Double Consciousness and the Stranger Essay

is that there are outsiders in today’s society. When one is made into an outsider, the bias

While reading The Stranger I noticed that traits that Albert Camus character depicts in the book are closely related to the theories of Sigmund Freud on moral human behavior. Albert Camus portrays his character of Meursault as a numb, emotionless person that seems to mindlessly play out his role in society, acting in a manner that he sees as the way he’s supposed to act, always living in the moment with his instincts driving him, and if the right circumstance presents itself the primal deep seeded animal will come out. I believe that most of the character’s traits fall under Freud’s notion of the Id and Ego mental apparatus, and don’t believe that his idea of the super-ego is represented in this book.

When the stranger describes the weather the descriptions makes him seem more like an outsider because the Natives do not know the difference between Canadian and European weather making it illogical for the Natives to describe the weather in the way the stranger describes the weather. During the summer months the stranger’s word choices change from harsh words such as “violent” to relaxing words such as “passion” and “lovely” (16-19). The change in word choice indicates that the stranger is feeling more comfortable and accepting of his surroundings. Not only does the stranger’s feelings towards his environment change but LePan’s feelings towards the stranger changes as well. There is no evident emotion in the poem from LePan towards the stranger until LePan refers to the stranger as a “passionate man” who must travel across the fire-ridden land (20). At this point in the poem the stranger is desperate to find a spiritual connection believing he will find “sanctities of childhood” (23) and “a golden-haired Archangel” (28), but in reality all he finds is chaos and destruction. The stranger is so preoccupied with his own ideals of spiritual connection and religion that he is oblivious to the Native’s spirit: the manitou. The stranger sees the manitou as merely a clumsy, dirty, unsteady carving made by the savages (34-36). If the stranger became more accepting and

"Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddeness that I was different from the others; or like [them perhaps] in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it

The Stranger The Stranger exhibits a society that has confined itself with a specific set of social standards that dictate the manner in which people are supposed to act. This ideology determines the level of morality, and how much emphasis should placed on following this certain "ethical" structure. Albert Camus's main character, Meursault, is depicted as a nonconformist that is unwilling to play society's game. Through Meursault's failure to comply with society's values and conform to the norm, he is rejected and also condemned to death by society.

According to the theory, a person may be close to others in proximity yet does not conform completely to the system and maintains their own customs and norms. As a result, a division arises in society between “the stranger” and other of different social groups who view this nonconformity as dangerous, threatening, and suspicious. The stranger may also have different expectations placed upon them than other groups in society. This divide that separates the stranger and society is compared to a veil, like that of Du Bois. Both theories discuss a “sense of otherness” that Individuals may experience in Society (Appelrouth & Edles, 2016, p. 289). The sense of otherness produces a strain in how members may act and view the world around them.

In The Stranger, Albert Camus describes the life of the protagonist, Meursault, through life changing events. The passage chosen illustrates Meursault’s view during his time in prison for killing the Arab. In prison, one can see the shifts in Meursault’s character and the acceptance of this new lifestyle. Camus manipulates diction to indicate the changes in Meursault caused by time thinking of memories in prison and realization of his pointless life. Because Camus published this book at the beginning of World War II, people at this time period also questions life and death similar to how Meursault does.

Fiske, S. T. (2010). Social Beings: Core Motives in Social Psychology 2nd Edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

He is fixed within a certain spatial circle- or within a group whose boundaries are analogous to spatial boundaries- but his position within it is fundamentally affected by the fact that he does not belong in it initially and that he brings qualities into it that are not, and cannot be, indigenous to it” (Low, 2008).

Double Consciousness refers to a concept first explored by WEB Du Bois. This describes the African American man and his identity having to be split or divided. In other words it “describes the individual sensation of feeling as though your identity is divided into several parts, making it difficult or impossible to have one unified identity” (WEB Du Bois). Moreover, Du Bois also expresses that Black Americans have lived in a society that has made them feel inferior, it can become extremely difficult for them to bind their black identify with their American identity. This can in turn, cause blacks to look at their

Double consciousness is a concept proposed by W.E.B Du Bois in his book, “The Souls of Black Folk”. The concept of double consciousness illustrates the feeling that one does not have one identity as it has been split into, if not two then more, therefore making it a challenge for individuals to develop an identity which is true to the individual.

The idea of double consciousness, termed by W.E.B. Du Bois, for African Americans deals with the notion that one’s self has duality in being black and American. It is the attempt to reconcile two cultures that make up the identity of black men and women. One can only see through the eyes of another. A veil exists in this idea, where one has limits in how he or she can see or be seen. This individual is invisible to the onlookers of the veil, and those onlookers may be invisible to the individual. This then alters how one can truly interpret their conscious. This concept is one that has been explored in various themes of literature,

Albert Camus creates a series of characters in The Stranger whose personality traits and motivations mirror those that are overlooked by the average man. Camus develops various characters and scenarios that are considered rude and unpleasant, but because it has become common, society accepts it as norms. Camus incorporates atrocious personality traits of the characters, variety, consistency, and everyone’s fate through the creation of the characters.

Reviewers note that the themes in “The Little Stranger” are alternately reflections of evil and the social upheaval of the class

Not to be confused with a wanderer who is one that could come today and be gone tomorrow. An example of this Stranger theory could be an individual visiting a church of any religious setting they could be in the church body as a believer in the higher power but are not necessarily a member of the church body as having become a member of the church itself, another example could be of a poor individual in the community as this individual is a part of the community but this position that he or she holds in the community as a poor person is generally viewed as an outsider and possesses qualities that do not necessarily fit the standards within the community, and one that does not belong within the community.