, rather than just accepting that there is only the void. Despite the devastation in acknowledging our mortality, there lies a profound beauty in life. There is a beauty that emerges from the absence of predetermined faith or plans. Instead of false consciousness, Camus suggests that we have the power and time to shape our days, creating our own unique paths from birth to death.

Camus demands a radical shift in perspective, challenging the perception that we are indispensable to the world. Drawing parallels with dust particles in the air, the writing underscores our transient existence and the cyclical nature of life and death. It encourages readers to move beyond the illusion of importance and appreciate life from a broader, more detached viewpoint. We don’t need to understand the concept of existence, but to accept the fleeting nature of it: for Camus, that’s beauty.

Nothing has a purpose. Nothing matters, and that is the beauty of life. And if we learn to accept this beautiful lesson, maybe, one day, we'll be able to live a life of value that accept everything from our heroism to our villainy, just like Meursault.

©Kelsey Seo and the CCA Arts Review