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How Is Death Portrayed In The Arab's Death

Decent Essays

In Albert Camus’ The Outsider, death is a structuring principle, as three deaths punctuate and define the beginning, middle, and end of the novel. Likewise, in Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, the Prince’s death both culminates his life and mobilizes the resolution of the novel. However, in both works, different deaths carry different weights, and are represented with varying importance. In The Outsider, while the death of Meursault’s mother death is simply passed over, the Arab’s death is afforded a full criminal trial. Similarly, The Leopard describes Fabrizio’s death much more elaborately than Tancredi’s. However, while both novels depict death unequally, they do so for different reasons. As the characters in The Outsider die in a variety …show more content…

While both novels demonstrate how representations of death invalidate and dehumanize the individual, The Outsider reduces death to its entertainment value while The Leopard reduces it to a mark of social status or rank. Although the three deaths in The Outsider neatly divide the novel into a beginning, middle, and end, they nonetheless possess vastly different weights. First of all, as Meursault’s mother dies of old age, the consequences of her death follow an extremely conventional pattern, beginning with a wake, funeral, and finally a burial. Furthermore, while friends and nurses from the retirement home mourn her, Meursault clearly does not, and reduces her death to a minute and peripheral occurrence. Meursault immediately establishes his indifference towards his mother death, as he begins the novel by stating, “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know” (Camus 9). As Meursault’s voice dictates the novel, his disregard for his mother ultimately dehumanizes her, and diminishes any true importance of her death. The Arab’s death contrasts this indifference, as it results in Meursault’s public trial and conviction. Aside from being publicized, the Arab’s death and the consequences of Meursault’s

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