Existentialism is, in my limited experience, very difficult to understand. I wasn’t entirely sure I understood it when we looked at it last semester, but now whilst undeniably not an expert I at least feel confident to discuss it. My seminar paper is going to have a brief overview of the history of existentialism and then an attempt at a more in depth look at Albert Camus’ The Outsider which I believe has given me a much better grasp of existentialism than any textbook could. Existentialism as a movement is far more modern than the majority of philosophy we have studied so far. The great existentialist thinkers were people like Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. Thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche however could be seen as the forerunners to existential thinking, a way of thinking that begins with the human subject, the actual human individual and not just the thinking subject like most other philosophies. The first use of the word existentialism in this context was by French philosopher Gabriel Marcel in the 1940s, it was then picked up by Sartre in a talk on his own existentialist position which was later turned into a book which did much to promote existential thought. It seems to me that the majority of existential thinkers were and perhaps still are French. I’m not necessarily sure what this means, but Sartre, Camus, Simone de Beauvoir amongst others all pioneered existential thought and were all French.
The book The Outsider by Albert Camus was an interesting read, I can’t say it was necessarily an enjoyable one but perhaps that’s the point. It’s purely objective that I didn’t like the book but it was because I didn’t like the main character and that is where I think the book has succeeded. Meursault is a strange character and difficult to like, which was the author’s point I think in making him the outsider. At first look he is an outsider through the things he does, or doesn’t do, for example, not crying at his mother’s funeral. This is an example of pure existentialism in his confusion and disorientation when faced with an apparently pointless and absurd world. It’s even more an example of nihilism, which is the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless. The character goes through the book not really conforming to society in any way because he cannot see the point of anything. Early on in the book when Marie is asking him to marry her and whether he loves her, his response is unusual but always the same, “I didn’t mind and we could do if she wanted to” and “I replied as I had done once already, that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t.” Possibly not the sort of things a girl would want to hear after a marriage proposal. But this is an example of absurdism in existentialism, nothing matters in the world beyond the meaning we give it, and since Meursault doesn’t seem to give anything meaning, nothing matters.
When Meursault is finally tried for his crime the prosecution in its final summing up accuses him of not having a soul, saying that he: “had no access to humanity nor to any of the moral principles which protect the human heart.” This is of course another example of nihilism and more specifically moral nihilism in the novel; one of the principles of this particular branch of nihilism being an assertion that morality does not exist inherently and that any moral values that are established are mere abstract contrivances. You could also argue that nihilism is the cause of the crime Meursault commits. As an existential nihilist he would most likely argue that life is without meaning or intrinsic value. It is this final point that makes the most impact, if Meursault believes life has no intrinsic value it would give him a motive for killing the Arab on the beach. The prosecution continues to argue in the novel that it was premeditated in order to help a man of ‘doubtful morality’, Raymond, but the novel establishes that Meursault does not think like that at all. The thing that I struggled with most is why Meursault would kill the man; he has absolutely nothing to gain from it, he doesn’t want to help Raymond, the man isn’t after him, he has a reasonable life and a future with Marie but when life is without purpose or meaning, losing it doesn’t bother him in the same way losing his mother didn’t. Losing his mother and not displaying any emotion for it is used as one of the most important pieces of evidence in his prosecution. The prosecution lawyer bases almost all of his case on it, referring back to it throughout and even the witnesses called in his defence can do nothing, finding it hard to explain that a man who simply does not care for anything, even Marie, didn’t kill the man in cold blood.
It is strange that once Meursault is found guilty of the murder and is judged on further extenuating circumstances, (his mother, the business with Raymond and his mistress), he finds himself in prison briefly wishing for a way to escape. It is strange that Camus has decided to give Meursault that brief slip into ‘normality’ whatever that is. It is not long however before Meursault is back in ‘the mechanism’ and waiting patiently and without emotion for his inevitable end. At the start of the book I didn’t really care for Meursault. He was a strange character, ‘The Stranger’ in fact, or ‘The Outsider’ but even though he is guilty, towards the end of the book I began to feel truly sorry for him and realised that the only reason he was really an outsider was because he never lied. We all lie on an almost daily basis just to make life simpler but Meursault doesn’t want to make life simpler, he says exactly what he is refusing to hide any of his feelings and society is threatened by this. When he is asked to say that he regrets his crime and all that he has done he replies simply that he feels more annoyance than true regret; it is this fine distinction which eventually condemns him. I think the reason I don’t particularly identify with him is because often I feel I can see the point of things, whether I can is neither here nor there. It could simply be just my own way of coping with reality whereas Meursault copes with it by seeing that there is no point and so here at least I can understand him, even though there is still no point.
Meursault talks long and hard about how dying now would not matter to him, he admits that it will be sooner than everybody else but when ‘everybody knows that life isn’t worth living’ what is the issue. Living another twenty years would still end in the same way with his death. But Meursault cannot hide that another twenty years gives him a jolt in his heart that can only be stifled when he thinks of what he’d be thinking in those twenty years when he’d have the same situation to face anyway. “Given that you’ve got to die, it obviously doesn’t matter exactly how or when.” It is almost noble the way Meursault approaches his death, that is, until the chaplain comes in and spends his time talking of God to a man who clearly has no need or want of that particular brand of comfort. He flies into a rage at the chaplain, the first time Meursault has shown emotion and it’s quite interesting that when Camus finally gives his main character an emotion it is anger he shows, or maybe it’s still annoyance; annoyance as he tries to explain that we are all condemned, not just Meursault in his prison cell. Even at the very end though, Meursault claims he is still happy and the novel ends quite powerfully as Meursault explains his last wish, “that there should be a crowd of spectators at my execution and that they should greet me with cries of hatred.” Camus sums it up best himself by saying The Outsider is the story of a man prepared to die for the truth, a truth that is negative but born of living and feeling and without which no triumph over the self or over the world will be possible.
Well that's that.
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
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