The Stranger Dialectical Journal Essay

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.

Dickens uses Carton to symbolize resurrection in numerous parts of the book. "I am the resurrection," Carton calls himself. Dickens uses this specific character to symbolize that because of how Carton got Charles Darnay out of prison, and saved him from death therefore he symbolically resurrected him, by saving his life.

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.

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.

My personal interpretation of this selection is that no matter how good, rich, powerful, or beautiful you may be, there is always someone who is better than you. You can try and try for many years, (where as many and most people try for their entire life) to be the best, but sadly you will never be the best no matter how good you end up being in the long run.

Paragraph 1 tone : He seems nervous about this trip He says ,“We’ve all been up since midnight, starting our predive checks after a couple of restless hours of sleep, and the whole team is running on adrenaline. These are the roughest conditions I’ve dived in so far on the expedition” The way he says that they’ve been up the whole night doing checks without sleep and how this is one of the roughest conditions he has dived in so far just gives the sense of nervousness if he will make the challenge.

Chapter 5: Paul explains about how unsanitary the camps are, explaining that he and his friends had gotten louses (lice) in their head, and they try to attempt to get it off. Haie tries to cheer up the rest of the soldiers by telling them that he might have got the lice from the hospital, but he is the one who laugh the most, for 30 minutes straight. After trying to get the lice off themselves, they hear that Himmelstoss got in trouble for harassing the soldiers, and the magistrate’s son caught him in the action. Hearing the news that Himmelstoss got in trouble for his wrongdoings, Paul and the rest of the group start planning out what they should do or say to Himmelstoss when he comes back to the camp. When talking about what they should do

There are multiple details that stood out as particularly true to life in my view. One was the nariartator that it is telling the story/ his view point main character mentions what check out aisle number. It mentions how the three girls looked. The character payed attention to how the girl that seem to be the leader was walking saying “she came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn’t walk in her bare feet much” this quote helps you picture how the person and might help picture what the girl was walking like. He gave details to where he was and what he was doing when the three girls was doing. He mentions that “I’m in the third check-out slot with my back to the door so that I didn’t see them until they had reach the bread” this helps the reader to set up an mental image of the store as they are reading.

Bird with the broken wing. - the bird was flying in circles, representing Edna’s thoughts in her ind swirling and her dwelling on trying to escape but not being able to.

Pg 379- “In Sugamo prison, as he was told of Wantanbe’s fate, all Louie saw was a lost person, a life now beyond redemption. HE felt something that he had never felt for his captor before. With a shiver of amazement, he realized that it was compassion.”

1) “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment” (O’Brien 20).

1. I would put myself in the place of the man on the horse he looks like he could be the leader, so the leader.

In The Stranger, Camus portrays women as unnecessary beings created purely to serve materialistically and satisfy males through the lack of a deep, meaningful, relationship between Meursault and females. Throughout the text, the main character, Meursault, creates closer, more meaningful relationships with other minor characters in the story. However, in his interactions with females in this book, Meursault’s thoughts and actions center on himself and his physical desires, observations, and feelings, rather than devoting his attention to the actual female. Living in Algiers in the 1960s, Meursault originates from a post-modernist time of the decline in emotion. Meursault simply defies the social expectations and societal ‘rules’, as

Albert Camus creates a series of characters in The Stranger whose personality traits and motivations mirror those that are overlooked upon by the average man. Camus develops various characters and scenarios that show true humanity which tends to have been ignored due to the fact of how typical it has become. Camus incorporates abominable personality traits of the characters, variety, consistency, and everyone’s fate.

The novel starts out with Meursault getting a telegram saying that his mother had died. He takes time off work to go to her funeral and completely fail to show the emotion that the reader expects to see of a son towards his recently passed mother. First and foremost, when he arrives, the coffin is