Examples Of Conformism In The Stranger

Meursault's character is the determining factor in his conviction and sentencing. His social rebellion is deemed immoral and abominable. The reader and the novel's characters both try to rationalize Meursault's actions in order to give his life meaning. But according to Meursault, life is meaningless and consequently needs no justification.

He has no initial reaction to the news of her death, and at her funeral service he did not bother to even see her before she was buried. His lack of emotion is evident in the very first lines of the book, “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.” This shows that Meursault is hardly caring for his mother. Society’s standards would result in him to be in absolute mourning and wanting to go as fast as possible to her body. This is not the only example of Meursault’s lack of emotion and care for factors in his life. He does not care for love and marriage after having intercourse with someone; the society standard at this time was to get married if two partners had intercourse. He does not care for promotion and career advancement when his boss offers him a better job opportunity; the standard at that time and right now is to pursue the best career possible. In these scenarios Meursault is living free from the chains, and does whatever he thinks is right to do. Eventually, society rejects him and his ways, and he gets in trouble with the law. He is judged by society and his ways are ridiculed, making Meursault appear to be a monster.

In “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, the juxtaposition between Chaplain’s morals and the Meursault's are symbolic of the acceptance and rejection of social constructs like religion, showing how adhering to one’s own values are ultimately more rewarding. Throughout the novel, Meursault is defined his actions driven from prioritizing his physical needs first. This mentality lands Meursault in jail for killing an Arab because he was distracted by the sun. As he is about to approach his death sentence, the Chaplain attempts to get him to convert to religion and become a believer in his final moments, as “he was expressing his certainty that my appeal would be granted, but I was carrying the burden of sin from which I had to free myself. According

Not also that but Meursault is also constantly stubborn with others opinions and beliefs. It's not just the life of the main character, but it also views our lives as well. It can be cruel, unusual and rebellious if it’s not to society's laws and the absurdity of the human behavior has us doing these type of actions. The world and the point of being alive may not be entirely meaningless but conventional. Throughout the whole book, he is brutally honest about everything and his interpretation of virtues falls right into Camus’s category of his absurd ideology. Even though the author was an Existentialist, hes has more of an Absurdist thought put into his novel. Both of these beliefs are different yet the same because both relate to the point of being yourself. However, one rejects humanity and the other goes along with individual experiences and actions that are basically making your own

Don’t be a conformist. Don’t be common. Be an individual. Conformity, although prevalent in society past and present, is never the answer. As individuals, we were made to be unique. Our insight alone is greater than the elementary principles of the crowd. However, if we conform to societal beliefs, as many of the racists did in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Harper Lee), then what are we? Uneducated, crowd-pleasing citizens who won’t form our own values. The inability to form our own values causes everyone to cast the same vote. No one expresses different opinions, every white man downgrades African Americans, every male is “superior” to every female, and every child is of lesser value to adults. So, by being an individual, although one may be yelled

1. How does Camus set up Meursault's personality -- how does Meursault respond to others' conversation, to ordinary social situations, and to the death of his mother?

The solitude of man with the innate endeavoring nature to incessantly find passion, be fruitful, and embrace the tangibles causes us to lose focus of the scornful end. The condemnation we find ourselves in subsequent to the impotent attempts to satiate our inexplicable questions, is the puncture to our ideal notion . The disenchantment the truth of our obscure being offered is masqueraded with the absurdity through which we seamlessly wander through this life. The irrefutable desire to numb the conscious is the bittersweet burden which we carry to suppress the abyss of disparity which we are floating amidst. Monsieur Meursault in Albert Camus’ The Stranger is the blaring anomaly. Fortifying himself through his indifferent nature and blunt honesty, Meursault is ostracized. Deemed with a psychosis he finds comfort in the unruly inescapable solace of life, death, which morphs into his gradual declination. The sun tracing his unusual circumstances, catalyzing his imminent reactions provides itself as the only paradigm to symbolize Meursault. The intricacies which unfold are reiterated by the Sun which juxtapose the indigenous contingency to find meaning. Meursault’s paradoxical compel and abhorrence to the sun highlights the idea that the what we choose to learn may not be abiding in beauty. Our choice in this duality sets forth the invitation to introspection offering its only absolute form through our own willingness. Meursault understanding himself is bonded to the sun

By the end of the novel and during his trial, Meursault admits to himself he truly had no reason to kill the man on the beach. Perhaps it’s the over emotional society that causes him not to care or perhaps he truly, sincerely believes that it doesn’t matter. Either way, there is no doubt that the sensitivity of the culture around Meursault has molded him into the statue he depicts. To him, it was decision that had just so happened to end with the loss of a life. A heinous crime committed without reasoning, resulting in a debut in which he must pay for with his life, a price he doesn’t mind paying. Despite the unmissable fact that he had killed a man pushing him even further the boundaries of the cultural norms, it opened yet another door of indifference for Meursault: religion. In the process leading up to his execution, he is asked by the Chaplain if he believes in God. To which he replies with the same ambiguous statement, “It doesn’t matter” Baffled and confused, the Chaplain refuses to believe this answer, however Meursault withstands his position, no need for an explanation, it all just doesn’t matter to him. Nonetheless, the reasoning behind Meursault's strong disdain can be found within the culture around him. It is filled with people who rely wholeheartedly on the expression of emotions

The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan is an animated film adaptation, which explores our universal want to conform and our societal tendencies to exclude any differences. The picture film narrates the story of the lost thing, which is disorientated in a world of conformity and a world with no care to notice such diversity. The boy, a tireless collector of bottle tops, discovers the lost thing and befriends it, taking the responsibility to find its place of belonging in the dystopian city. Shaun Tan portrays the creature’s tendency to stand out in the compliant society which allows the audience to compare between conformity and individuality.

In Part 1 of the novel, Meursault does not fully grasp the significance of life because of his absurdist way of life. Camus presents Meursault as a person who does not live life, but reacts to what life presents him. Meursault is incapable of understanding the metaphysics of the world due to his lack of emotions. The greatest understanding of Meursault is through his own mind; instead of being subjective, he is objective. “Behind them, an enormous mother, in a brown silk dress, and the father, a rather frail little man I know by sight” (22). His thoughts include “note-taking” details about his environment with an

The sweat blinding Meursault enables him from thinking clearly and reflects how powerful the sun is to throw him off of his usual train of thought. All Meursault can think about is the sunlight affecting his body and mood. All he can feel is “cymbals of sunlight crashing on [his] forehead” (59). Camus specifically describes where the particles of sun encounter his main character and how severely it bothers him. Still on the beach, his attention is on the “warm thick film” in his eyes (59). The sun throws off Meursaults’ focus on more than one occasion.

In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Meursault is seen as a very unique character, but not in a good way. Throughout the novel, he continually fails to show normal human emotions to things like his mother’s death, Marie’s love, and the man he killed. Most people in his town, along with the reader at first, are not able to reason out his actions but as the final events of the novel unfold, the reader begins to see Meursault in a different light.

Meursault was introduced as a young man whom recently found out his mother, Maman, died. He was not the most emotional person, but he dealt with his feelings the best he knew how. Meursault lived his life on the verge of truth and honesty. He was honest within every aspect of life, from women to freedom. He was never certain about anything in life ,but one thing he was sure of, death was inevitable. After murdering an Arab, he was on trial in front of many people being interrogated with many questions about why he did what he did, but also to evaluate his psyche about the situation. Unlike others, Meursault did not hide from the truth and that is what others could not cope with. Living his life the way others were afraid to, Meursault was the outcast in his society.

When he returns home to Algiers, Meursault carries on with life as normal. Over dinner one evening, his neighbor Raymond tells of his desire to punish his mistress for infidelity, and asks Meursault to write a letter to the mistress for him. Meursault agrees, saying "I tried my best to please Raymond because I didn’t have any reason not to please him" (32). While Raymond is a man of questionable morals, he acts with purpose. Meursault, on the other hand, acts with mostly passive indifference, doing things simply because he doesn’t have a reason not to do them.

Camus describes in detail the street scenes yet never does Meursault become involved in them. Meursault is distant from the messiness of plans, ambitions, desires, hatreds, even love. Marie's protestations of love only puzzle him. When she asks him if he wishes to marry her he agrees only because he sees no real reason to refuse. He helps in Raymond's nefarious schemes for equally bland reasons, and also because Raymond plies him with food, drink, and cigarettes. He is even distant from his own trial. It interests him because he has never seen a trial before.