The Stranger

I suppose that's why he emphasized on correcting anyone who called him an extistentialist or put him with Sartre in the same sentence for fear of being thought of as an nihilistic person ?

so the book is essentially a warning against nihilism?
i would see it in a more absurdist light but ok

Thanks a lot. You literally spoiled the book in your first fucking sentence. Spoilers, learn them. Bitch.

>reading literature for the plot
Also it's also spoiled on the back blurb retard

>reading for the plot

kill yourself, my friend

Also he gets the death sentence, but we don't know if he is pardoned, as the scene ends with him looking out of a cell window. Bitch.

>Not having read the stranger
i'm sorry but this board probably isn't for you

It's my first time here. I am usually on /v/, but looking for some other media since vidya have devolved into feminist and SJW pandering.

Have you never wanted to lash out at something because of extreme discomfort? What if every time it happened, you'd have a loaded gun in your hand? The act of killing is a purposefully banal plot device for .

All Stranger threads that revolve around inane questions should be banned. Go to Sparknotes or something you fucking idiot.

user, I don't think this is going to work out. Consider either fucking off to your literal dump of a board or joining the other retards enjoying shit-tier art at /mu/.

>Because he wanted to

Can you provide textual evidence of this? I don't recall him ever actively choosing to kill the Arab.
I remember the heat vividly, but no true motive. I always felt he pulled the trigger due to external threats that are unavoidable as a human, such as the weather. No matter how detached from the human condition he is, there is no avoiding universal forces.

READ
Think long and hard about it.

>Then come back.

the sun was annoying him and he had to take out his frustration in a way that wasn't smoking cigarettes

If it were an accident, don't you think Marsielle would say so? When asked why he did it, he hesitates and never finds a good answer. That's the only time in the novel that happens.

You don't need a reason to. You need a reason not to.

I thought the whole book was sort of a trail for the main character's faith. With him going to court and having his past careless actions from the book be brought in front of him. The constantly say he is a devil for not having any faith or compassion. Is this a critique on existentialism and how bland it is to go through life dead inside with no real purpose.

he hated arabs

I don't think Meursault ever told a single lie in the story. Take his word for it. Camus didn't realize it but he made an autist.

he lies in order to appease the pimp at one point when he asks if they're friends

That's great. I recommend you start with Woolf and de Beauvoir. Some more contemporary writers you should read are Crenshaw, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Gloria Jean Watkins. You have no idea how lucky you are. This could be the first day of the rest of your life!

Ignore this, this isn't relevant to you right now.

It was because Camus was a racist and Meursalt was his self insert. Truly a disgusting book

this guy gets it.

Meursault's actions are essentially arbitrary in that they are given different meanings by different entities (Meursault himself vs. society).

Camus was deliberately vague when describing that scene because there isn't supposed to be a clear motive. the point is that his past actions are assigned meaning and provide implication when in reality he acted because it was simply what he felt like doing. it's a clash between society's morals and Meursault's own, and reflects the disharmony that can arise from living out your own moral system, as well as the objective arbitrariness of one's actions.

the sun was hot af man, you would have shot an arab too

he did it for no reason at all

No, he did it for [null] reason. There's a difference.

You're right there is a difference because he did it for no reason like I said and that is the baffling core of The Stranger and everyone, even Mersault, attempts to evade it by creating nullified reasons. Maybe I misunderstand you though I am interested in what you meant.

>Why did he shoot the arab Veeky Forums? Was it really because the sun was in his eyes? Was it self-defense?

To understand that, we have to understand the nature of Meursalt. From the beginning of the book to the end towards his trial, Meursalt only shows ferocity in emotion once he realizes the futility of his existence due to being sentenced to death.

All through out our story, Mersault is gracefully embraced by indifference and emotional disconnection. He is essentially living by the whims of the universe, acting mostly on desire (most notably noted when Marie visits him in jail and all he really cared about was not busting in her pussy being in there). He's viewed with contempt and disgust by certain people (the police detective/opposing lawyer/priest the end) because of his apathetic nature.

He's only engaged in society because of some personal/social responsibility and desire, he is devoid of any passion other than a continuing existence. There is nothing wrong with Mersault being so unaffected by emotions (mother dying and not crying, Marie upset he's in jail and wanting to get married), but being put under the public eye he's viewed as a monster to the average person.

He shot the Arab more out of an impulse of annoyance because of the hot sun being his face rather than an act of passion or self-defense. It was a passionless murder born out of circumstance and the nature Mersault never had the self-awareness to realize. He becomes Camus' absurdist hero towards the end once he embraces the realization that it never mattered at all if made any choice or effort because the outcome of death was inevitable existing through the universes whim.

Not only is there no meaning, the word meaning isn't even applcable to the event. You can't say if there is a reason or isn't, If you had two boxes, with one having "reason" and the other having "no reason" pertaining to Mersault's actions, both boxes would be empty. Or maybe you could say that the boxes don't exist. Whatever makes you visualize the concept better.

The categories do exist I would think that all boxes would be checked in Mersault's case, he did it for every possible reason and still, none of them satisfy "meaning", since every reason for every action is quickly voided by the ceaseless transitioning of the mind and the world in time. Maybe time is the ineffable quality which makes existentialism so poignant.

What do you mean by >he did it for every possible reason?

I mean that reasons are like filler and actions are like a shell, the shell can contain any kind of filler or all kinds but it is the same action; we have the kernel of our existence which is assigned content piecemeally in time, and the best we can manage in terms of meaning is granting privilege to consistency which, given enough time and viewed objectively breaks down as well; Mersault was aware of this when his mother died like he knew that the content prescribed for that event was one thing, what he experienced was another and then later he kills a man and he can't assign any meaning to it at all in good faith. At the end though he does, kind of falling into philosophical suicide so to speak, for lack of any other choices since he is condemned to no longer be; the whole book suggests that being is the only thing, just to be and to cease being is the only thing to avoid at all costs but Mersault only realizes this too late.

kek

Maybe there should be spoilers but honestly I've had worse spoiled for me.

The book is like 100 pages long. Just read it

Camus was a Pied-Noir. The story is an allegory of post-colonial self-inflicted "defeat" of the French in Algeria. Camus felt bad about losing his homeland, but couldn't go outright and say it.

existentialism is not nihilism.

Yeah, I always read it as a kinda thought experiment of what it would be like if one could live as a total nihilist, definitely not as an endorsement.

Ill tell u why Mysalt is autistic and his emotions come out in a huge burst when he is exposed to intense light. This is why when the arab shines the knife he is over come by emotion. He is autistic and retarded just like camous.

The thing though is that he didn't choose to be a nihilist. At the end of the novel he realizes he was only doing everything out of habit and then receives the awareness of the absurd

It's not even a big spoiler, it happens like a 1/3 of the way into the book. He gets the death sentence at the end, though.

Fuck off with this fake list

He shot him in delirium from the heat and the intense sun.

It's not why he killed the Arab, but why he gets sentenced that matters.

It's like you people stopped at the middle of the book.

That trial was retarded. Why did they conclude that he killed an innocent man when the Arabs followed them to the beach with lethal weapons .

>man decides to read his first book ever
>cracks open Ulysses because it's rated #1 on Veeky Forums

Wow, great idea user, this won't discourage him at all

It was character evidence.

I moved to Alabama from the northeast when I was 18. It's still sort of like colonial Algeria in a way. The subject of atheism came up in a college classroom and pretty much everyone was horrified at the idea. "What about those people who don't believe in God?" "yeah, what's up with they-um?", etc. etc.

Alabama is sort of a 'heartland' for traditional values, and there are still blatantly corrupt, stupid things like sheriffs that are brothers with judges and etc. I make the comparison to Algeria because it's often thought that colonists end up exaggerating their home country's characteristics. It was commonly thought that Rhodesians were "more British than the British" and the same for France when describing Indochinese and North African colonists.

Thus, we might assume that Algerian Pied-Noirs might be more Catholic, more tightly knit as families, more appreciative of the snail as a dish, etcetera than their European mainland counterparts. So when Meursault is discovered to be a godless sleazebag who refused to attend his mother's funeral and refused the holy sacraments, he's doomed. It's not that they particularly care for justice or the Arab's life, it has more to do with Meursault being an outlier, a.... stranger!

Obnoxious

it takes about 2 hours to read lad

Why did he shoot the man 4 times after he was already dead and lying in the sand?

Because of the heat, of course.

sun's out guns out

I have not read this. What is the best edition to get? Is pic related good?

Or this one? This one is available at a local bookstore btw.

The arab bothered him.

This.

He did nothing wrong and was a victim of society at large.

I do have one question though:

Why did he have a breakdown at his impending death? Is it because he greatly valued the simple life he lived, or was it because the priest genuinely challenged his beliefs? I ask because it's been awhile since I read it.

The arrogance of certainty in his death that was decided by the people, and the arrogance of the chaplain in attempting to convince Mersault to believe in God during his final hours gets under the calmness of him.

The priest believes in divine justice over human, and pities Mersault for his nihilistic acceptance of a void rather than heaven in death. It's more reversed in the chaplain has his entire structure of belief challenged in the face of not being able to convert Mersault to a belief in God and the afterlife.

>Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't see that? Everyone was privileged. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned too.

In Mersaults final hours he finally accepts the absurdity of existence.

>I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.

He finally finds solace in the indifference of the world that was essentially his nature, returning once again.

kys

Woolf's great though

What's the difference?

I get that 0 =/= {}, but how does the distinction bear out in this context?

Shootings arabs is fun, you should try it.

-shoots him in the balls- i said BACK THE FUCK OFF!?