preview

Comparing The Stranger By Albert Camus And The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock

Satisfactory Essays

In both the book “The Stranger” written by Albert Camus and the poem “The Love Song” of J. Alfred Prufrock. Each character struggles with what is known as character defects but they are different each in their own way. Camus writes about a character named Meursault, he looks at life a bit differently. He believes that life has no purpose and anyone and anything is irrelevant. As for the poem written by Alfred Prufrock, he struggles more with social anxiety. His dilemma is that he cannot decide whether or not to go to a gathering. He begins to feel infested with feelings and begins to judge himself, focusing on his imperfections. The issues both Meursault and Prufrock are going through causes both to be outsiders and to understand the consequences life brings them. In the book “The Stranger” the main character Meursault realizes that human existence has no real rational meaning or order. “That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his life would become meaningless.” (pg. 69) Meursault has no beliefs that is what makes him see the unreasonableness in life. Taking away his belief make the priest less likely to realize that. Along with having no rational meaning or order in his life, Meursault struggles with expressing his emotions. In the beginning of the book Meursault’s mother passes away he shows no real attachment to her, “it occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that really nothing has changed.” (pg. 24) this shows how detached Meursault was from his emotions. When Maman died it didn’t change anything for him. To him it made sense because his life was very practical and it felt like nothing had changed. But to the people around him it was very odd how his emotions were reacting to the death. Another example of his inability to express his emotions are with his significant other Marie, “a minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I think so.” (pg. 35) Meursault is very straightforward and blunt with his answers. What he says are mostly empty words that could be considered meaningless. In the poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” he is quite the opposite of

Get Access