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Admixture of Absurdist Philosophy and Symbolism in Albert Camus's the Stranger

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Admixture of Absurdist Philosophy and Symbolism in Albert Camus's the Stranger Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL) A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.7.Issue 2. 2019 Impact Factor 6.8992 (ICI) http://www.rjelal.com; (Apr-June) Email:[email protected] ISSN:2395-2636 (P); 2321-3108(O) RESEARCH ARTICLE ADMIXTURE OF ABSURDIST PHILOSOPHY AND SYMBOLISM IN ALBERT CAMUS'S THE STRANGER Dr. M. RAMESHWOR SINGH Assistant Professor Department of English, D.M. College of Arts, D.M.University, Imphal, Manipur Doi: doi.org/10.33329/rjelal.7219.449 ABSTRACT A great majority of essays and articles devoted to Camus have concentrated on the philosophical value or the political relevance of his ideas. In his novels also Camus gives expression to his philosophy of the absurd and existentialism. However, the imaginative aspect of Camus’s literary talent may be traced in the process by which the two images ‘sun’ and ‘sea’ recur in the author’s work that achieves symbolic force and significance. The range of Camus’s imagery is narrow and derives almost entirely from the central experience of his life, his encounter with nature along the Dr. M. RAMESHWOR SINGH North African littoral. This experience is described directly and personally in his formal essays. The use of imagery in Camus’s writing is symptomatic of the way in which he exploits his verbal resources in order to convey how powerful the impact of natural phenomena has in human life. Camus also experiences a sort of vertiginous identification with nature. He describes how he feels himself to be assimilated into nature, annihilated by the elements whose vibrating life is everywhere present. The present study attempts to highlight the philosophical and imaginative aspects of Camus’s writing. Key words: Philosophy of absurd, existentialism, imagery, symbolism, nature. Absurd is a notion which covers the the theatre of the absurd give ample expression, philosophical, the social and the psychological often leaving the observe baffled in the face of realms. It indicates a way of understanding and disjointed, meaningless, or repetitious dialogues, experiencing the world. It is a term used to incomprehensible behaviours, and plots which deny characterize the work of a number of European and all notion of logical or realistic development. American dramatists of the 1950s and 1960s. As the However, the recognition of the absurd nature of term suggests, the function of such theatre is to give human existence also provided dramatists with a dramatic expression to the philosophical notion of rich source of comedy. The theatre of the absurd the ‘absurd’, a notion that had received widespread drew significantly on popular tradition of diffusion following the publication of Camus’s essay entertainment, of mime, acrobatics, and circus The Myth of Sisyphus in 1942. To define the word closing, and, by seeking to redefine the legitimate ‘absurd’ is to recognize its fundamentally mysterious concerns of serious theatre, played an important and indecipherable nature, and this recognition is role in extending the range of the post-war drama. frequently associated with feelings of loss, Absurdity is a pointless quest for meaning purposelessness and bewilderment. To such feelings in a universe devoid of purpose. The feeling of 449 Dr. M. RAMESHWOR SINGH Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL) A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.7.Issue 2. 2019 Impact Factor 6.8992 (ICI) http://www.rjelal.com; (Apr-June) Email:[email protected] ISSN:2395-2636 (P); 2321-3108(O) absurdity is the separation between man his life like the shadow of death, which reduces saint and an actor walking out on the stage and not sinner, sense and nonsense, to the same level. The recognizing the scenery or knowing the lines of the man who sees the world in this light may respond in play he is supposed to speak, a sense of permanent one of the three ways: (i) he may take refuse in blind displacement and un-belonging. For Camus, The faith, (ii) he may commit suicide, or (iii) he may Myth of Sisyphus explores the landscape of his chose to go on living with lucid awareness and calm thought and the metaphysical implications of the acceptance of his situation. For the man who is absurd. His absurd novel, The Stranger, reveals the capable of it, this awareness is a great liberation landscape of the world of his youth and the social because if there is no God and any moment is as definition of the absurd. It meticulously explored the good as any other and all men die at last, then a implication of the absurd nature of human man may do anything he likes. condition. The question, which is the central theme Using the novel as a replica, Camus of The Stranger, is: ‘How is a man to live in an explores the triviality of a world in which there is no absurd universe?’ It is almost inevitable and the awareness of the absurd, of the senselessness of the most important question of our age. In the past, way people live in which the absurd prevails just religion provided man with a coherent system of because conformity to empty convention prevents meaning, defining man’s purpose in life and helping real feeling and creative thought. Camus presents him to achieve it. As Christianity waned, other Meursault as a central figure, a negative energy, systems, from Descartes to Hegel, sought to who brings out the absurdity of the prevailing demonstrate that the world is intelligible and viewpoints and actions. He is a man whom the rational. For Camus, this assurance had also died. feeling of absurdity has penetrated to the very Man, in his eyes, is destined to find his way without marrow of his bones. Living as he does moment by any guide-post or goal. Consequently, those men, moment, he has few memories and no expectations. who feel that God is dead, and with Him all other He makes no demands on others, and allows others absolutes, whether moral or intellectual, find that to make as few demands as possible on him. His Camus speaks to their condition. Moreover, to say chief virtue is his absolute honesty. Even though his that the world is absurd does not describe the world life is at stake, he will not pretend to have ideals or in itself as much as our reaction to it. Our sense of feelings which he does not have. In the novel, its absurdity springs from our disappointed Camus introduces persons and situations familiar to expectations, from the discrepancy between what him from his life experiences in Algiers and shapes we want from life, notably order and consistency, them into critical vision that gives it the compelling and what we actually get. This sense of distinctiveness that has made it one of the world’s disillusionment, which is as old as ecclesiastic, most popular novels. Meursault is an amalgam of typically finds expression in certain common Camus himself, of his friend Pierre Galindo and of attitudes or judgements about life. To use Camus’s his editor friend and political co-worker, Pascal Pia. own simile, the world appears alien and absurd, as The Algerian setting is his home territory. The pointless as the spectacle of man silently central incident of the murder of the Arab is drawn gesticulating behind the glass pane of a telephone from a story told to him at a cafe, and even the booth. The same absurdity rules in the intellectual courtroom scenes have the authenticity of being sphere. All philosophical systems became drawn by a man who served as a court reporter on questionable and with them all systems of law and the crime beat of a daily newspaper. ethics that profess to give absolute standards of behaviour. Since general rules provide no guide to The Stranger is not an autobiography; specific situations, each moment stands by itself and however, there are similarities between Camus and makes its own laws. The one undeniable and Meursault. Meursault gives an appearance of authentic fact is that the experience of the indifference or detachment, and shows disdain and immediate moment. And finally, all life is lived under contempt for convention. His cool exterior covers a deep loyalty to his own sense of things. Though The 450 Dr. M. RAMESHWOR SINGH Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL) A Peer Reviewed (Refereed) International Journal Vol.7.Issue 2. 2019 Impact Factor 6.8992 (ICI) http://www.rjelal.com; (Apr-June) Email:[email protected] ISSN:2395-2636 (P); 2321-3108(O) Stranger is a work of fiction, it contains a strong protesting that he is condemned less for killing an resonance of Camus’s philosophical notion of Arab than for failing to mourn his mother. absurdity. In his essays, Camus asserts that In his novel, Camus gives expression to his individual lives and human existence in general have philosophy of the absurd. The novel is a first person no rational meaning or order. However, because account of the life of Meursault from the time of his people have difficulty accepting this notion, they mother’s death up to a time evidently just before his constantly attempt to identify or create rational execution for the murder of an Arab. The central structure and meaning in their lives. The term theme is that the significance of human life is ‘absurdity’ describes humanity’s futile attempt to understood only in the light of mortality; and in find rational order where none of such exists. showing Meursault’s consciousness change through Though Camus does not explicitly refer to the notion the course of events, Camus shows how facing the of absurdity in The Stranger, the tenets of absurdity possibility of death does have an effect on one’s operate within the novel.
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