THE EXISTENTIAL ANGST IN THE NOVELS OF ALBERT CAMUS: A STUDY

THESIS SUBMITTED TO BHARATHIDASAN UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH

BY Y.MERCY FAMILA Reg. No.17275

RESEARCH SUPERVISOR DR.T.S.RAMESH , M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D

BHARATHIDASAN UNIVERSITY TIRUCHIRAPALLI

NOVEMBER 2011

Dr.T.S.RAMESH, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D Assisiant Professor (SG), Department of English, National College, Tiruchirapalli-620001.

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the thesis entitled, “THE EXISTENTIAL ANGST

IN THE NOVELS OF ALBERT CAMUS: A STUDY” submitted to

Bharatidasan University, Tiruchirapalli, for the award of the Degree of Doctor of

Philosophy in English is a record of the independent research done by the candidate, Y.MERCY FAMILA, in the research Department of English, National

College, Tiruchirapalli-23 under my supervision during the period, 2009- 2011. It has not formed the basis for the award of any previous degree, diploma, associateship, fellowship or other similar titles to the candidate or anybody else.

Tiruchirapalli Dr.T.S.RAMESH

Date:

Y.MERCY FAMILA, Research Scholar, Department of English, National College, Tiruchirappalli.

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the thesis titled, “THE EXISTENTIAL ANGST IN

THE NOVELS OF ALBERT CAMUS: A STUDY” submitted to Bharathidasan

University for the award of the Ph.D. Degree in English is a record of research work done by me under the guidance of Dr.T.S.Ramesh , Assistant Professor

(SG), National College, Department of English, Trichy-620023, and it has not formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, associateship, fellowship or any other similar title by any candidate of any university.

Tiruchirappalli: Signature of the Research Scholar

Date:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ……………………………………………….. i

Abstract……………………………………………………………. iii

Introduction ………………………………………………………….. 1

Chapter II

Existence Precedes Essence - The Stranger …………………………. 37

Chapter III

Essence of Existence - The Plague …………………………………… 75

Chapter IV

Existential Consciousness - The Fall ………………………………… 113

Chapter V

Narrative Technique …………………………………………………. 148

Conclusion…………………………………………………………… 184

Works cited …………………………………………………………. 221

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I express a deep sense of gratitude to my guide Dr.T.S.Ramesh for his able guidance and parental concern. His criticisms and words of appreciation helped me to streamline my thought processes. His scholarly advice and whole hearted involment in the work has led me to a successful completion of the work.

I express my sincere gratitude to the secretary of National College, Sri. K.

Ragunathan, the principal Dr.Anbarasu, for their kind words of appreciation. I thank also, the HoD and the members of the department for their constant support and guidance.

I express a deep sense of gratitude to Dr.N.Kalamani, Professor,

Department of English, Bharathidasan University and Dr.Suresh Frederick,

Associate Professor, Department of English, Bishop Heber College, Trichy, the

Doctoral Committee members for their scholarly guidance, which helped me to improve my work.

I like to thank Dr.Roopkumar Balasingh, Head, Department of English,

Bishop Heber College, Trichy, for his words of encouragement and support.

I am indebted to Dr.T.C..Brindha Kumari, Head, Department of English,

Mercy College, Palakkad, for her constant encouragement.

I also, thank my parents P.Yesudasan and Y.Annamma because of whom, I am, what I am today.

I extend my gratitude to my brother-in-law N.Praveen and my sister Mary

Famila, my niece Neethu Shiny and brother Ane for having helped me in carrying out this research. ii

I extend my gratitude to my husband Biju Joy for his moral and emotional support. He helped me in all turns, especially in buying textbooks. I thank my sweet little son, Ashley, for having made me forget the exhaustion that comes with my research work through his playfulness and love.

I also, thank my friends especially Dr. Praseedha for encouraging me to complete the thesis at the earliest.

I thank everyone who helped me to complete my thesis in one-way or other.

Above all, I praise God Almighty for having blessed me with good health to complete this work successfully.

Y.MERCY FAMILA

iii ABSTRACT

As existent being, man identifies with the world through his thoughts and perceptions. He is driven to seek meaning by the very complexities and contradictions of existence. The sense of lack of meaning or purpose is very apparent in twentieth century literature, philosophy and art. The thesis poses a critical question whether life is worth living or should be voluntarily terminated.

Being brought face to face with the absurd world, a person longs for the answers that will clarify his position and purpose in this universe, but being unable to find satisfactory explanations he/she succumbs to despair. The futile existence, it seems, drives a person to the brink of despair and makes him to contemplate suicide out of sheer despondency and hopelessness.

Existentialism is essentially associated with the condition of man, his act of living, his state of being free and the directions he takes to use his freedom in reciprocation to his wider experiences and enormous challenges he encounters in the universe that is drastically undergoing changes. The main philosophical ideal of existentialism is to emphasize that ‘existence precedes essence.’ It, also, stresses that each human being is thrown into the world in which pain, frustration, sickness, contempt, malaise and death predominantly exist. This problem has been highlighted in Albert Camus’s The Stranger , The Plague and The Fall , the novels chosen for the study. Through the analysis of the major characters, the study aims to disclose how anxiety, in general, occupies a major place in the existential spheres of life in the twentieth century.

The first chapter titled, “Introduction” deals with the factors that force man into an isolated existence. It throws light on the Modern French Literature, its iv emergence of the French existentialists and their works and Albert Camus’s achievements as an existentialist. It, also, has made a broad survey of the philosophy, its origin, major thoughts, proponents and literary connection that helps in a better understanding of Albert Camus as an existentialist.

The second chapter titled “Existence precedes Essence- The Stranger ” focuses on the existential predicament of its protagonist, Meursault. It explores his psyche, who is apathetic and insensitive to the events in his own life and those around him. The novel depicts his anguished quest for a way out. Sartre’s and

Heidegger’s concepts, such as choice, responsibility, bad faith and the concept of

Dasein have been used to study how Meursault is contended with a banal daily routine rejecting the transcendent values.

The third chapter titled “Essence of Existence- The Plague ” analyses how the characters are inclined to deny the cruelty of their condition and hide themselves in their illusory world governed by habit. Camus presents a contrast in the novel between the spiritual and mundane life. Further, using the theories of

Sartre and Heidegger, it proves that they too, are existentialists.

The fourth chapter titled “Existential Consciousness- The Fall ” probes how

Clamence the protagonist, is concealed from the world and for a long time from himself by a life of philanthropy. It studies the duplicity and insincere life of

Clamence using Sartre’s concepts of bad faith, Other, guilt and Heidegger’s

Dasein.

v

The fifth chapter titled “Narrative Technique” highlights the varied and extensive techniques adopted by the writer to manifest the existential cries and the angst of the characters. It, further, studies the plot, structure, symbolism and imagery, language and style of the novels.

The sixth chapter titled “Conclusion” sums up the evaluation of the characters from an existential point of view.

CHAPTER –I

Introduction

The storm has died away, and still we are restless, uneasy, as if

the storm were about to break. Almost all the affairs of men

remain in a terrible uncertainty…. We do not know what will be

born, and we fear the future, not without reason. There is no

thinking man, however shrewd or learned he may be, who can

hope to dominate this anxiety, to escape from this impression of

darkness. (The Crisis of the Mind 23)

Human beings are constantly in search of a harmonious world tapping all the resources available in this computerized world. The present chaotic world with its own scientific and technological achievements poses a threat to human existence. The twentieth century is generally considered as an age of despair, uncertainty and fragmentation, which causes man to feel estranged from the world around him and, also, to lead a lonely existence.

Man faces instability and insecurity and sheds absolute principles like faith, love, responsibility and, therefore, he faces constant threat. He feels lost because of the problems that constitute his condition, and they cannot be eliminated or removed. Decisions cannot be made and absolutized; they must constantly be sifted. In such a scenario, man becomes an outsider, lives an uncommitted life, severs his previous connections, renounces all cultural norms and suffers from nonchalance. Furthermore, the industrial epoch imposes rigid control over human life and forces man to lead a robot-like existence. Prior to industrialization, “the tools man used the pace of work and the distribution of the workload” were within his capacities and needs

(Alienation in Modern Society 18). But, the moment man began to work in the factories; he has to adapt himself to the system and thereby becomes obligator of machines. So, man loses his authority over the machine and becomes its slave. In other words, man is denied of voice and choice in his work as the machines become masterful and orders him “when to work, when to stop, what to do and how to do it” ( Alienation in Modern Society 21).

Loss of self-importance and the sense of powerlessness have destroyed man’s belief in his own humanity and arouse feelings of resentment and wrath. European nations vie with one another for land, military strength and economic power, and this competition resulted in the First World War, which was another catastrophe that intensified man’s sense of estrangement. Man faces umpteen numbers of problems, which determines his condition. The

Great War was grim, dirty, and showed brutality with devouring effects. As

R.J.Overy opines:

The Great War was dirty and brutalizing, a moral desert for

those who lived through it. The world faced sense of loss-of

innocence, of moral certainty, of social values, of cultural

confidence. The Europe, which astonished the nineteenth

century with its wealth, inventiveness and power, was prey to

growing self-doubt and fears for the future. ( The Inter-War

Crisis 4)

Man was, totally, in a vacuum as the war made him to probe questions such as honour, democracy and civilization, which man had believed in the past. After the war, man suffered from a sense of displacement, and finds

himself in a world, which is alien, impersonal and uninhabitable. In the face of the devastating loss of lives, destruction of cities, soaring poverty and misery, man looses faith in God and begins to question like, “How God who chose the best of all possible worlds and who is all powerful, good and wise was indifferent to the plight” ( Beyond Absurdity: The Philosophy of Albert

Camus 12). With the disappearance of all ultimate certainties, man experienced a tremendous sense of loss. He was so bewildered that in order to alleviate his existential, psychological sufferings and to find a sense of purpose and meaning in his life, man involved himself in political doctrines and mass movements.

The Second World War, another blow, aggravated man’s feelings of helplessness, disorientation and estrangement. It was far more destructive than the First World War as it caused inundation on life and property. It deprived man of his right to live a free, happy and harmonious life.

Moreover, it led human beings to a world that was cold, depressing, which guarantees nothing. Death became a certainty, which was imminent and seen sporadically. Therefore, man’s condition in the universe as Camus says:

…in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man

feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he

is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a

promised land…freedom has no meaning except in relation to

its limited fate, what counts is not the best living but the most

living. ( The Myth of Sisyphus 5)

There looms in man a pessimistic mood, and the individual has to withdraw in silence . Modern man’s problems, especially after the World War, have become extremely intricate. As the natural world has become barren outwardly because of massive death and destruction, the internal state of man has become complex as well as perverted. They are going through a life-in-death situation and, always, in fear of death like "a handful of dust" (' The Waste Land’ 59). Moral values have lost charm and dignity. In fact, innocence is considered as perversion. T.S.Eliot views that, every modern human as hopeless, like Prufrock. In this waste land, the modern men are like "heap of broken images where the dead tree gives no shelter, cricket no relief" (‘The Waste Land’ 60). They have lost true feeling for others.

Edward Engelberg expresses this predicament in Solitude and its Ambiguities in

Modern Fiction as:

Modern solitude goes far beyond anxiety and nightmare: it not only

annihilates motion, it retards and destroys emotion. When affect is

arrested, when there is no root back to society…when the ego is

self-devouring, then we have reached a state of solitude beyond

alienation-the state of silence. (39)

The catastrophic social and historical events of the twentieth century and their devastating outcome resulted in man’s silence, alienation and deracination. In order to save man from the crisis, there appeared philosophers, writers, theoreticians, and scientists, whose writings had salvaged man from deracination and helpless condition. They reflected man’s involutions in their works and they tried to give solutions that could

minimize the alienating effects of the nightmarish events on man. Among the toffs of men of thought are Albert Camus, Jean Paul-Sartre, Simone de

Beauvoir, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, T.S.Eliot, Virginia Woolf, William

Faulkner and others.

Existence has been an ordeal for modern man as it correlates with his struggle for survival in the universe materialistically, psychically and spiritually. The formidable tasks man faced in life, especially during World

War II stimulated despair and frustration, which set forth much difficult questions in one’s life about freedom and choice of freedom. Finally, this has led to the making of a philosophy in the name of existentialism, which attained tremendous popularity in Europe, particularly in France. A tremendous expansion in literary devices and the experimentation with new means of expression are characterizing the twentieth century in France.

Marxism and Freudianism have left a deep imprint on literature, as witnessed in all other arts. The result of such a profound socio- economic and political change has become a continuous question of moral, intellectual, and artistic traditions.

The history of French literature is closely linked to the state of French politics, ideology and culture often reflects and shapes these realities in France.

The political and social dimensions of the French literary canon are central to the study of modern French literature. French writers have consistently used their work to expostulate the political and philosophical ideology. The relationship between literatures, social and political attitudes have been important in French society. The French opposition literature has had enormous influence

with the citizenry of France as well as intellectuals throughout Europe. Although politically motivated literature has seen a decline in France in the latter half of the twentieth century primarily due to the increasing popularity of other media, the French literary scene continues to experiment with new forms and techniques, now focusing more consciously on the development of form rather than content.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the French literary scene was dominated by the naturalist writers and their mode of realistic, mostly linear narratives, reflecting the social and political realities of their time. Marcel

Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past is considered to be one of the seminal works marking the departure from naturalist thinking. The advent of World War

I, the most violent and widespread conflict in human history at the time, had engendered in many French intellectuals the feeling that the entire European cultural tradition had been dishonored. Many writers saw the slaughter of thousands as deeply disheartening, final proof of the negative impact of the culture of rationalism on which the common language and culture of the time was based. This disillusionment was in part what led to the creation of the

Dadaist movement.

The beginning of World War II forced a new strain of French literature to emerge, where the writing mainly became an offshoot of political and military activity of collaboration or resistance. At the end of the Second World War, the

French literary scene was dominated by existential activity and the work of authors such as Jean-Paul Sartre, who aimed to establish existentialist values as a replacement for the bankrupt values of pre-war France. Sartre explored issues of

commitment in works such as Being and Nothingness and The Age of Reason.

Equally relevant in the expansion of modern French literature is the escalation of

French theater, which in many ways paralleled to the development of French fiction. The period between the 1930s and the 1940s, led by the Cartel, is often referred to as one of the best in French theater; the new and established writers made the stage a coruscated one by playwrights such as Camus, Sartre, Henry del

Montherlant and Marcel Ayme, Eugene lonesco, Vauthier, Beckett, and others.

Marginalization of women authors has been a major trend in the critical study of modern French literature. This rejection is traced to the dominance of fascist and other right-wing political influences in France during the early twentieth century. The post-war years, however, witnessed a revival of female writing as well as interest in the critical study of female authors, who continued to write in order to elicit the screed female voice during the war years, which includes Simone de Beauvoir, Nathalie Sarraute, and others. The immediate post- war period was dominated by the existentialist sensibility, in which concepts such as commitment, responsibility and situation, erasing the boundaries among philosophy, literature and action, has acquired enormous prestige through the Resistance effort.

Existentialism is metaphysics, a psychology relying upon phenomenology, sociology of literature, therapeutics, and above all ‘ethics.’ The existentialists assert the priority of existence over essence and presses man to think in concrete terms about the actual problems of one’s existence. The ‘essentialists’ thinkers, moreover, emphasize rationality and objectivity as the prime desiderata of philosophy. The existentialists, on the other hand, are avowedly subjective. Their

concern is with the individual and his predicament, who is caught up in the dilemmas and sufferings of life and confronts his own inevitable death. Charlton, in his work, France: A Companion to French Studies comments: “The existentialists are also subjective in the sense that, their purpose is to appeal not only to their reader’s intellect but also to ‘the whole man,’ as subject” (41). Hence, the writers believe that the literary forms may offer more adequate means of communication than philosophical prose. Charlton says that many people pass their life in a dream, as it were in a state of non-reflection and habit, searching only for a passive state of satisfaction, without ever considering their true situation- the chanciness of the very existence of the world and themselves, the moral choices which life challenges them to make, the inevitability of their death.

Hence, the existentialist seeks to insist that one must choose one’s own essential self.

Although, existentialism is widely considered to be one of the most important seminal influences on the thought and literature of the post-world war II era, there is little consensus as to which authors and what beliefs comprise this school of philosophy. Some critics limit the existentialist period to the 1930s and

1940s; others trace its beginnings to the mid 1800s. The existentialist philosophy cannot be defined precisely. Most of its major proponents, including Camus and

Martin Heidegger, have denied being existentialist. To understand modern existentialism, a descant or definition will not suffice; but some of the antecedents of existentialism should be traced. The pedigree of existentialism in the Western world can be traced in the third chapter of Genesis. It reveals that God has created the heaven and the earth and, also, man (Adam) and woman (Eve). Eve is tempted

by the serpent to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree assuring her that she will not die. It also says that the forbidden fruit helps to know good and evil. At this point,

Eve is faced with an existential dilemma. In attempting to understand herself and her situation, Eve raises the simple but penetrating existential questions: who am

I? What is my purpose in life? What is life all about? In attempting to answer these questions, Eve acts by eating the fruit. By her thought and actions, she assumes the responsibility for making meaning in her life. Eve’s decision is akin to existentialism.

In Genesis, the writer poses the existential questions to know the meaning of existence and similarly in the Book of Job the author becomes queerest to ken about existentialism. Job is not a calm and humble man, who accepts whatever life brings. Job struggles with life. He is wracked by doubt and despair. Job’s existential angst can be understood from the dialogue between Job and his friend, which the writer states as follows:

…the aching misery of existence in language of rare imaginative

power… Job’s death wish springs from his sense of the emptiness of

life when he is estranged from a meaningful relation to God. He

does not question God’s sovereignty; rather, he laments that his

sovereignty is so completely eclipsed that life has no meaning.

(Understanding: The Old Testament 513)

Job’s outcry is an expression of the anxiety that afflicts the most sensitive sufferer from meaninglessness. The affinity between Job’s questions and the questions of existentialists like Kierkegaard, Camus, and others is striking. The author of Job has unwittingly contributed to what would be known as

existentialism, later. Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, the forerunners of this philosophy, are considered to be the basic to existentialist movement, though they eschewed the term ‘existentialism.’ Their focus is on humanities, which is subjective rather than the objective truths of mathematics and science, which they believe are too detached or observational and it is devoid of human experience. The existentialists, like Pascal, are interested in people's hushed struggle and their desperate effort to escape from world-weariness. Unlike

Pascal, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche give importance to the role of making free choices, particularly regarding fundamental values and beliefs, and such choices they feel will change the nature and identity of the chooser.

Existentialism is essentially associated with the condition of man, his act of living, state of being free and the directions man takes to use his freedom in reciprocation to his wider experiences and enormous challenges he encounters in the universe that is drastically undergoing changes. Nawale, a critic, views that

‘existentialism’ deals with man’s disillusionment and despair. It is a philosophy that deals with the definite attitude of looking at life. Recently, it has been simplified and applied to all sorts of people and activities that are vaguely connected with existentialism. It is because there is no common body of doctrine to which all existentialists subscribe. For this reason, existentialism is defined by

John Macquarrie as, “not as a philosophy but as a style of philosophizing”

(Existentialism 14). It is a style that allows those who follow it to hold different convictions about the world and man’s life in it. At the same time, one finds unity in diverse thinking. They all in common belong to the family of existentialists, concentrating on some themes, commonly occurring in most of the works of art

and literature. Themes such as freedom, choice, decision and responsibility are prominent in all existentialist philosophers. The philosophy begins from man and his existence as a subject and not an object. The existentialists think passionately about man’s existence and treat him not only as a thinking subject but an initiator of action and a center of feeling. Miguel de Unamuno’s definition to philosophy and philosophers justifies the passionate behaviour of existentialists:

Philosophy is a product of the humanity of each philosopher, and

each philosopher is a man of flesh and bone who addresses himself

to other men of flesh and bone like himself. And, let him do what he

will; he philosophizes not with reason only, but with the will, with

the whole soul and with the whole body. It is the man who

philosophizes. ( The Tragic Sense of Life 28)

Kierkegard is considered to be the pate of existentialism. In all his writings, he gives importance to individualism. Kierkegaard thinks that individual existence rests on practical life. Normally, life expresses the totality of experience and such an experience is dirigible by action. He believes that the life of action expresses the true nature of human existence. In the philosophy of Kierkegaard, the existence of the individual is associated with subjectivity. Further, he advises man to ignore objectivity and probe inwardly to know more about himself, which he claims as subjectivity truth. Subsequently, he traces three spheres in the process of becoming an individual; they are the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. In

Stages on Life’s Way , he argues that one can regain meaning in one’s life by having the courage to face the arcane world outside of oneself through a divine appreciation of it.

Furthermore, Kierkegaard asserts that when man tries to upkeep relationship with God, he can inhabit both a religious and ‘authentic’ sphere of existence. He, further, states that the failure to form such a duality leads one to become an aesthetic person. Here, one does not believe in God and makes oneself dissipate, forgets the presence of the Divine and tries to live each jiffy to the fullest without putting life in a Divine milieu. Such a person can be characterized as a hedonist, a modern day playboy, who excites himself with sensual and materialist pleasures. He detests being a morally upright and turns out to be drifter and shuns the ethical rules that guide his behaviour because he is utterly consumed in living for himself. Kierkegaard views: “The aesthetical in a man is that by which he is immediately what he is” ( Either/Or 150).

Kierkegaard, further, maintains that the aesthetic person is not willing to be on his ‘self’ and continues to be a pleasure a seeker and ends up with nothing . His life does not hold any meaning, which means that he has not created his own

“essence,” and has not attained the level of authenticity instead, has wasted his life in “pursuit of pleasure” ( The Concept of Individual 82). The ethical person, the second stage in Kierkegaard, is a believer of God and has responsibilities such as marriage, children, membership in the church, and being a significant contributor to society: “The ethical is that whereby he becomes what he becomes” ( The

Concept of Individual 84). Though, a believer of God, the ethical person never really commits himself to Christ. He attends church on Sunday. The remainder of the week, he does not guide his daily existence thinking about Christ. The ethical person moves into the religious stage of life, the third, when he makes a

commitment to Christ, knowing that this commitment is illogical. Kierkegaard’s concept known as ‘Leap of Faith,’ denotes one’s absolute faith in Christ.

Further, Kierkegaard explicates that an individual can be defined as one who has inwardness, earnestness, and responsibility. Inwardness means that the individual spends time every day by contemplating on his existence. During this stage one talk to oneself about one’s behavior and relationships. For Kierkegaard, the inwardness is necessary in order to develop an inner voice. Together with the act of inwardness comes the realization of the concept of earnestness, which implies a conscious awareness of the decision that one makes and does.

Responsibility is another important concept, in which, Kierkegaard believes that the individual is aware that he is responsible for the quality of his life.

The concept of responsibility is a derivative of the existential concept of

‘throwness.’ Man is literally thrown into the world, as he has no control over our gender, culture, nationality, race, and family conditions. So, Responsibility means that one is responsible for developing one’s own unique individuality and not being a phony but being oneself. The awareness of the concept of Responsibility makes one to become an individual, who makes his own decisions and is aware that his decisions ultimately direct the meaning of his life. In his work Fear and

Trembling , Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard associates truth with God. Man, he feels, suffers from stress, tension, anxiety and discontent. In order to free man from these, he advocates the ‘leap of faith.’ According to Kierkegaard, if man enters into ‘leap of faith’ he may find peace of mind and spiritual serenity.

Friedrich Nietzsche, another prominent philosopher, like Kierkegaard, has made the existential theory more popular and widespread. But, he is an atheist

contrary to Kierkegaard, who is a theistic existentialist. Nietzsche delineates the development of man’s moral structure in the Western world without God. He argues that the very concept of God is designed to make the ‘strong weak and the weak strong,’ which runs counter to the natural order. Nietzsche’s more controversial work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, confirms his strong belief in atheism and also raises a controversial claim that “God is dead” (215). This claim is one of

Nietzsche’s most famous and often iterated directives. The philosophical statement that ‘God is dead’ lays the foundation for The Will to Power in which he talks about the concept of the Übermensch, which means Overman.

The Übermensch is a ‘superior person’ in society because he can organize the chaos of his passions and gives elegant to his character. Übermensch has the notion that society does not progress by consensus of agreement but of one individual who goes against the beliefs of society, thereby, he fulfills the meaning of his existence by centering his life on his central decision simply to stylize himself. Nietzsche betokens that the superior person has one enemy, which is his

‘self.’ The Übermensch, therefore, is not a perfect being. Rather, he is constantly aware of the defects of his character and, as a consequence, constantly attempts to overcome them. At the same time, Übermensch is not jealous, not envious, and uncared for people and society. Instead, he has a personal quest to fulfill and a mission to complete, to make him a powerful human being in society. What separates the Übermensch from the common man is his willingness to accept risk in life. Thus, Kierkegaard’s philosophy wallows on ‘faith’ and Nietzsche’s on

‘risk.’ So, risk is kernel to the concept of Ubermensch because without it one cannot become an individual or a superior person.

Nietzsche uses the clarion term “slave morality” (158), and in his work

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which states that man fills up his existence with petty tasks and everyday chores. This ‘average everyday’ man is an unreflective man, who does not question about his existence or does not consider his possibilities.

The average everyday man does not define himself uniquely, but as part of a public, of society, and of a culture. For Nietzsche, this ‘everyday man’ is manifestations of the average man, therefore, an inauthentic being. By being so, the average man loses his social framework in the society. The shove of

Nietzsche’s existentialism is to make the average man to find his innermost possibilities or his authentic self.

Along with Nietzsche, existentialism is much explored by the German philosophers Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, the most influential existential writers. Heidegger prefers to be identified as a philosopher ‘of being. His main interest is to probe ‘for being’ [ sein ], especially man’s being [dasein]. He affirms,

“the being that exists is man. Man alone exists…. The proposition ‘man exists’ means; man is that being whose being is distinguished by the open standing- standing in the unconcealedness of Being, in Being”( The Way Back into the

Ground of Metaphysics 214). Being is experienced in the case of self-alone and is called existence. In other words, to experience oneself, one has to experience the existence ‘in itself.’

Heidegger’s Being and Time elicits the meaning of being by differentiating it with non-being. Death is the ultimate end of being. It serves as a perimeter, which calls for an authentic way of being. Stephen Neil, while discussing the concept of authenticity in human existence, says, “The reality of

existence is to be found only in choice, in decision in the deliberate acceptance of the authentic and rejection of the inauthentic existence” ( Christian Faith And

Other Faiths 184). According to the critic Mary Warnock, one achieves authentic existence through one’s understanding of the ‘self’ and she, further, comments:

Authentic existence can begin only when we have realized and

thoroughly understood what we are. Once we have grasped that

human reality is characterized by the fact that human being is

uniquely himself and no one else, and that each of us has his own

possibilities to fulfill…. Understanding the world for a man is

reducing it to the human, stamping it with his seal. ( Existentialism

55)

Heidegger is not concerned with a single individual alone as some of the existentialists reiterate. In all his theories, he links individuality with generality and portrays human existence in broad-spectrum. Heidegger has a wider stance on humanity, and he says that man will become a pensive if he has no contacts with fellow beings. He, further, insists that the individual has to separate himself from the egocentric life and has to accept the responsibility of all his actions alone by unscrambling himself completely from every day bustle. Heidegger’s philosophy of existentialism views that the existence of individual is, always, coupled with despair or anxiety. It is ‘anxiety’ alone that enables an individual to realize his own possibilities and potentialities. Anguish is another premise that reverberate human life. To him, anguish is not analogous to death. Any individual who experiences anguish is in a state of nothingness. The term ‘nothingness’ helps one to comprehend Heidegger’s concept of human existence, which means without

hope and confidence, a human being is thrown into the world. He enjoys freedom but he does not know how to make it worthy . He is condemned to be free- free to make a choice to understand his freedom and the futility of his existence.

Karl Jaspers discusses three kinds of existence related to being; being- oneself, being-there, and being-in-itself. For him, a human being’s freedom of being is existence and not man’s being in the world. In everyday life, man is connected by the objects of the world. If one has to be free from the worldly shackles, one has to realize fully one’s ‘being-oneself.’ It means that, one’s action has to be determined by oneself, transcending the material world and one’s own self. In this way, one obtains knowledge of one’s existence. Jaspers, who is scientific in his approach, asserts that if a human being recognizes the boundary he/she has gargantuan possibilities to prove his/her credit and guilt of his/her actions; “By consciously recognizing his limit, he sets himself the highest goals.

He experiences absoluteness in the depths of selfhood and in the lucidity of transcendence” ( The Origin and the Goal of History 2).

There are, however, certain themes and ideas, which occur throughout existentialist literature. Prominent among these is the concept of ‘absurdity’- the feeling of dissonance and unsettlement resulting from the perception of the universe as random and non-rational, in spite of humanity’s desire for order and purpose. In Sartre’s terminology, human existence is initially that of en-soi existence or “being in-itself”; by giving purpose to one’s life through vital, committed action, one achieves pour-soi existence or “being for-itself.” Most people believe, however, that they live in ‘bad faith,’ believing themselves that they are controlled by metaphysical forces such as God or fate. Individuals must,

therefore, rebel against all constraints of liberty, even those of reason. The protagonist of Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground exemplified this idea.

These existentialist tenets reflect Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration that God is dead and that people alone are responsible for bringing about an order to the universe. However, most existentialists have taken an atheist or agnostic view of the universe. There, also, has developed a branch of religious existentialism led by philosophers such as Martin Buber and Paul Tillich. They maintain that individuals can overcome their essential isolation by believing in God through

‘leap of faith.’

Albert Camus rejects himself to be an existentialist, but his works lucidly shows that the amalgamation of his ‘philosopher of sort’ makes one to call him as a highbrow existentialist. His works are mainly concerned with people facing the absurd. He refuses to label himself as existentialist like many others. Todd captures this:

I am not a philosopher, because I don’t believe in reason enough

to believe in a system. What interests me is knowing how we

must behave, and more precisely, how to behave when one does

not believe in God or reason…. I am not an existentialist,

although of course critics are obliged to make categories. I got

my first philosophical impressions from the Greeks, not from

nineteenth-century Germany, whose philosophy is the basis for

today’s French existentialism. I’m not sure I’m an intellectual…

(Albert Camus: A Life 408)

Although Camus is trained in philosophy, his finest works are his novels. He is deeply influenced by his philosophy teacher, Jean Grenier, and his friend Andre Malraux’s whose books, Islands , and Man’s Fate respectively, greatly impressed Camus. The fundamental theme of Camus’s writings is a bitter remonstration against the injustice of man’s position in the universe and an examination of the ethical problems. In The Myth of Sisyphus,

Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth to demonstrate the futility of existence. In the myth, Sisyphus is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, but when he reaches the summit, the rock rolls to the bottom again.

Camus believes that the existence is inane but Sisyphus, ultimately, finds meaning and rationale in his task simply by continually applying himself to it.

The first half of the book contains an extended rebuttal of what Camus takes to be existential philosophy in the works of Kierkegaard, Shestov, Heidegger and Jaspers.

Camus is differed from most existentialist writers in his relatively optimistic assumption that through awareness of the apparent futility of life the individual can transcend nihilism and the vainness of existence. In his highly varied career, Camus consistently and often passionately, explores his major theme: the belief that people can be happy in a world without meaning.

Throughout his novels, plays, essays, and stories, Camus defends the dignity and decency of the individual and asserts that through purposeful action one can overcome the apparent nihilism of the world. His notion of ‘absurd’ universe is premised on the apprehension between life in an irrational universe and the human desire for rationality. Albeit, this view has led Camus to be allied with the

existentialists, he himself has rejected that classification. Camus is, also, praised as a fierce moralist, whose faith in humankind does not blench. His writing is well regarded among the elites for his style and ideas.

Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger , represent his development of the concept of the absurd. For Camus, life like Sisyphus’s task is senseless, but the awareness of this absurdity can facilitate humankind to overcome its condition. The novel, The Stranger, is based on his life in Algeria in the 1930s. He has seen poverty, petty violence and racial tension of daily life; he has been part of the younger generation that rejected the conventions of middle- class society. His experience in a tuberculosis sanatorium, where he has been isolated from others, unable to enjoy the sun and the beaches, helped him to describe his hero’s imprisonment in The Stranger . Like his hero, Camus has to abandon his studies. His battle against tuberculosis teaches him, what Meursault sees clearly at the end of his life that happiness is precarious, and that any day he has to die. As a reporter, Camus has covered a number of trials and often has written articles attacking the government hypocrisy. Although, he has been involved in political controversy in Algiers, his experience during the war- working with other men to fight against the Nazis- has shown him more clearly that values could be found in the shared sufferings of the community. He, also, has realized that to oppose Nazism as whammy, one must have a notion of what is good. By his experience of poverty, Camus is emotionally on the side of the oppressed working classes, and he is unable to accept the ideology of communism.

This has made him to question his own role as a writer.

Camus completed his second novel, The Plague, in which the Resistance fight against the Nazis is described allegorically through the battles of a group of men against a plague in Algeria. His third novel, The Fall, is a bitter satire on the problems of guilt and responsibility. While involving himself in these works,

Camus remained active in the theatre as an impresario and adapting works by others as well as his own. Caligula is considered to be the most significant one out of his four original dramas. It recounts the young Roman Emperor’s search for absolute individual freedom. The Misunderstanding, his second play, deals with the story of a man’s murder by his sister and mother. It is, often, considered to be

Camus’s attempt at modern tragedy in the classical Greek style. The State of

Siege, his third play , has been viewed as a satiric attack on totalitarianism and an allegory demonstrating the values of audacious human action. The Just Assassins, his fourth play, portrays a revolutionary, who refuses to heave a bomb because a young nephew and niece accompany his intended victim. This work, asserts

Camus’s strong sense of humanity: the end does not justify the means if the cost is human lives. The Plague, his novel, deals with the theme of revolt.

Complementing his concept of the absurd, Camus believes in the necessity of each person to ‘revolt’ against the common fate of humanity by seeking personal freedom. The Fall, his novel, is a long enigmatic monologue of a formerly self- satisfied lawyer, who suffers from guilt and relentlessly confesses his sins in order to judge others and induce them to confess as well. Camus, in his first collection of short stories The Exile and the Kingdom, he disembogues a new vitality and optimism.

According to atheist existentialists like Sartre, the term ‘absurdity’ of human existence is the necessary result of our attempts to live a life of meaning and purpose in an apathetic, uncaring universe. Further, they claim that there is no God, so there is no perfect and absolute vantage point from which human actions or choices can be said to be rational. Christian existentialism does not reject the existence of God. However, they do accept the notion of the "absurd" and the irrationality of human life because they agree that humans are “trapped in a mesh of subjectivity from which they cannot flee” (Albert Camus: Lyrical and Critical Essays 26). Kierkegaard, the theistic existentialist, states that one must make choices, which are not based upon fixed, rational standards, and that can be right or wrong.

Kierkegaard’s term "leap of faith" ( Fear and Trembling 96) is an irrational choice to Camus. But, to Kierkegaard it is a necessary one for a person to lead a complete, authentic existence. The absurdity of one’s life is never actually overcome. To Kierkegaard, it is accepted in the hope that by making the best choices one wi ll finally attain a union w i t h the infinite, absolute

God. Camus rejects such ‘leap of faith’ and religious beliefs. It is, he feels, “a philosophical suicide" because it provides a pseudo-solution to the absurd nature of reality (The Myth of Sisyphus 32). To him, acceptance of the absurd means a solution in which one accepts the absurd and continues to live in spite of it. Camus endorsed this solution believing that by accepting the absurd one can achieve absolute freedom.

In The Myth of Sisyphus , Camus considers absurdity as a confrontation, an opposition, a conflict or a ‘divorce between two ideals.’ Normally, he sees the human

condition as absurd, a stage set for the confrontation between man's desire for significance, meaning and clarity on the one hand and the silent, cold universe on the other. He continues that there are specific human experiences evoking notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with different choices, suicide , and leap of faith or recognition. For Camus, suicide is a

“confession that life is not worth living; it is a choice implicitly declaring that life is too much. Suicide offers the most basic way out of absurdity: the immediate termination of the self and its place in the universe” (4). The absurd encounter can, also, arouse a ‘leap of faith,’ which is advocated by Kierkegaard and Camus rejects this. Camus concludes that ‘recognition’ of the absurd is the only defensible option.

According to Camus, man’s freedom and the opportunity to bestow meaning to life rest on the recognition of absurdity. This absurd experience makes one to realize that the universe is fundamentally devoid of absolutes, and the individuals are free to construct their own. Camus views, “To live without appeal, is a philosophical move to define absolutes and universals subjectively, rather than objectively” ( The Myth of Sisyphus 10). The freedom of man is, thus, established in his knack and opportunity to construct his own meaning and purpose. The individual becomes the most precious unit of existence, as the individual represents a set of unique ideals, which can be characterized as an entire universe in its own right. Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus states: “Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion.

By the mere activity of consciousness, I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death, and I refuse suicide” (111). The recognition of the absurd makes him

to draw three things namely, revolt, freedom and passion and he wishes man to use these to drive away the absurdity.

Camus’s prime aspiration as an existential writer is to sift the meaning of life in the meaning of being, the meaning of existence. Generally, movements in literature have emerged as a reaction to preceding literary movements or as a consequence of the radical changes in society or traumas that the world has gone through. Existentialism is not an exception since the two world wars, traumatic experiences for the whole world, played a tremendous role in the emergence of the school of existential thought in literature and in philosophy. The Second World

War played a pivotal role in the emergence of the absurd by shattering all the established beliefs, ideals, and values of the pre-war Western world. Camus observes: “the certitudes and unshakable basic assumptions of former ages have been swept away…they have been tested and found wanting… [and] discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions” ( The Theatre of the Absurd 23).

The existentialists lay emphasis on man’s free will in the universe, which is devoid of meaning or values, but they insist on man’s responsibility to make his own meaning and to assert his own values. Even though, man is seen as morally responsible, his position as a moral being is absurd, because his commitment is gratuitous and without any ultimate reward. The existentialist intends to make his own choice because he disbelieves the conventional and the established ways of discerning right from erroneous social, moral, philosophical and religious structures. According to him, they are petrified forms, which make an extremely complicated world. The existentialist concludes that human choice is subjective because individuals finally must make their own choices, without help from

external standards such as laws, ethical rules, or traditions. Since, individuals make their own choices, they are free; but because they choose freely, they are completely responsible for their choices. The existentialist, strongly, emphasizes that freedom is necessarily accompanied by responsibility. When individuals realize that they are completely responsible for their decisions, actions, and beliefs, they are gripped with anxiety. They try to escape from anxiety by ignoring or denying the freedom and responsibility. But, by ignoring or denying their actual situation, they succeed only in deceiving themselves. The existentialist criticizes this flight from freedom and responsibility into self-deception. He insists that individuals must accept full responsibility for their behavior, no matter how difficult. If an individual is to live meaningfully and authentically, he or she must become fully aware of true character of the human situation and bravely accept it.

Existentialism is a philosophy exclusively meant for viewing human beings and their existence in the universe not as a mass but as a collection of individuals.

Existentialists like Kierkegaard and Sartre talk about individuals and their subjectivity. Sartre defines subjectivism in two senses: “Subjectivism means, on the one hand, the freedom of the individual subject and on the other, that man cannot pass beyond human subjectivity. It is latter, which is the deeper meaning of existentialism” ( Existentialism and Human Emotions 16-17). Bohlmann, a critic, points out: “for existentialists, the world is utterly without absolute meaning, and man is left to invent his own personal meaning for his existence” ( Conrad’s

Existentialism 14). The recognition of nothingness is a sort of liberation, according to existentialists, since man recognizes that he is free to choose and he has no ready-made essence. Arnold Hinchliffe expresses: “This freedom, which brings

anguish, springs from our recognition of Nothingness” ( The Absurd 25), and this brings anguish because of the great responsibility it entails. Moreover, Bohlmann claims:

Sartre sees the origin of anguish in the feeling of a being, which is

not responsible for its origin, or the origin of the world, but which,

because of its dreadful freedom to choose one form of action over

another, is responsible for what it makes of its existence. ( Conrad’s

Existentialism 35)

Camus regards literature as a means of rebelling against life’s disunity and formlessness, and the artist as the rebel rejects this disunity and formlessness through his work. Camus in The Rebel enumerates:

Man has an idea of a better world than this. But better does not

mean different, it means unified. This passion, which lifts the mind

above the commonplaces of a dispersed world, from which it

nevertheless cannot free itself, is the passion for unity. It does not

result in mediocre efforts to escape, however, but in the most

obstinate demands. Religion or crime, every human endeavor in

fact, finally obeys this unreasonable desire and claims to give life a

form it does not have (64).

Thus, for Camus, meaning is an illusion that restricts man and prevents him from living life to the fullest. The absurd man does not need to look for meaning and significance in life because he knows that this is where the real freedom lies.

Camus, spend the most part of his life to political action. Most notably, he is a major post-war voice, one of a gallant group of Frenchmen, who actively

resisted the Nazis and their Vichy pawns. He believed that pens and radical ideas were more powerful influence rather than of non-negotiable bullets and bombs.

Camus, nevertheless, undertook enormous personal risk, hiding combatants, assuming aliases, serving as a courier for important documents, and acting as editor-in-chief of clandestine journal. He, also, joined the more general battle against totalitarianism. Camus guided the newspaper, Le Sori Republican ; indeed, he was one of the first and most resolute voices in decrying the rise of fascism.

According to Aronson, a critic, “ Camus, began to reflect on the tension between two terms central to his understanding of Communism, freedom and justice [and thus, Camus] sought socialism with freedom, but the Communists sought justice without freedom” ( Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the quarrel that Ended It 82). Thus, Tony Judit views Algerian justice and right in the following way:

From the early postwar years, at the height of his public visibility

and influence, through the late fifties, when the Algerian tragedy

reduced him to silence, his published and unpublished writings are

shot through with reflections on the pressures upon the artist to

perform a public role…. Today Algeria is a territory inhabited by

two people… yet the two people of Algeria have an equal right to

justice and an equal right to preserve their nation. ( The Burden of

Responsibility 92)

Longing for political unity but recognizing that it is unattainable,

Camus, nevertheless, refused to ignore the contemporary existence and suffering of others. In other words, Camus, by borrowing Tony Judt’s remarks,

“became an isolated defender of absolute values and non negotiable public ethics in an age of moral and political relativism (125). For Camus, the beauty , which people encounter in life, makes it worth living. People may create meaning in their own lives, which may not be the objective meaning of life, still, provides something for which to strive. However, he insisted that one must always maintain an ironic distance between this invented meaning and the knowledge of the absurd.

Camus introduces the idea of ‘acceptance without resignation’ -as a way to deal with absurdity. By making a conscious revolt against the absurdity of the world, which is devoid of higher meaning or afterlife, man becomes absolutely free. It is through this freedom that man can act either as a mystic (through appeal to some supernatural force) or an absurd hero (through a revolt against such hope). Henceforth, the absurd hero's ‘refusal to hope’ becomes his remarkable ability to live in the present with passion. Thus, the basic problem of modern man is whether it is possible for man to give a rational meaning and value to his existence. The present century is an age of qualm, where the reason cannot establish absolute or objective truths. This problem takes on special significance where it is concerned with defining the nature and conditions of man.

The discussion of the European existentialism makes one to notice that there is a philosophical parallelism between the European and the Buddhist thought. Some of the basic tenets of existential thought are present in Indian philosophical discourse. But, the mode of perception and the approach to the problems of human existence that one finds in India differ largely from those in

the West. This difference is inherent in the traditions of these two different socio- cultural worlds with their separate worldviews. John Macquarrie says that the roots of existential thoughts can be traced back to the history of philosophy and even to “man’s pre-philosophical” attempts to attain self-understanding

(Existentialism 34). He refers to Buddhism and the Upanishads, which contain deep existential insights. The great Indian philosopher S.Radhakrishnan writes:

Existentialism is a new name for an ancient method. The

Upanishads and Buddhism insist on knowledge of the self:

atmanam viddhi . They tell us that man is a victim of ignorance,

avidya, which breeds selfishness. So long as we live our

unregenerate lives in the world of time governed by Karman or

necessity, we are at the mercy of time. The feeling of distress is

universal…. Man can free himself from sorrow and suffering by

becoming aware of the eternal. This awareness, this enlightenment

is what is called jnana or bodhi . ( Indian Philosophy 443)

Man’s quest for self-knowledge, meaning and purpose of life, as well as his identity in the world where he is ever an alien, a foreigner (the real being

Absolute, God or Brahma) has been the preoccupation of Indian philosophy.

Man’s realization that he is weary of his mundane existence and his fear of being alienated from his authentic self; both get condensed into Nothingness doctrine in

Buddhism. This doctrine has characterized the temper of a thought of about 2,500 years ago, yet, it echoes the predicament and the existentialist mood of our time.

Both Buddhists and existentialists, notwithstanding their situations and periods, have shared a common sensibility- a sensibility capable of feeling the basic

concern of man vis-à-vis the world. The basic teaching of the Buddha can be expressed in one sentence: The conditioned world as it appears to man is fundamentally and irreparably undesirable and salvation can be found only through escape to the unconditioned, also called “Nirv āna.”

Like Buddhism, existentialism, also, provides a view of man based on the insights of an inward seeing. This inward seeing generates in Buddha and his followers a conviction about the inevitable restlessness of man in the world.

Besides this, his afflictions in different situations to which he cannot but cling as long as he is a ‘bundle of desires,’ about the metaphysical ‘inanity’ (or nirv āna) into which our world-consciousness finally dissolves also form a part. The existentialists look upon human consciousness as, “a self-transcending and self- fulfilling act, a reality ‘fallen’ in the world but forever ‘open’ towards God, Being, or Nothing” ( Contemporary Indian Philosophy 284).

The central metaphysical problem with which Buddhism is preoccupied is the ultimate end of human life redeemed from all relativity and contingency.

Buddhism is the search for an elementary and independent reality, which incomprehensibly descends to the level of empirical existence and becomes the subject of perspectives, purposes, and interests. The terms tathat ā, s ūnyat ā, and nirv āna indicate a sphere of experience unlike any of the spheres logical thought can define. In this sphere of experience, the individual consciousness places itself into a state of complete self-containment and self-consummation. Thus, to a person who has concentrated his mind on the fundamental meaning of human life, the everyday world, or Sams āra, consists of innumerable impressions floating on an absolute expanse of Nothingness. To ‘feel’ this Nothingness- this original

hollowness at the root of Being- is to get to the innermost reason of one’s sense of presence. So, despite different propositions describing the experience of

Nothingness in the S ūnyav āda writings, what one is finally led to intuit by them all is the void underneath the phenomenal reality, the no-self central to the self, the vast hollow space at the bottom of the positive real. Nothingness in the Sūnyav āda philosophy represents the climax of a strict and ontologically unrestricted

ātmal ōgy. From the eternal pervasiveness of Nothingness spring up instants of positivity, the flashes of Being, which constitute our self- and world-experience.

To re-trace all positivity to this Nothingness is, for Buddhists, the sole way of fulfilling life’s commitment.

To existentialists, man is related to the world differently from any other being. Man or Dasein, Heidegger says, is ‘thrown’ into the world. But, unlike inanimate and inert objects, which also fill the world, man ‘runs’ beyond his world-situation. He is there in space and time, surrounded by objects, and is aware of his imminent non-existence through death. There is not a single thing, which enjoys ‘solid’ being in presence of man. Man tends towards his final extinction, everything around him is deprived of its fixedness and stability that is everything whirls away from positivity. Conscious of this self-effacement, human reality can hardly function in the world as something full or wholesome. Not only it is incomplete, finite and lacking in an absolute foundation in the world, but because of a spontaneous recognition of this fact are also, lies all time in the grip of anguish. One of the existential experiences most realistically portrayed by

Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus is the experience of anguish.

Tradition tells that the sudden realization that the whole creation is absurd and full of ennui dawned on Buddha at an early age, when he witnessed the misery of human life. Buddha, born and brought up in a Royal family, had a ‘healthy’ mind until he ran into the spectacle of an old man, a diseased man, and a corpse.

The spectacle so deeply shocked his conception of life sparked in him a devouring weariness, a sense of the grotesqueness of all existence. This plunge him into an inquiry into the ultimate destiny of man. N āgārjuna, a South Indian Brahmin, is, also, said to have felt the trauma of existence when as a child he was abandoned by his parents, who could not stand the ideas of seeing their son die prematurely as foretold by the astrologers. N āgārjuna survived the astrologer’s prophecy but grew to become a different personality.

Like Buddha and N āgārjuna, Kierkegaard underwent an overwhelming experience of sickness unto death. Buddha pronounces the immediate ground in his afflictions (kle śas, duhkhá) in his advice to his disciples, when he warns them that decay is inherent in all component things. Men’s desires and cravings for objects in the world, he teaches, are pregnant with sorrow and frustration.

Kierkegaard explains the terror of living the life of “an aesthete, the helplessness and desolation such a life entail the false exaltation, boredom and anguish of sensuality” ( Stages on Life’s Way 9-10) . When the traditional Christian faith wanted one to believe that human life, in spite of its culmination in death, involved divine bliss and is therefore precious, Blaise Pascal writes about the dreadful feeling that he is ‘abandoned’ in the world, “engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces” (Pascal’s Pensees 36). Having the same cultural climate, Kierkegaard

200 years later spoke of being overrun by a “metaphysical loneliness, a despair of everything” ( Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death 146).

Both Buddhists and existentialists express an intense awareness of the unique potentiality of man in the world. The former had viewed man’s life, from which death is inseparable, as his bondage; the latter have found in this phenomenon man’s ‘throwness.’ They all emphasize that man is naïve in failing to see his dislocation from the eternal and imperishable Being. This naivete or as existentialists would describe it, this inauthentic way of life is most feelingly explained by the Buddha in his Nik āyas, by Nāgārjuna in the Mah ā-prajn ā pāramit ā-śāstra , by Kierkegaard in The Sickness Unto Death and Fear and

Trembling, by Heidegger in Being and Time , by Sartre in Being and Nothingness, and by Albert Camus in his The Myth of Sisyphus , The Stranger , The Plague , and

The Fall . To the existentialist sensibility, the final end towards which man is moving is ‘nothing.’ Man is confronted by Nothingness, which is his central possibility.

Among existentialist philosophers, it is Camus and Sartre have developed, as Śūnyav āda Buddhism has done, a voidist ontology out of their observation of man’s condition in the world. For Śū nyav āda, there is an opposition between the ordinary life of man, which Buddhists characterize as the life of naivete or avidya, and of clinging or prapanca- and the state of tathat ā-, Śū nya- or nirvan ā- realization. Camus maintains a similar proposition. He says that man’s routine oblivion of the fact that he is mortal that his existence in the world is aiming at non-existence constitutes the absurdity of his life. However, when man attains an insight into the truth of his Being that is recognizing the absurdity, he ascends to

an authentic state as stated by Heidegger. Man is a ‘lack,’ writes Camus, “‘a useless passion,’ a craving for the re-establishment of himself” ( The Myth of

Sisyphus 43). The Buddhist philosophy considers that man is a thirst (trsn ā). It is the ontological study of man that finally matters most in philosophy. Both

Buddhism and existentialism are committed to such a study. By making the fragile life of man-in-the-world the starting point of their thinking, the Sunyavada

Buddhists and atheistic existentialists have sought to describe how man’s estrangement from his ontological source has reduced him to a state of restlessness, affliction, despair, and anxiety. Man has lost his basis, which he is in search of. It is this problem which has been given significant expression in

Camus’s writings.

In Sartre’s philosophy, man is alone and his mere existence is random in a meaningless world. He exists for no purpose. To find meaning, Sartre proposes that man must become God and create his own values ex nihilo (from nothing).

Man is the sole author of his choices and is responsible for the consequences of his actions. Sartre agrees with Nietzsche that humans are not determined by economic forces or by subconscious desires and he states that all man’s alibis are unacceptable. For an existentialist, to blame his failures on God, heredity, environment, or childhood trauma is the equivalent of sin. To do so is to live in

‘bad faith’ by trying to abrogate one’s responsibility. Sartre derides both sociology and psychology for making humans ‘playthings of hidden forces’ and attributes character to patterns formed by one’s own actions. Sartre suggests that for many, ‘life begins on the other side of despair’. It is through hardship and suffering that men are able to find the meaning of their own existences.

Ultimately, Sartre has placed man’s destiny within himself and, leaving him responsible for defending himself against existential angst and the dread of nothingness that haunts him. Resistance is the logical reaction to an absurd situation, and for Camus also, this is the essence of life.

Albert Camus’s writings pertaining to the themes and style have analyzed by scholars. Still, there appears to be a lacuna in the area of the research on the psychological consideration of feelings and emotions, which the existentialists call

‘the angst.’ So, the study focuses on the perturbed psyche of the major characters such as Meursault, Dr.Rieux, Father Paneloux, Rambert, Tarrou, Grand, and

Clamence, who are trapped in the quandary of absurdism by probing into the philosophy of existentialism as propounded by major existential thinkers. Camus has written three novels namely, The Stranger , The Plague , and The Fall . The

First Man and The Happy Death are autobiographies, which do not fall into the research. The three novels The Stranger , The Plague and The Fall are chosen for the research.

The thesis examines the existential angst of the major characters, who are trapped in the universe of absurd and the values that Camus upheld in the three major novels The Stranger, The Plague and The Fall . It also, analyses these novels with their respective intellectual, social-cultural and philosophical backgrounds.

Although, the reasons that make these protagonists to suffer varies, Meursault,

Dr.Rieux, Father Panleox, Rambert, Tarrou, Grand and Clamence share similar attitudes towards their fellowmen, social conventions and metaphysical issues in

some cases. In interpreting their ‘existential angst,’ the theories of Sartre and

Heidegger have been used. It also, tries to trace the parallelism between Western philosophy and Indian philosophy.

Thus, through the analyses of the major characters of the above-mentioned novels, the study aims to disclose how anxiety, in general, occupies a major place in the existential spheres of life in the present century and has become an inspiring universal source for the writers.

CHAPTER –II

Chapter- II

Existence Precedes Essence-The Stranger

Man first of all exists, surges up in the world and

defines himself afterwards….Man is not what he

conceives to be, but he is what he wills and

makes of himself . ( Being and Nothingness 13)

Technicians of human personality, especially sociologists and psychologists define man in their own perceptions and disciplinary studies. To a sociologist, man is defined only in terms of his relationships with others and the social dynamics within which he operates. A psychologist defines man in terms of his personality. The reality of his existence is determined by his total personality.

The theologian’s definition of man is more objective, seeing the reality of man’s existence only in relation to his subservience to his creator, God. However, the philosopher’s definition of man is subjective and to a certain extent complex. In other words, man can be anything or nothing. Man’s existence is not determinist in nature. Man, with his freewill, can create non-existence out of existence. This is the definition of man by existentialist philosophers. Jean Paul Sartre, the exponent of the philosophy of existentialism, defines man in the following words:

Existentialism maintains that, in man, and man alone, existence

precedes essence. This simply means that man first is, and only

subsequently is this or that. In a word, man must create his own

essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there

struggling there, that he gradually defines himself. ( Nausea 17)

Man, in Sartrean essence, is the creator of his own kismet and in so doing accepts the responsibility of his own actions, rational or otherwise. In Being and

Nothingness, Sartre distinguishes between two types of being: being-in-itself

(“en-soi”) and being-for-itself (“Poursoi”). Being-in-itself refers to objects in the world such as house, car, TV, knife, or hammer. The meaning or the essence of the object is built into the object itself and can be understood by looking at the object.

It means, the object reveals its essence. The being–for-itself stands for human consciousness and is applicable only to human beings. In Sartre’s term, being-for- itself signify man’s understanding of the future; however, unlike an object in the world, man can continually determine the essence or meaning of existence. Sartre says:

The in-itself has nothing secret; it is solid… it can encompass no

negations. It is full positivity. It knows no otherness; it never posits

itself as other-than-another-being. It can support no connection

with the other. It is itself indefinitely and it exhausts itself in being.

The objective fact of the being-in-itself of the consciousness of the

Other is posited in order to disappear in negativity and in freedom.

(Being and Nothingness 28-29)

Being-for- itself asserts, “Man is not what it is not and is not what it is”

(29). For Sartre, the concept of freedom forms the core of being-for-it self’s fundamental structure. From this structure, Sartre ebbs out ideas such as bad faith, authenticity, and situations.

This chapter, critically, examines The Stranger as an existentialist novel using different critical approaches, it analyses the personality of the protagonist,

Meursault, not only in terms of his quest for identity but also in terms of existentialism. The novel cinctures on loneliness of an individual, who feels anguish in the wake of his estrangement from the environment, tradition and from his true self. The novel, also, dwells into the problems of involvement in and detachment from the world. It, also, depicts the suffering of an individual who is cut off from a familial, social and cultural context and is lost in the intricate labyrinth of life. The novel portrays, further, his anguished quest for a way out.

The Stranger is, also, the novel, which is taken most often as the illustration of the philosophy of the absurd, which Camus sets forth in his essay The Myth of

Sisyphus . For Camus, life has no rational meaning or order. This notion bemuses people and they struggle continually to establish logical structure and meaning in their lives. The novel is a summon to reflection, an invitation to its readers to consider their own mortality and meaning of their existence. Sartre’s and

Heidegger’s concepts, such as choice, responsibility, bad faith and the concept of dasein have been used to study how Meursault is contended with a banal daily routine rejecting the transcendent values which brings him inexplicable woes and miseries pertaining to his existence.

Existentialism postulates that ‘existence precedes essence:’ it defines that man is a self-creator and therefore is responsible for his own existence and identity. Though the word self-creator elevates him to a higher position, it brings in him a sense of forlornness, anguish and despair. From existential point of view, it is observed that man tends to be in lax in terms of absolute values. The reason is human nature is not static and preconceived or fixed therefore, man, as Sartre puts it, “is condemned to be free” ( Existentialism and Human Emotion 15). He, further,

states: “What is at the very heart and center of existentialism is the absolute character of the free commitment, by which every man realizes himself” (47).

Sartre maintains that one is free within one’s situation while, at the same time, one is restricted by the situation itself. This means one is free to choose among alternatives within the situation; however, one is not free to choose the situation itself. Robert Solomon in From Rationalism to Existentialism refers Sartre’s choices that, “In so far as we are free to choose, Sartre tells us that we have transcendence; in so far we are determined by our situation Sartre tells us we have facticity”(274). Transcendence means that one has to rise above the situation in which one finds oneself. In other words, one is free to construct new values and characteristics, which are not in one’ facticity. Existential theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich, in A Courage To Be , states that, “Man is essentially…’free’ freedom not in the sense of indeterminacy but in the sense of being able to determine himself through decisions in the center of his being”(48).

Tillich states, freedom, for Sartre, means one cannot change the situation in which one finds oneself. For instance, one cannot change one’s biological parents or gender, but one is always free within this facticity to construct the essence or the meaning of one’s existence. In Phenomenology of Perception , Sartre explicates,

“Our freedom does not destroy our situation, but gears itself to it” (442).

Therefore, the situation determines the freedom in so much as the situation puts limitations on one’s freedom.

Although, Sartre’s concept of freedom is basically man’s freedom to choose, it does not mean that man has freedom of success. This is because external circumstances may hamper one’s choice and ability to reach one’s goal. In Being

and Nothingness , Sartre states, “Human-reality everywhere encounters resistance and obstacles which it has not created, but these resistance and obstacles have meaning only in and through the free choice which human reality is” (599). In

Existentialism is Humanism , Sartre reinforces his notion that man is completely responsible for his actions in the following way: “If existence really precedes essence, man is responsible for what he is. Thus, existentialism’s first move is to make every man aware of what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him” (3). Man is free to construct the meaning of his existence; this leads Sartre to claim that man is not pre-determined and therefore does not have a fixed human nature. Man is free to create himself and the meaning of his essence in the world. Man cannot simply discard the ‘essence’ that he creates for himself through choices and actions for a fresh start. They follow and haunt him throughout his life. In Sartre’s own terminology, “Each decision of the for-itself has created or engaged him to the world in tangible ways and the for-itself cannot pretend otherwise” (18).

In Sartre’s analysis of freedom the key concept is the ‘bad faith.’ His bad faith occurs when an individual ignores one’s freedom of choice and refuses to carry the burden of making a decision about a particular situation. Sartre claims that an individual can find himself exercising bad faith because he is tempted and pressured by the implications of freedom as well as the societal demands. Sartre, in Being and Nothingness , claims that at the core of bad faith lies the restrictive demand of society because it forces the individual to acclimatize into certain modes, which dictate the way an individual should act. Furthermore, it turns the individual into a kind of android where the individual performs a particular

function only. Society pressurizes man to linger within the confines of his role and this makes many to survive in a state of bad faith. Bad faith is not a mere accident, which happens to certain people, it is a permanent possibility for all human beings.

In other words, bad faith is a state of being in ‘self-deception’ about one’s own possibilities. So, it should be noted that the individuals could choose to bad faith as much as he has the choice to choose the other levels of existence, such as aesthetical, ethical or religious.

According to Sartre, human being is born in hollowness and leads a passive existence. But, when the individual becomes conscious of his state, the individual comes out of it by his act of will. The individual, also, exerts anguish, and revolt against it to make his existence meaningful in the bizarre world. Erich Fromm analyses these concepts in the context of man’s psychic needs in the following manner:

Man’s existential conflict produces certain psychic needs common

to all men. He is forced to overcome the horror of separateness, of

powerlessness and of lostness and find new forms of relating him to

feel at home. I have called these psychic needs of existential

because they are rooted in the very conditions of human existence.

They are shared by all men and their fulfillment is as necessary for

man’s remaining sane as the fulfillment of organic drive is

necessary for his remaining alive. (On the Ambiguity of Hope 304)

In existentialism, existence is given priority than essence. This means that existing objects and living beings are foremost; one’s idea of the essence of anything is derived from what one learns from the existing individuals. A person is

the sum of all the things he has ever done. At any jiffy, one is free to act according to one’s scruples, which is totally different from what others might have expected. One’s precedent experience, heredity, societal circumstances may influence one’s actions, but one is free to choose. One’s attitude to this freedom of choice can be different. Any individual with moral conscience can be termed as authentic being. The person’s act, such as moral acts, is authentic because it is something to which the person commits himself. On the contrary, the individual’s act is inauthentic if he/she does something simply by following others without making choice. The inauthentic shows flippancy and they lack commitment. The authentic being with freedom immerses oneself in the ravishment of choice.

Authenticity is a mark of freedom of choice, which is an important aspect for existentialist. There is no priori human essence; one continually defines oneself through one’s actions. A person defines himself/herself through his/her actions not only for the present, but also for the future. Only the careful selection of the choice determines the result. It is not possible to avoid the choice because no choice is, also, a choice. Sartre coins a term ‘condemned freedom,’ which paves way for irrepressible freedom. He writes this in his work Being and Nothingness as, “One is condemned to live in freedom and this is one of the unavoidable facts of human existence” (63). This experience of living in freedom leads one to the state called anxiety.

Like Sartre, Kierkegaard, too, believes that the concept of ‘freedom’ is prevalent in individual’s existence. Freedom gives the individual a choice to choose his/her level of existence. It, also, determines the level of existence, which can be-aesthetic, ethical, or religious. It should be noted that man’s free will or

volition determines his existence. If existence is predetermined, existentialism as a philosophy would not have come to exist. Even, Robert Solomon, in his book

From Rationalism to Existentialism points out that, “Freedom is the recurrent theme in every author who is identified with this movement” (279).

Heidegger’s definition of the concept of freedom as stated in introduction one is drawn from the concept of ‘facticity,’ which he explicates in Being and

Time . In Heidegger’s perception, facticity is equal to the concept of ‘throwness.’ It is a situation that any individual finds oneself in arbitrariness. Facticity is the arbitrary facts, which shapes individual’s particular situation. Both Heidegger and

Sartre point out that one is born into a situation over which one has no control.

This leads existentialists to reject ideas such as happiness, enlightened optimism, a sense of well-being and serenity.

An essential part of being human is being constantly aware of oneself in relation to the world around. Existentialists like Sartre, Kierkegaard and Heidegger points out that an individual is born into a situation over which the individual has no control. All one can do is to choose among alternatives within the situation. But in The Stranger, Meursault flounders to give himself an ‘essence’ as a ‘loving son’ or as a ‘criminal’.

Meursault’s predicament in The Stranger is the offshoot of Sartre and

Heidegger’s concepts of freedom, choice, responsibility and bad faith. These amalgamating concepts bring out how punctilious existence nurtures inexplicable woes and miseries in Meursault’s life. The Stranger concerns the everyday life of an ordinary man. The daily routine work lands man into a world of alienation in which his identifications, his relationships, his style of life and work are not

meaningfully co-related. Patrick McCarthy in his analysis of The Stranger argues that, “this feeling of absurdity arises out of the daily routine work” (75). Alienated from himself and fellow men, the novel’s enigmatic narrator, Meursault, questions the meaning and significance of human relationships, emotions, communication, and the daily choices of, what he calls, his “absurd life” ( The Stranger 121).

The possessions that man regards most valuable like virtue, relationships, truth, and the pursuit of knowledge and so on, are lost in the mundane moments of everyday life. David E.Cooper in Existentialism: A Reconstruction explains that the endless repetition of life brings dread, and an ironic feeling of anxiety often arises from the comfort of routine. He, further, states: “This sense of absurdity indicates that there is no final, rational determination of the large decision in life, of our ‘fundamental projects’” (155). Meursault, as a germane in the plot, exists as a passive, indifferent and detached narrator. He lacks the basic creed of life like loving, caring, speaking and thinking. Meursault muses that life is meaningless.

His queries do not give him a trig solution. They become minatory and condemn him to call his existence as ‘absurd.’ Normally, benign qualities like love, virtue, truth so on are considered to be treasures for man. Unfortunately, these riches lose their charm in mundane life.

The Stranger is divided into two parts. The first part revolves around

Meursault, a young shipping clerk, who begins a casual romantic relationship with a former co-worker named Marie, the day after his mother’s funeral. The second part highlights Meursault’s arrest, trial, and time in prison as he awaits his death sentence. Along with him, the novel brings out the passive, indifferent, and honest narrator. Meursault encounters a loss of meaning, when he realizes that his

choices, opinions, and actions do not produce any profound effect on the totality of human existence. He has an obtrusive fault in the eyes of society- he seems to lack the basic emotions and reactions that are required of him. Without coalescing himself with the society, he becomes an outsider and he observes the facts of life, death and sex from outside. Meursault’s pococurance to Marie’s love and his insouciance to his mother’s death or his killing of an Arab in the second part are seen as he is without proper reason. Even, when he is involved in a personal tragedy, which results in a frightening and unjust trial, he considers his own feelings and the actions of others with a calm and, almost, ironic truthfulness. For this reason, he is a stranger, detached and involved. It is worth noting here that

L`Etranger is translated as The Outsider . The novel seems to suggest that Camus does not want the readers to think of Meursault as the stranger, who lives ‘outside’ of his society, but of a man who is the stranger within his society. Based on this, the existential theory is applied to analyze Meursault’s character.

Meursault, a clerk around thirty, wishes to enjoy congruity in his life, and expects to have thoroughgoing in his life. Meursault’s wish to be a joie de vivre is shattered. So, he comes up against the universe that thwarts his desires. He has been aware, from the time he gave up his studies, that ambition is futile. He feels that his essence turns out to be a nugatory. He has to lurch in the monotonous repetition of tasks at work; Sundays spent watching people from his balcony. This life aggravates in him that life is absurd. The sense of the absurd and a subsequent feeling of resentment are there whenever man ceases to think and believe in a supernatural agent controlling human fate. It is to be noted that after the publication of Darwin’s theory people lost faith in God and moral values. The loss

of values makes one to sense absurdity in one’s life. Even in an age of universal faith, man has given expressions to such feelings. Faith has, always, been a species of absurdity for some. So, life becomes conundrum and suicide seems to be the only logical way out of this state. But, Camus opines that suicide cannot be the solution for man’s suffering and it is action alone that helps one to survive in an absurd world. He, further, states that to commit suicide is to surrender to the absurd. Existentialism as a philosophy, which deals with life and existence must make man understand that he owes responsibility for all his actions. In winsome world, the stultifying actions blooms in one’s mind a sense of resentment and absurd. At this point, it is Camus who lucidly marks the limitations of the absurd in the following lines: “Neither faith nor reason is reasonable in an absurd world.

One accepts the condition behind being an absurd, as lucid reason noting its limits” (The Myth of Sisyphus 49).

As Meursault’s hopelessness rises, he becomes conscious that he has no control over his life, which leads him to live a lackadaisical life. To state it differently, he does not care for the happenings that takes place around him and repudiates the societal customs and expectations. For instance, he receives a telegram, which informs the death of his mother. Meursault’s insouciance to the telegram that notifies him of his mother’s death is a striking example. Meursault narrates:

Mother died today. Or may be yesterday, I don’t know. I had a

telegram from the home: ‘Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow.

Yours sincerely.’ That doesn’t mean anything. It may have been

yesterday….I have fixed up with my employer for two day’s leave;

obviously, under the circumstances, he couldn’t refuse. Still, I had

an idea he looked annoyed, and I said, without thinking: ‘Sorry, sir,

but it’s not my fault.’ ( The Stranger 9)

These words uttered by Meursault in a detached tone show his character.

He is an emotionally nonchalant man. He neither feels grief over his mother’s death nor does he wails. Meursault’s behavior of this makes Sprintzen to comment as follows:

This is not the normal reaction of a son to the news of his mother’s

death. What kind of a person responds in this matter-of-fact way?

Are we not at first put off by such casualness? Perhaps even

scandalized by our initial encounter with Meursault? Is not this

Meursault a stranger to our normal feelings and expectations? We

sense a distance. ( Camus: A Critical Examination 23)

Indeed, Meursault creates a sense of distance and reveals his pococurante attitude not only by the way he reacts to the news, but also, to what he does after the news. His behavior shows that the news of the death of his mother is not an egregious one and he behaves as if nothing has happened.

He boards a bus to the old people’s home, where his mother used to live.

During the journey, he sleeps without worriment. When he arrives at the home, he refuses to see the body of his mother, which is contrary to the normal person’s behaviour. When his mother’s friends in the old age home are ushered into the room with the casket, Meursault says, “I saw them more clearly than I had ever seen anyone…it was hard for me to believe they really existed” ( The

Stranger 9). He, in laissez-faire attitude, sits by the side of the coffin, drinks

coffee, smokes a cigarette and dozes off in the room where his mother’s body lies. During the funeral procession, he focuses solely on the weather, the sun and the landscape, and relates how he has noticed, “For quite some time now the countryside had been alive with the humming of insects and the crackling of grass” (20). Then, he narrates the disturbing aspects of nature: “All around me there was still the same luminous sun drenched countryside. The glare from the sky was unbearable”(21). He, in addition, closely observes the attendees of the funeral rather than to mourn in the following manner:

Almost all the women were wearing aprons tied highly round their

waists, which made their swollen bellies stick out even more. I’d

never noticed before what huge paunches old women can have. The

men were almost all very thin and carrying walking sticks…I

couldn’t see their eyes, but only a faint glimmer among a nest of

wrinkles. (15)

During funeral, Meursault’s intense focus on the outward appearance of the people and his liking for the pulchritude reveals his edacious attachment to sensuousness. He, instead of reminiscing about his old days with his mother or praying for her soul, continues to revel attentively the surroundings. He, further, relates: “I also looked at the warden. He was walking in a dignified way, without a single pointless movement. A few beads of sweat were forming on his brow, but he didn’t wipe them off” (21). Moreover, after the burial of his mother, he feels

‘joy’ at the thought of “going to go to bed and sleep for a whole twelve hours”

(22). His nonchalant attitude after his mother’s death continues even, on the days after the interment.

Meursault flirts with Marie, a former colleague, and praises her pulchritude. He explains the physical pleasure with her, and equating it with the summer, the sky, the sun, and the water in the following way:

I was good and as if for fun. I let my head sink back onto her

stomach. She didn’t say anything and I left it there. I had the whole

sky in my eyes and it was all blue and gold. I could feel Marie’s

stomach throbbing gently under the back of my neck. When the sun

got too hot, she dived off and I followed. I caught her up, put my

arm round her waist and we swam together. (24)

Characteristically, as an absurd man, Meursault enjoys what is connected with the sensual and tangible. His daily life is devoid of any abstract ideas. He avoids abstract ideas or he detests it because of its weariness. Meursault is a pleasure seeker, like an Epicurean, which is evident from his love affair with

Marie. Moreover, whenever Marie raises a question of marriage, he tries to be evasive. In daily routine also, he wants to be freed from commitment and involvement. Meursault inclines to do the daily routine, takes a nap in the afternoons, has his lunch at the same restaurant and during leisure time spends the whole afternoon on his balcony, smoking, eating and observing the passers-by. As an interloper, he does not have much interaction with others and he behaves like a detached observer. This nature of Meursault is seen when he impartially observes others:

It was a beautiful afternoon. And yet the pavements were grimy and

the few people that were about were all in a hurry…I thought they

must be heading for the cinemas…the street gradually became

deserted… the sky clouded over… it gradually cleared again. But

the passing clouds had left a sort of threat of rain hanging over the

street, which made it gloomier. At five o’clock there was a lot of

noise. …People were gradually returning from their walks. The

street lamps suddenly came on …few stars that were appearing in

the night sky look quite pale. (25-28)

Through this passage, Meursault exposes himself as a lover of sensual world as well his insouciance towards human activity. He narrates only what he sees and does not attempt to pass judgments on the people he sees. Hence, his apathy is, also, evident in his avoidance of making any value judgment. He has freed himself of any kind of biases and evaluations. For instance, his neighbor

Salamano, always, imprecates and biffs his dog. While Celeste and other neighbour detest such dreadful acts, Meursault remains neutral, and he neither supports nor condemns the way Salamano treats his dog. Besides, everyone thinks that Raymond is a reprobate, but for Meursault, he is like anybody else. Therefore, he does not hesitate to chat with him. He is interested in Raymond’s talk, so he does not have any solid reason to avoid his company. Meursault extend his adhesion to Raymond to write a letter to his girl friend, which would reveal the infidelity of Raymond’s mistress. He, even, fulfills such an improper demand unhesitatingly. He incuriously narrates thus: “I did it rather haphazardly, but I did my best to please Raymond because I had no reason not to please him”(36).

Likewise, he accepts being “mates” with Raymond: “I didn’t mind being his mate and he really seemed keen on it” (36). These instances prove to be peculiar and displays how Meursault has absurd worldview. The world looks at Meursault as an

absurd man, and, ironically, he considers the world as absurd in which relationships seem to be cussed and gaucherie. In the face of a meaningless world, everything is at the same level; one can only have unconditional relationships and remain indifferent under such circumstances.

Meursault has a job that is compatible to exist. His facile work makes him to have an ‘ossified self.’ He prefers this kind of job because of his desire not to be questioned, for his responsibilities largely involved the solitary task of reading through bills of lading. For a purported sensualist who loves the sand and the sea, it should be Sunday that is the day on which he truly lives. But, for Meursault,

Sunday is the day that he cannot abide. The first Sunday that Meursault recounts his story, he spend the night with Marie, morning he sees that she is no longer there, and then he is seized by an unpleasant thought: “I remembered that it was

Sunday, and that bothered me: I don’t like Sundays” ( The Stranger 21). The reason behind his repugnance is more than any other day of the week, it is on

Sunday his consciousness is most likely to be thrown into self-reflection, which he wants to avoid because it is quite contrary to his temperament and, also wreckful to him. He becomes a sniveler who is suffered by his inability.

Basically, Meursault is a plod, who tries to skate on the surface of life without fulfilling his obligations. At nightfall, Meursault glance his image in the mirror, in which he sees only the corner of his table, a few pieces of bread, and his lamp, which relieved him: “It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over” (24). This statement of Meursault shows that to him Sundays turn out to be his bete noire because it nudges him to be a little bit reflective. In the mirror, it is quizzical; he sees material objects like table, bed, lamp rather than his own

countenance or image. Meursault as a canonical follows certain principles. He has tacitly adopted a policy of ‘stripping lucidity from desire,’ which means that he refuses to reflect, refuses to will and ultimately, refuses to choose (which itself is a choice ).

Meursault’s dispassionate response divulges his absurd outlook on life, he realizes that he cannot impose a meaningful pattern on life; Meursault with punctilious frame of mind rejects economic and social ambitions. He sees the lack of coherence in the world, and he refuses the usual abstractions that man places between himself and reality. For him, nothing matters, as all the ways of life are the same. So, Meursault values only the present sensation and concrete experience. His indifference is seen, when he abrogates the conventional norms in one’s life such as marriage, love or rituals. Meursault has opted for the earthly life, for the immediate course of events, and for a use of his intelligence only within those limited areas where he can find certainty.

He is condemned because his way of life is unacceptable to society.

Though, Meursault has his own ‘choice,’ critics tend to be reproachable for his values. Sprintzen says, “In Meursault’s life, no hierarchies of value are recognized” ( Camus: A Critical Examination 26). The insouciant attitude of

Meursault can again be observed when Marie asks him whether he loves her or not. His response is narrated in the following way: “I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so” ( The Stranger 38). His answer to Marie, though fatuous, proves to be an out- dare in his stance. Furthermore, upon

Marie’s marriage proposal he serenely replies:

I explained to her that it really didn’t matter and that if she wanted

to, we could get married…. She then remarked that marriage was a

serious matter. I said ‘No.’…She just wanted to know if I’d have

accepted the same proposal if it had come from another woman with

whom I had a similar relationship. I said ‘Naturally.’ (44-45)

Marriage is considered to be a sacred one but, his expressions such as,

“It didn’t mean anything” and “it really didn’t matter” prove him to be an incongruous man ( The Stranger 44). To Meursault, social conventions nurture only abstract concepts and wreak one to become work-shy. The wonted concepts, such as love, grief, ambition and commitment, are beyond his comprehension, as they do not titivate physical realities. Therefore, Meursault responds to the events mechanically and allows himself to be drawn into the sequence of events, which end in his disaster.

Meursault’s existential anguish is, also, apparent when he treats his life sans-ambition. Camus comments the haploid man as follows: “He lives with aims, a concern for the future or for justification…. He weighs his chances; he counts on ‘someday,’ his retirement or the labour of his sons” ( Notebooks 42).

However, according to Camus, to denigrate the life that one has and invent a better one is a sin, which means to refuse the present and hope for a future.

Meursault, as an example of Camus’s worldview, does not aspire for the future and is closely attached to the present moment.

This behavior of Meursault is apparent in the novel on two occasions, which, also, shows that he lives his life on the level of pure, unreflective experience. On the first occasion, Meursault is promoted and he is instructed to

join in a new branch office in Paris. After a short encounter in which Meursault expresses his indifference to the proposition, his employer responds that he suffers from a lack of ambition. Meursault tells:

I would rather not have upset him, but I couldn’t see any reason to

change my life. Looking back on it, I wasn’t unhappy. When I was

a student, I had lots of ambition like that. But when I had to give up

my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered. I

told him I was quite prepared to go; but really I didn’t care much

one way or the other.(The Stranger 41)

Meursault encounters, the limitations that the universe places upon his desires. He laments that he had many ambitions, when he was a student. But, he had to give up his studies to help his family. This makes him to feel that ambitions are futile. On the second occasion, shortly after Meursault kills the Arab, he expresses his mind overtly to one of the jurors when they asked him about his grief at the time of his mother’s death: “I answered that I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything” ( The

Stranger 65). The jurors and attorneys’ rational thinking and analysis are totally against his attitudes that he does not intend to participate in them. According to him, they are futile and ‘utterly useless.’ He completely rejects such inherent faculties in human beings and longs for unity, which he believes that he can attain only by being an unreflective person.

Meursault is labeled as an existentialist because of his pococurante behavior and bad faith. Meursault is without self, which means his refusal to

reflect, enables him to cognize the world in the peculiar way. He chooses to live his life on the level of ‘perceptible appearances’ rather than ‘reasoned arguments. The “self,” according to Hume is that, “When I enter most intimately into what I call myself…I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observer anything but the perception, the

‘self’ cannot be experienced” ( A Treatise of Human Nature 300).

Hume argues that “the self” as such is not something that can be experienced, and thus the term may not actually refer to anything at all. In response to Hume, Kant agreed that “the self” cannot be observed in perception. The ‘I’ that looks into ‘myself,’ according to Kant, is not going to find the self in a perception because it is the condition of the possibility of even having a perception. In response to Kant, Hegel asserts that the transcendental condition of the empirical self or ego is none other than an interpersonal framework, or what Hegel calls ‘spirit,’ which roughly is humanity writ large.

Hegel explains self-consciousness as follows:

Self-consciousness exists for self-consciousness; only so is it in

fact self-consciousness, for only in this way does the unity of

itself in its otherness become explicit for it. Each of us is the

result of our interactions with other selves and finally, spirit, the

collective self-understanding which itself is the result of a long,

complex socio-historical process” (Phenomenology of Spirit 110).

Meursault’s perceptions, as viewed in Hegel’s terms, are both solipsistic and without self. Beyond his obliviousness to others, Meursault is virtually without self. Although, he can technically narrate the various sensations he

experiences over time as his own, they do not have the feel of a unity for him.

He has faith in nothing except that which he experiences and senses. He is not a philosopher, a theologian or a thinker. Meursault exists, as he is not trying to be anything more than himself. He has no vaulting ambition in his life. Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus questions this kind of life . He questions: “How does one exist without any given purpose or meaning? Isolated from any logic, without an easy explanation for why one exists, there is what some call

‘existential angst’” (15). Man, like Meursault, lives in a world of illusion and self-deception. In their world, men denounce altruism. Herbert Fingarette observes:

The person who does not display care and concern for his

engagement, who does not accept responsibility for it, is the person

most ready to avow such engagements (viz., the youth who admitted

that he quite consciously abandoned his aging, ailing mother alone

in a car, since, as he readily also admitted, it made no real difference

to him what happened to her). The person who cares deeply is, on

the other hand, the one most tempted to disavow an engagement.

(Self-Deception 148)

The desire to decamp from freedom and personal responsibility is the hallmark of existentialism. By all appearances, Meursault does not even rise to the level of freedom or personal responsibility. The account that he gives of his life (for which he offers no excuses) surely suggests this, but, as the readers have seen, this existential belief itself must be understood as a free choice that was previously made. Though Meursault wants to disengage from choice, freedom

and responsibility it is observed that he himself has become a patsy to it under the pretext of bad faith.

Sartre offers the most enlightening framework for the understanding of the phenomenon, bad faith; it is inextricably intertwined with his phenomenological ontology. Meursault is in a form of bad faith. For Sartre, and for all existentialists, human beings have no inherent self but only what one freely make of oneself through one’s past choices, and what one will freely make of oneself through one’s future choice. Thus, on Sartre’s account, bad faith is the product of overemphasizing either the ‘facts’ about (‘facticity’) or freedom (‘transcendence,’ in the sense that one is always beyond one’s facticity). Persons in bad faith one-way or other move away from good faith.

Despite the dual nature of bad faith, however, there is one basic characteristic that all individuals in bad faith (irrespective of whether they are fleeing from freedom or facticity) share in common: they are emphasizing some human qualities at the expense of other human qualities.

Moreover, the particular set of human qualities that a person chooses

(or refuses to choose) at any point in time, whether the person is explicitly aware of these choices or not is consonant with that person’s self-conceptions, which are the result of one’s fundamental choice of oneself in the world. His dismembering of human qualities makes him to be the enunciator of bad faith.

What makes Meursault an example of bad faith is his unerring refusal to choose any human qualities. He has rejected nothing less than the intrinsic human responsibility of selfhood, thus negating the innate tension between freedom and facticity.

As Herbert Fingarettee contends in Self-Deception , bad faith is made possible by the basic distinction between pre-reflective and reflective consciousness. He further states: “Pre-reflective consciousness is continuously engaged in the world at innumerable levels, and it is well beyond our capacity to be aware of all of our engagements” (96). It is only when one ‘spells out’ one’s engagement (i.e. reflect on them) that one becomes aware of them. However, one does not spell out at random but rather implicitly seize up a situation to determine whether there is a compelling reason to spell out something or avoid spelling it out. Meursault’s ‘general policy commitment,’ demands that he spells out nothing at all. As a result, Meursault lives like a slab of malleable clay, a piece of ‘pre- social human wreckage’ who utterly lacks in all causal efficacy and, therefore, leads a pococurante life.

It is not just that Meursault denies his particular choices in bad faith, but, more radically, he denies (at least for him) the very concept of choice. However,

Meursault does makes choices, even if he does not articulate them as such, and all of these choices, in turn, relate back to his most fundamental choice, his ‘general policy commitment’ to be without reflection. As David Sherman states, in his work Camus and the Absurd, Meursault’s choice of general policy commitment, which means to be without reflection, is born of the belief that in an indifferent universe nothing makes any difference. Meursault’s ‘general policy commitment’ can be viewed as a form of ‘metaphysical suicide.’ Camus uses the term

“metaphysical suicide”(54) in his work The Myth of Sisyphus to elucidate the fact that man in order to escape from the worldly tribulations they enter into ‘leap of faith,’ which according to him is a metaphysical suicide. Metaphysical includes

nature of freedom, personal responsibility, and self-identity, which is precisely the sorts of things that Meursault rejects as an escapist in the face of what he takes to be an indifferent universe.

The major two incidents that have happened in Meursault’s life show how he resorts to bad faith. Meursault blames Nature for his decline in life. To him, the

‘unfathomable sun’ that dominates the two events that leads to his ruin. First, at his mother’s funeral, at which Meursault doubts the existence of those around him, who sound like “parakeets” ( The Stranger 5), he speaks only about the sun and nothing else. He, not only, ceaselessly speaks of the heat, light, and discommode that it generates, but in a highly uncharacteristic fashion, he also, speaks of its effects in the following manner: “with the sun bearing down, making the whole landscape shimmer with heat, it was inhuman and oppressive” (15). On another occasion, Meursault feels that the excessive scorching heat of the sun plays a vital role in his life. He blames that the obtrusiveness of the sun that culminate in the

Arab’s death:

The heat was beginning to scorch my cheeks, beads of sweat were

gathering in my eyebrows. The sun was the same as it had been the

day I’d buried Maman…. All I could feel were the cymbals of

sunlight crashing on my forehead…everything began to reel…. My

whole body tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver.

(58-9)

Even, when he is questioned by the judge about his motive of the crime, he places the culpability on the sun in the following manner: “Fumbling a little with my words and realizing how ridiculous I sounded, I blurted out that it was because

of the sun” (103). Meursault is a type of man who does not discern the essence of hope. For him, death is absurd; he kills the Arab without any particular reason. In his eyes, the sun is as much responsible for the Arab’s death as he is himself. To

Meursault, who sees the universe as ‘indifferent,’ the experience of the sun is the experience of pure meaninglessness and ambiguity therefore it is “inhuman and oppressive”(105). To him, sun is “crashing on his forehead” (106), instead of enlightening his mind. But, Meursault’s gunning down of the Arab takes place not because of sun. He shoots the Arab out of his own choice, which has come out of his selflessness or bad faith. The following incident before his killing of the

Arab, further, typifies how he is obsessed with making choices unwittingly. Even if Meursault is unaware of these choices by virtue of his refusal to either reflect or explicate, he is still responsible for them by his anterior ‘general policy commitment,’ that is his basic choice of not to reflect.

The scene with the Arab elucidates that he is making choices. After the altercation with the Arabs, in which Raymond was slashed, Meursault chooses not to follow Raymond up the stairs of the bungalow, although his whole body as he states: “Ringing from the sun, unable to face the effort it would take to climb the wooden staircase” (56). Meursault has the choice of avoiding the murder by going inside the bungalow but, in spite of the intense heat, he decides to walk back to the beach. He says: “To stay or to go, it amounted to the same thing. A minute later I turned back toward the beach and started walking” (56-7). When Meursault walks on the beach, he finds the sun intolerable, which he explains, “all that heat was pressing down on me and making it hard for me to go on…. I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists in my trouser pockets, and strained every nerve in order to

overcome the sun” (57). As Meursault progresses, he sees the Arab who goes to take the knife from his pocket, and Meursault, in reaction, grips Raymond’s revolver. There is the last opportunity for Meursault to avoid a confrontation with the Arab. As Meursault observes:

It was this burning, which I couldn’t stand anymore, that made me

move forward. I knew that it was stupid, that I wouldn’t get the sun

off me by stepping forward… and the Arab drew his knife. At this

point, the trigger gave; and then fired four more times at the

motionless body. I was conscious only of the cymbals of the sun

clashing on my skull, scarring my eyelashes, and gouging into my

eyeballs. (59 )

In this incident, each detail regarding Meursault’s physical state before he shoots the Arab implies as if Meursault is not responsible for the death of the

Arab. He does not even want to admit the fact that he shoots the Arab, instead, he states, “the trigger gave.” It is clear, though he blames the sun for his actions, only his choice instigates him to gun down the Arab. He is unreasonably removed from reality and because of the oppression the sun imposes on him, he says he cannot think and act tactfully. Meursault’s this nature emphasizes the irrationality of man’s existence in the universe. In an absurd world, man under some pressures may find himself cut off from everything and perform an act that can be considered as criminal, which is done without any motivation. Camus, in The

Myth of Sisyphus, explains a similar situation as Meursault experiences, regarding

the absurd condition of man and the alienating nature of the universe in the following way:

At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills,

the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees this very minute

lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them,

henceforth more remote than a lost paradise. The primitive hostility

of the world raises up to face us across millennia…that denseness

and that strangeness of the world is the absurd. (11)

Similarly, Meursault finds himself in a strange world when the sun turns against him. Meursault’s own rendition of the events immediately preceding the

Arab’s death indicates that he is making choices throughout this episode. Since, he is in the form of bad faith he states that the ‘trigger gave’ rather than he pulled the trigger. Still, it is Meursault himself who is exclusively responsible for orchestrating the events that led to the death of the Arab. Sartre’s bad faith takes on the same line that of Aristotle. In his Republic , Aristotle states that man is responsible for his actions. Though Meursault feels, his actions are done in ignorance, he must still be held guilty because, he is responsible for his choice of being without reflection.

Meursault is imprisoned for the murder of the Arab, where his actions and choices are questioned. When Meursault is being tried for murder, he is forced to justify what he has done. He is on trial as a human being, as a nonconformist and an enemy of society, for not having wept at his mother’s funeral than for a specific murder. He feels no responsibility or remorse over the murder of the Arab. When questioned by the Magistrate, he says, “Was I

sorry for what I had done? I thought about it for a minute then said that more than sorry I felt kind of annoyed” ( The Stranger 70). Meursault is serene and direct in his answers and he chooses not to disguise his true feelings and notions. Absurd mind, as indicated, in The Myth of Sisyphus, requires

“integrity” (49); Meursault chooses to be honest without concealing his emotions. The lawyer warns Meursault that his insouciant attitude at his mother’s interment makes the jurors against him and he advises Meursault to amend his statements about his mother’s funeral. But, he replies frankly:

By nature my physical needs often distorted my feelings. On the

day of my mother’s funeral I was very tired and sleepy. So I was

not fully aware of what was going on. The only thing I could say for

certain was that I’d rather mother hadn’t died. But my lawyer didn’t

seem pleased. He said, ‘that’s not enough’. He thought for a

moment. Then he asked me if he could say that I’d controlled my

feelings that day. I said ‘No, because that’s not true.’ ( The Stranger

65)

The lawyer is disturbed by Meursault’s inability to tell about how he felt at his mother’s funeral, yet, Meursault is determined to maintain his honesty.

Throughout his trial, he neglects all opportunities to pretend to grieve over his mother’s death or to express his compunction for the man he shot. His ingenious answer proves that he is unpretentious and unreflective. The Magistrate makes every possible effort to make Meursault remorseful and he even waves his crucifix

in front of him. But, Meursault shows his audacity and narrates the Magistrates attempt as follows:

‘Do you know what this is?’…. Then he spoke very quickly and

passionately, telling me that he believed in God, that he was

convinced that no man was so guilty that God wouldn’t pardon him,

but that he must first repent and so become like a child whose soul

is empty and ready to embrace everything. (67-68)

Inspite of this warning, Meursault boldly accepts that he is an atheist. He replies that he does not believe in God. The Magistrate is perturbed to hear that he is an agnostic. Meursault narrates the magistrate’s reaction in a calm way:

He sat down indignantly. He told me that it was impossible, that all

men believed in God, even those who wouldn’t face up to Him.

That was his belief, and if I should ever doubt it his life would

become meaningless. ‘Do you want my life to be meaningless?’ he

cried. As far as I was concerned, it had nothing to do with me and I

told him so. (68)

In prison, it is a customary thing to invite Chaplains to offer a sort of a sermon to the convicts. To Meursault, the appearance of the Chaplain is ‘unwanted one’ and he refuses to listen to his sermon. Meursault, striking a Nietzschean pose, repeatedly, castoffs the Chaplain’s appeal that he should turn to God. He is highly critical about the term ‘sin’ and he is ready to face death. His skepticism shocks the Magistrate because he believes that God controls the cosmos and life is meaningful only through God’s existence. On the other hand, for Meursault, life is absurd and no supernatural existence can help him. He depicts a revolt against the

concept of divinity and asserts that only man can make his life meaningful and that he is entirely responsible for his destiny. This kind of Meursault’s provocation makes one to feel that he is a nonchalant man. He neither ruminates the past nor anticipates the future. He is worried about the present. Therefore, he continues to live the life of indifference. When a Chaplain appears in his cell to plead with

Meursault to renounce this world and turn to God, Meursault rages against the

Chaplain and yells at him that all his shadowy rewards are not worthy to him.

Meursault’s self-deception forces him to deny his responsibilities. His, so called, ‘general policy commitment,’ induces him to reject his personal and social responsibilities. As a result, Meursault is easily depicted as a ‘monster’ by the prosecutor and, therefore, easily convicted. He gets death sentence because of his denial of germane social values. Meursault has nothing but time to reflect on the trial and his impending death as he waits execution in his prison cell. Thus, when the prison guard informs Meursault that he has been in prison for five months, which is like “the same unending day,” he tells that, “I looked at myself in my tin plate and my reflection seemed to remain serious even though I was trying to smile at it” (81). Meursault even in this situation tries to obscure his emotions.

Meursault’s life in the penitentiary is devoid of physical realities such as the sea, the sun, the sand and Marie, which he longs for. He feels happy when the day ends without the sounds of the footsteps approaching his cell because he knows that these sounds are the signs of the men, who will take him to the gallous.

Moreover, he tries to seek the help of legal authorities to set himself free from the conviction. However, he soon realizes that his execution is inevitable and there is no difference between dying by an execution or of natural causes. Meursault

accepts it without mal-content. He gives himself the task of enumerating the objects that are in his room, reads the story of a Czechoslovakian man, sleeps, eats and watches the changes of light and darkness. To him, these things make his restricted life meaningful. In this way, he succeeds in adapting himself to his new life. He realizes that the memories of a day with joie de vivre on earth would be enough to enable him to live a hundred years in prison without being bored. He comes to the resolution that there are others unhappier than him. He says, “You ended up getting used to everything” (75). Meursault’s calm attitude and his lack of grief over his mother’s death threaten the moral basis of society; hence, they neglect him. His predicament is spelt clearly in the following lines:

Things were happening without me even intervening. My fate was

being decided without anyone asking my opinion. From time to

time I’d feel like interrupting everyone and saying. ‘But all the

same, who’s the accused? It’s important being the accused. And

I’ve got something to say! ‘Was I a secretive sort of man?’(95)

During his trial, Meursault neither gives explanation about his actions nor make them understand his problems. He takes recourse to silence and self- deception to conceal his predicaments. He ignores the consequences for his action and does not try to find a way out. He is, ultimately, on the thrash hold of gibbet.

He realizes that he is going to die sooner than other people. Meursault expresses his notion of death in the following way: “But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying…since we’re going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter”

(114). Even when he faces death, he projects coldness. Meursault’s situation

should cause him to feel apprehensive and distress, but as he is moving through a phase of bad faith, he shows no reaction to his death sentence, and displays no signs of dread or fret. Even the Magistrate is dazed by the behavior of Meursault and he states: “I have never seen a sound as hardened as yours. The criminals who have come before me have always wept at the sight of this image of suffering (69).

Though the situation faced by Meursault makes one to feel grisly, he totally evinces his audacity to confirm his belief in bad faith. Meursault is indifferent to suffering or pain, and, according to him he is not responsible for his crime. In this way, Meursault does not share the same emotions as the most individuals have.

Meursault is branded as a ‘stranger’ the reason for being called so is his remorselessness of his crime.

According to Meursault, in an absurd world hope does not exist and he cannot delude himself by hoping for the evasion of death. His denial of hope and acceptance of death can be interpreted as his revolt, which is another characteristic that makes Meursault an alienated man. His obsession to be a revolt entails him to live a life without hope and without religious faith. Sprintzen, a critic, discusses the absurd in the following way: “For the absurd man, the supernatural seems at best an unsubstantiated hope, at worst a vain delusion. In either case, it is distraction that threatens to rob us the weight, the beauty, the intensity of the present, until death takes it from us forever” ( Camus: A Critical Examination 20).

Therefore, divergent to the conventional man, who believes in God and the promise of an eternal life, Meursault is an outsider who rejects both abstractions.

Further, he views the other world as: “One which would remind me of this life”

(The Stranger 113). For him, it is inconceivable that there can be another world

better than this one; therefore, he is indifferent to any philosophy of life, which promises him another life. This, clearly, shows that he gives importance to the present world rather than the ‘other world.’ However, the Priest persistently tries to draw Meursault into the realm of the believers by trying to convince him of the existence of God. Though, all berates Meursault, including the Chaplain, to believe in God, he continues to be disembodying from it. This makes the Chaplain to addresses him thus:

I know how the suffering oozes from these stones. I’ve never

looked at them without a feeling of anguish. But deep in my heart I

know that even the most wretched among you have looked at them

and seen a divine face emerging from the darkness. It is that face

which you are being asked to see. How can you not believe that He

suffered for your sake?’ (113)

Camus is against the concept of urging man to believe God or repent for his sins. Absurd man’s belief, including Meursault falls on the same line with Camus and voices: “He fully does not understand that nothing is obvious. He does not understand the notion of sin, he does not have enough imagination to visualize that strange future; and the notion of an immortal life seems to him an idle consideration” ( The Stranger 39). This makes Meursault obstinately reject the priest’s abstract appeals and he replies: “I told him that I’d been looking at these walls for months. There wasn’t anything or anyone in the world I knew better….

I’d never seen anything emerging from any oozing stones” (113-114).

So, it is understood that a recluse, like Meursault, will have any belief, which is not concrete. Meursault, the believer of earthly existence, continues to

declare that: “I didn’t have much time left. I didn’t want to waste it on God”

(114). Iterating this kind of statement proves that Meursault is vivified in mundane world. His outburst against the established beliefs, also, exemplifies Meursault’s anguish and his revolt. Meursault tries to justify his actions in the following way:

I’d been right, I was still right. I was always right. I’d lived in a

certain way…. I’d done this and I hadn’t done that. I hadn’t done

one thing whereas I done another. So what? What did other

people’s death or a mother’s love matter to me, what did his God or

the lives people chose or the destinies they selected matter to me….

What did it matter if he was accused of murder or then executed for

not crying at his mother’s funeral? (115-116)

Camus is always for giving a realistic portrayal of modern man. His portrayal of the pangs and sufferings of the bourgeois is based on his existential thinking. His men, though are always condemned by the society, show their defiance. Camus’s writing mainly focuses on the incomprehensibility of the world or makes an attempt to rationalize an irrational, disorderly world. The characters in

Camus’s novels are thrown into this world wherein they are compelled to confront absurd situations leading to disintegration of mind and self. The consciousness of absurdity stirs in them a deep sense of anxiety. According to Camus, absurdity emerges from anxiety and this initiates our break with everyday routine activities.

W.H. Auden’s poem ‘The Age of Anxiety’ expresses the modern man’s anxiety, which is similar to Meursault’s in the following lines:

Violent winds

Tear us apart. Terror scatters us

To the four coigns. Faintly our sounds

Echo each other, unrelated

Groans of grief at a great distance. ( Collected Poems 117)

Meursault’s question of his existence is the very cause of his anxiety. To him, the reasonable seems irrational and the familiar begins to appear strange.

This probing makes him not reflect on anything. Meursault, thus, seems to be the concrete example of Hume’s philosophical conception of the ‘I’, the ‘I’ of isolated perceptions that cannot find its ‘self’ in any of them. One cannot have a lively sensual experience in life if one lives a pure unreflective life, like, Meursault.

Camus gives a realistic portrayal of a modern man’s existential thinking.

He, finally, accepts his social role, not by feeling guilt or sin, but by defending his life and by taking a defiant attitude towards the society that has condemned him. The manner in which Meursault leads his life means he does not come to terms with his existence and lives out the life of ‘everyday man.’ He is unaware of his possibilities and finite existence, until he is condemned to death. This is an important factor in Heidegger’s notion of the authentic being. There is an emphasis on accepting mortality and experiencing the consequent emotions such as anxiety and guilt, and this will lead one to an authentic existence.

In essence, to exist authentically, there is a requirement to be aware of the nature of one’s existence that men are finite beings who have a responsibility to recognize their potentialities regardless of their meaningless existence. One must, also, question what it means to be oneself. According to

Sartre, human beings “possess a consciousness of self and hence are able to create and re-create themselves” ( Being and Nothingness 195). It seems

applicable to suggest that if one embraces negative emotions as well as positive ones, one can establish a sense of belonging, liberation and individuality.

Emotions allow for adaptation to the social environment and integration.

Furthermore, the instinctual nature of emotions creates enthusiasm and excited fleeting experiences that can shape existence. By eliminating negative emotions, one would become disillusioned of their finitude. Therefore, it seems essential that one must embrace the negative emotions as to have any chance of avoiding isolation to take control of emotional life. A confrontation with death and with freedom inevitably leads the individual into anxiety. Death is the most distinct example of man’s isolation. Mostly, men desire to deny the final act and live as though they are eternals. Heidegger determines that if man adopts the correct attitude towards death, he can gain a reasonable understanding of his existence.

Meursault finds a perverse pleasure in rejecting society, which has confined him to meaningless tasks like Sisyphus. The last line in the novel says that he “had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate” (123). Meursault is responsible for the events that have lead to his demise. This becomes all the more apparent once he is imprisoned, in jail; Meursault begins to reflect and consequently develops a self. As Sartre points out, Meursault does make choices even if he himself is not aware of the choice, his freedom to choose, which can perpetually manifest itself in choosing not to choose, is inescapable.

Due to his inner disintegration wrought by his radical bad faith, he is not able

to articulate the reason for his choices, and thus attributed them to something outside himself.

One experiences anxiety at confronting the world’s loneliness, mercilessness, and nothingness. One becomes overwhelmed by the sense of lonesomeness and the lack of intimacy one encounter. Anxiety is a negative emotion, which serves a purpose for human existence. People generally try to avoid by fleeing into bad faith. In terms of a social context, slipping into bad faith requires the individual to maintain a facade thus never totally committing to relationships. Man is continuously looking for meaning, to find a connection with others and the world. But, he fails miserably to establish a reason for living or to reveal an intelligible concept, which explains the world beyond doubt. Consequently, man does not recognize the abilities, which the self possesses. Man does not embrace his freedom and easier alternatives are sought in order to avoid anxiety that is why man, often, slips into bad faith. Meursault is in bad faith; he rejects (at least for him) the very concept of selfhood. This extreme rejection of self-responsibility and all that it entails is at the root of

Meursault’s strangeness.

When Meursault is asked to speak and clarify his motivation for the crime, he denies having returned to the beach with the deliberate intention of killing the

Arab, but no one listens to him. In fact, Meursault is not convicted of the murder he committed but, is convicted because of the indifferent attitude he displayed at his mother’s funeral. The Prosecutor announces that, “He had no place in a society whose most fundamental rules he ignored, nor could he make an appeal to the heart when he knew nothing of the most basic human reactions” (99). Hence,

the Magistrate proclaims that Meursault has committed a premeditated murder and deserves to be sentenced to death by guillotine. Meursault is basically conceding here that it is resentment, a resentment directed at life itself that motivated his bid for self-destructive nature.

Out of the meaningless repetition of his life, Meursault seems to experience what David E.Cooper calls “existential angst,” an “experience of groundless and the absence of anything holding one in place and anchoring one’s actions”

(Existentialism: A Reconstruction 130). This feeling of angst comes over him more while he solitarily awaits his execution. Everyday is the same for him and in prison he feels that his life is “coming to a standstill there” ( The Stranger 72).

Furthermore, he is alone and baseless during his trial- he has no witnesses, no explanation for his actions, and no evidence to support him. He is, as Edward

Joseph Hughes fittingly observes: “A universal, angst-ridden hero becoming the victim of the judicial system” ( Writing Marginality in Modern French Literature

106). Unlike the jury, lawyer, priest, and judge, his groundlessness leaves him without a telos in the social context, and the only thing that he can be certain is his individuality and temporary existence. In the cell, he thinks “But I was sure about me … sure of my life and sure of the death it had waiting for me” ( The Stranger

120).

CHAPTER –III

Chapter - III

Essence of Existence- The Plague

Don’t you agree that we are responsible for the absence of values?

What if we who all come out of Nietzscheanism, nihilism, and

historical realism, what if we announced publicly that we were

wrong; …we shall do what has to be done to establish and illustrate

them. Don’t you think this might be the beginning of hope? (Note

books 145-46)

Albert Camus’s conversation, concerning political ethics and moral values in the company of fellow intellectuals Jean- Paul Sartre, Arthur Koestler, and

Malraux, reveals that he is deeply troubled by the absence of life affirming values.

The laxity on the part of the people makes one to ruffle about the absence of values. The truculent history of twentieth century Europe proves that his concern is genuine and legitimate. Highbrow person is of the view that the subversion of moral values by political or philosophical scriveners tends to deluge the society.

Camus is pained to see the fact that writers during the twentieth century are muckrakers and self-seekers, who tousle the political and philosophical spheres by their theories . Furthermore, Camus suggests that intellectuals or artists have the ability and responsibility to elucidate these values and their source.

To Camus, the establishment of values is important because of the total indifference shown towards the value of human life during his own time. Life on earth is dominated by global terrorism, and technological enslavement, which alienates man from the world and places him in dilemma of embracing the values.

Camus, an aplomb writer, is haunted by the plight of mankind and their values,

which guides his writings, are worthy of examination. These issues prove to be uberous ideas in the field of research. The chapter examines the prevailing values that Camus upheld in the novel The Plague and makes a study of major characters to prove that they are existentialists in Heideggerian and Sartrerian terms using the themes of death, alienation, and bad faith. Further, it studies how the characters in the novel are inclined to deny the cruelty of their condition and hide themselves in their illusory world governed by habit. Camus presents a contrast in the novel between the spiritual and mundane life, and focuses on the vision of better society, which is based on human values. It studies the existential anguish and the cries, through characters such as Dr.Rieux, Father Paneloux, Rambert, Tarrou and

Cottard.

Camus’s writing, The Myth of Sisyphus, is dedicated to establish a conscious recognition of the absurd. The purpose of The Myth of Sisyphus is to determine, whether suicide is a logical reaction to the absurdist consciousness.

Camus expatiates that suicide is an illogical reaction for the man who realizes that life is absurd. The discovery of this absurd or meaninglessness leads one to revolt, which replaces empty forms with authentically significant acts. In The Plague, the notion of absurdity is presented as a collective experience. In the novel, all characters share Meursault’s struggle. The symbol of shared suffering or pathos is a major theme in the novel. Pathos is what men have in common, however variable it may be in its aspects and intensities. Pathos designates a passive experience, and not an action. Pathos is what happens to man, what he suffers, what befalls him fatefully and what touches him in his existential core.

Man’s imbroglio comes out of perplexity. The diurnal commitment in life makes one to probe whether, beyond the particular projects and goals of everyday living, one’s life has meaning. They worry what sort of purpose makes their lives fully meaningful. This embrocation makes some to conclude that life is futile and incongruous. Camus, an enfant terrible, is deeply concerned with the quandary of human suffering in a world of nonchalance. In The Plague, Camus is engrafted with the collective response of people to catastrophe when a large city in Algeria is isolated due to an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Although, the effort to alleviate and prevent human suffering seems to make little or no difference in the ravages of the plague, Camus asserts that perseverance to tragedy is a noble struggle even if it fails to make an appreciable difference. The struggle, which people undergoes, is not against the disease but against human condition . Such catastrophes test the tension between individual self-interest and social responsibility. Diseases in literature have been used as a metaphor by writers such as Sophocles, Boccaccio and Defoe and are expressed by Susan Sontag in the following manner:

Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which

treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance. First, the

subjects of deepest dread (corruption, decay, pollution, anomie,

weakness) are identified with the disease. The disease itself

becomes a metaphor. Then, in the name of the disease (that is, using

it as a metaphor), that horror is imposed on other things. The disease

becomes adjectival. ( Illness as Metaphor 58)

Susan Sontag explores the ways in which tuberculosis and cancer have had the “the widest possibilities as metaphors for what are felt to be socially or morally wrong” (60). It is observed that the plague like tuberculosis or cancer, though eradicated in the West after its last spectacular appearance in Marseilles in 1720, has continued to kill millions in the Third World into this century. The plague, whether bubonic, septicemia, or pulmonary – has always been (like tuberculosis and cancer) a horridly mysterious and impenetrable essence, whose pathological might is made even more unsettling by its invisibility. Given the enigmatic and unpredictable nature of plague, symbols have been projected onto the face of this detrimental predator in order to explain or justify its catastrophic biological, social, economic, and political consequences.

Literature uses plague as a vehicle for allegory, and the interpretive bent is usually religious: plague is the punishment of sinful people by the wrath of Divine.

This meaning of plague is enlaced in Book 1 of The Iliad and in the opening scenes of Sophocles’ Oedipus . Boccaccio in his Decameron places the storytellers near a plague-stricken Florence that suffers, “because of God’s just wrath as a punishment to mortals for our wicked deeds” ( 3). The signposts of plague as a symbolic vehicle are relatively obtrusive in Daniel Defoe’s narrative. Camus’s

The Plague is more indirect about what plague ‘means’, preferring ambiguity and multiple possibility to the narrow symbolism of single doctrine. Readings of his plague have included cosmic alienation, human indifference, and the abstract logic of the Marxist-Hegelian theory of history, Nazi occupation of France, and man’s inclination to abstraction in edifying manner.

Camus no longer explores ways of living in accord with its logic; rather, it lives on in his thought as a practical problem. This idea is expressed in his work

Letters to a German Friend , where he writes: “I merely wanted men to rediscover their solidarity in order to wage war against their revolting fate. [This] revolting fate is the metaphysics of the Absurd, now understood as a practical problem”(54).

Camus has come to believe that “waging war” effectively against the absurd requires human solidarity. Camus asserts, “Terror has several faces, and the reproach…that The Plague can apply to any resistance against any tyranny”

(Lyrical and Critical Essays 340).

The Plague elicits the story of a fight: not a fight against a disease, not a fight against German soldiers, but a fight against the nonchalance in the face of human suffering. Every man responds to this in his own manner, and this reaches to the heart of the Existential philosophy – it is actions that truly define a man.

Man lives in his own shell, which is devoid of propitiation and shows a little amount of gentleness that one cannot exuviate from it. Camus believes that man is more than just a shell and there is some basic worth in him. Further, Camus believes that there is a jejune goodness in every man. But, man in the world witnesses only indifference and inaction. Mankind fails to act on the goodness.

Camus addresses this insouciance in The Plague .

Camus has written The Plague during World War II, a tumultuous time in history. Camus witnesses the energumen of pococurante even before world war.

Camus is flabbergasted by the way Hitler and his entourages seize the lands and buildings of other nation. Unfortunately, France, Camus’s homeland, also, has come under the control of Germany. So, the devastating events that take place in

history prompt Camus to write this novel The Plague . The deadly war, Camus feels, has spread the disease. The war, according to Camus comes out of mortals’ indifference towards other human beings. The attack or the events of the war does not shell shock him. But, what entangles him is the insouciance attitude of man, which is the cause of gruesome war. Camus’s aim is not to change the people of

Europe but to open their eyes to indifference. Camus, through the character

Rambert, anguishes the loss of love as: “We – mankind – have lost the capacity for love” ( The Plague 149). Rieux, the physician in the novel, considers the plague

“as never ending defeat [he adds] it’s no reason for giving up the struggle” (118).

Camus’s, The Plague , is not just for the population of Europe in the 1940s, or for those who experienced World War II, but for all mankind. Camus is aware of the truth that man in all ages faces this struggle and he tries to show them the true path, to what his character Tarrou calls ‘sainthood.’

Man’s life, always, is valorized by anxiety. Too much of anxiety, sometimes, may trigger one to face life in terms of affiche to death. According to some, the inevitability of death gives a satisfying meaning to one’s life. But, people, with raison d’ etre envisages life as meaningless without death. Camus regards death as a means of intensifying the joy of life. Man, who understands death, Camus, feels is an enlightened one because he is ready to face the oddities in his life audaciously and he is geared up to face any contingency in life including death. His characters seem to treat life as a duty to be endured rather than enjoying it. Existentialists, like Sartre and Heidegger, have a similar attitude towards death. To Sartre and Heidegger, like Camus, death is the finality, which transforms man into nothing.

The concept of ‘death,’ can be studied under Heidegger’s concept of

“Dasein.” He derives the word ‘Dasein’ from two German words, namely ‘Da’ which means ‘here’ and ‘Sein’ which means ‘Being.’ Therefore, the word

‘Dasein’ is Heidegger’s technical expression for man, which means, “being here” and can be interpreted as “What does it mean for me to be in the world?” or, from a different perspective, “What does it mean for me to exist?”( Being and Time 112). Man’s existence on earth is determined by temporality with death as its inseparable companion. The term “temporality” in existential theory as Heidegger states: “The span between full adult consciousness and the point, which comes for every human being, when there will be no more time”

(Being and Time 207). Dasein or existence, specifically, denotes human existence, and makes explicit the fact that human existence is only temporary.

In addition to the characteristic of temporality, Heidegger believes that one’s future is always “Not-yet” ( Being and Time 212).

Heidegger’s analysis of death raises the question as to the possibility of how to grasp Dasein as a whole. Many existential thinkers believe that the past, present and future become one, and the essence or meaning of Dasein becomes fixed. Heidegger originally maintained that Dasein as a whole can only be grasped, once our lifetime is completed. Latter, he changes his philosophical position on death when he has introduced the concept of ‘Being-towards-death’ as a mode of existence in the world that allows man the “interiorization of death” as a way of living ( Being and Time 302). Heidegger’s analysis of death and his ‘Being-towards-death’ keep his theories pinioned on the awareness that all human beings die eventually. He maintains that the awareness of death

provides an explicit possibility of authenticity. It does so by providing meaning for Dasein through the recognition of one’s finitude. This recognition of one’s finitude and the certainty of death create an anxiety in man from which one seeks to escape.

In Being and Time , Heidegger notes the possibility of anxiety disrupting the recognition and acceptance of Dasein, noting that “the state of mind which can hold open the utter and constant threat to itself arising from Dasein’s own – most individualized Being, is anxiety” (310). Heidegger, in the following lines, expresses how man (the dasein) is encountered by natural disaster:

All entities whose kind of Being is of a character other than

Dasein’s must be conceived as unmeaning, essentially devoid of

any meaning at all. Anticipation reveals to Dasein its lostness in

the they-self …as Dasein encounters it can, assault Dasein’s

Being; natural events, can break in upon us and destroy us.

(Being and Time 193)

Heidegger feels that the onset of natural events makes one to shudder and resort to absurd existence. He says that, natural events like deadly diseases destroy man’s life as ‘absurd’. He, further, says: “Death, as the end of Dasein, is Dasein’s own most possibility-non-relational, certain and as such indefinite, not to be outstripped” (303). Heidegger, here, speaks of Dasein as a ‘being- unto-death.’ One who acknowledges death as its ‘own most possibility’ is able to pay attention to call of conscience. Everyday a person constructs the meaning of his existence, which is termed by Plato, Hiedegger and Sartre as the

‘essence’ of existence. Hiedegger uses the word ‘towards’ because one never

gets finished with constructing one’s essence until the moment of death. This affirms the fact that essence of existence with complications, incompleteness and alterations goes on until one’s death. He wants man to understand the fact that man cannot change the meaning of his existence after death. Richard Gill and Ernest Sherman held a bold view: “An authentic individual constantly strives to attain self-awareness and, rather than keeping to safe and customary paths inherently alien to him, chooses to realize his own true self” ( The Fabric of Existentialism: Philosophical and Literary Sources 20). For Heidegger, the inauthentic person seeks to enter the world of things so that he can exist in much the same way as a table or a chair exists. The inauthentic sheds their responsibility to probe their true self and, instead, they have a mundane existence, which are molded into the social norms of society.

Heidegger, like Nietzsche and Sartre, believes that the term ‘Das Man,’ which illustrates the inauthentic person who hinders authenticity without making decisions and without having a conception of themselves. But, the plague levels death not just for any Dasein (individual), but, also, for Das Man

(humanity as such), and thus prevents the very possibility of making our lives and deaths meaningful. So, it is understood, “plague had leveled out all discriminations [and] no longer were there individual destinies, only a collective destiny made of plague and the emotions shared by all” ( The Plague

167).

Kierkegaard, like Heidegger, views death as something that motivates the individual to consider the responsibility of ethical decision-making in his daily activities. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript , Kierkegaard notes the

difference between the “External view of death” and the “Subjective view of death,” and he enumerates Death in the following manner:

Before I pass over to universal history, it seems to me I had better

think about this, lest existence mock me…what will sometime

happen to me as to every human being- sometime, nay, what I am

saying: suppose death were so treacherous as to come

tomorrow…. To Dasein the eminent possibility of itself is torn

away from they, that is anticipation can always already have torn

away from the they. (149)

Thus, Kierkegaard views death as a threat to one’s personal existence and cannot be viewed as tout-en-semble. Death is, in other words, something, which represents a lack of understanding because of its ever-present possibility.

From the Kierkegaardian perspective, the value of the subjective view of death is that it makes people aware of the importance and value of ethical decisions.

It means that the individual is aware of death at any moment and not as an event, which is going to happen in the distant future. Kierkegaard’s subjective view of death as an ever-present possibility is in agreement with Heidegger’s call for man to become authentic. This call to be authentic, results in man’s awareness of sin, which is an integral part of Kierkegaardian authenticity.

Therefore, the subjective view of death is the ‘own’ way of accepting it as an everyday possibility, which makes man authentic. For Kierkegaard, becoming an authentic self includes becoming aware of sin and, therefore, aware of our estrangement from God. Kierkegard maintains that an authentic self can only exist on the religious level and not on the aesthetic or ethical level.

So, the plague, which is referred as daisance to dasein or das man, brings misery and wretchedness to mankind. Camus uses the appalling disease plague in the novel to juxtapose the incongruity and menace with which man sees his existence in the world. Camus, priggishly, depicts the possibilities and, also, the limitations of man’s actions through his character. This is evidently seen in the case of the citizens of Oran when they witness at a jiff, hundreds of death every day. Therefore, Camus’s object is to make people recognize the fact that death is a leveler and is prevalent ubiquitously. Dr. Rieux, the narrator expresses his view about death as follows:

Ah, death; it’s always there, isn’t it? It is a terrible fate, doomed

upon us all, that could take place at any time, in millions of

different ways. The Jews who witnessed the holocaust are aware

of this. The people of Haiti know this. The mother who lost her

only child in a car accident is aware of this. Most individuals and

groups of individuals spend their days fighting the face of death.

(The Plague 29)

Dr. Rieux is of the view that death, out of clemency, sometimes spares few, and he wants those fortunate to fight against the epidemic avidly. The plague, indiscriminately, strikes rich and poor, young and old. Although, Rieux acknowledges that man, in the end, is vulnerable against death, he, still, commits himself to struggle for the living. Since, he does not believe in God or an eternal life, it is important for him to battle death in an effort to preserve life. Like Dr.Rieux, the other characters in the novel, namely, Tarrou, Rambert and Grand, indeed, exhibit a Kierkegaardian ‘subjective view of death’ and

Heidegger’s ‘being-towards-death,’ which place them in the existential stream of thought. Death becomes the main concern of people when Oran is stricken with an outbreak of the plague. Everyone forces to think that life may be snatched from them at any jiffy. So, the novel makes the point that the fear of death creates a consciousness in the mind of the people of Oran.

Oran, a desert town in Algeria, in northern Africa has to face the extremes of weather. In the summer, the excessive heat forces the inhabitants “to spend those days of fire indoors, behind closed shutters” (3). The shutters are closed just as the people of the town close themselves off from their neighbors. They are self- centered and are heedless of others. The main focus of every person in Oran is oneself, which the narrator expresses: “The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens’ work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich,” (4). Everyone lives a self-centered life in Oran. It is fitting to observe that the people of Oran have, always, turned their back on the sufferings of other people, so, also, the city. Dr. Rieux, the narrator, observes: “the town’s so is being disposed that it turns its back on the bay, with the result that it’s impossible to see the sea, you always have to go look for it” (5-6).

The resident of Oran does not show any fret or common welfare, and each of them is wrapped up in their own concerns. The plague, however, changes the outlook and the attitude of the people. In Oran, life, for its inhabitants, has lost meaning. The plague offers them a chance to give meaning to their lives. Before the arrival of plague the people in Oran wishes to be an individual, and showed

indifference to the problems of the rest of the world. Dr. Rieux narrates their personal grievance as follows:

The manager of the hotel can talk of nothing else. But he has a

personal grievance, too; that dead rats should be found in the

elevator of a three-star hotel seems to him the end of all things. To

console him, I said, ‘But, you know, everybody’s in the same boat.’

‘That’s just it,’ he replied. ‘Now we’re like everybody else’. (26-27)

The moment the disease enters into the city, it takes everyone by surprise.

No one is prepared for it. Doctors gather to discuss the matter. They have trouble to name the disease in beginning, and refuse to accept it. They refuse to accept the callousness of the situation, and try to continue life as they always have lived, in their selfish pursuits. Though, it is considered to be an extraneous to their life, the disease convulses their life. In the beginning, they try to expunge the disease individually. Doctors, in particular, are the first to combat the disease. An epidemic is a quandary, which should be eradicated by all and not by individual. It becomes apparent to them that it cannot be merely ‘one’ who must oppose the plague. The doctors strive hard to eradicate the disease but they cannot prevent the death. The numbers of victims have lost to the plague and the number climbs higher and higher. This crucial situation makes the people of Oran to understand the truth that they can fight the disease as a collective force rather than individual.

At the same time, the efforts of the people of Oran to expectorate the disease prove to be futile. The number of patsy to the disease escalades every day. The transition in the people’s attitude to the disease is expressed by Sprintzen as, “The Plague does, beyond any possible discussion, represent the transition from an attitude of

solitary revolt to the recognition of a community whose struggles must be shared”

(Camus: A Critical Examination 103).

The citizens of Oran, slowly, begin to take notice the seriousness of the disease. The human faculty for reflection is consistent with Camus’s argument that human beings possess nostalgia for unity of understanding. The characters in The

Plague display this nostalgia in many forms when the plague sets in. The old man

Santiago in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea , who, after understanding the importance of solidarity and interdependence accepts that, “he was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But, he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride” (14). So,

Santiago’s realization is similar to that of the people of Oran when the epidemic strikes. Though plague causes havoc on the life of people, it does an excellent thing by making the people to combat the disease collectively.

The narrator, Dr.Rieux, describes the excruciating pain inflicted by the disease in detail. The infected, initially, suffer from lumps and buboes, high fever with an early morning respite followed by delirium and a raging thirst. People are physically and psychologically affected and they are pushed to a point of extermination. As the disease progresses, the pain worsens to the point of intolerance. Added to their physical suffering, it makes people to become nerve- shattered maniacs. Death is, almost, considered to be a relief. Oran is cut off from the world because of its contagious nature. The isolation of the town creates sufferings at all levels. People are separated from their loved ones and suffer from a great sense of loneliness and loss. Supplies of food and other provisions run low, causing the citizens, especially the poor ones, to suffer from starvation and famine.

Moreover, they express their trepidation that there may not be enough to sustain life in Oran. They, also, live under the constant apprehension of contracting the plague, as they wince and grieve over the loss of family and friends, who have succumbed to the disease.

Camus, in the beginning of the novel, describes how people are indolent in

Oran. They are obsessed with their hobbies and making money, without any contemplation towards the purpose in their lives or towards the well being of others. They are purely mercenary and devoid of understanding the essence of life.

Furthermore, Camus describes the selfish town “Treeless, glamourless, soulless, the town Oran ends by seeming restful and, after a while, you go complacently to sleep there”(6). The materialistic and shallow nature dulls the emotions and vibrancy of those who live in Oran. So, in the town, as most readers recognize, only shopping and film viewing are the things that keep people going on in their lives, without heeding to the sufferings of others. This pococurante attitude of modern man is, also, expressed by the Liverpool poet, Brain Patten in his poem

“Portrait of a Young Girl Raped at a Suburban Party.”

Confined to what you are expected to be

By what you are...

In a very ordinary world

A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,

The loss seems huge and yet

Nothing can be pinned down or fully explained. (Twentieth Century

Poetry and Poetics 25)

Patten describes the various dreamers and idlers of modern society, who lead a meaningless existence. This same outlook, one can witness in the people of

Oran also. They have little thought for far-off wars or disasters or even those who suffers nearby. So, when the rats appear, the people are displeased by the intrusion on the daily routine.

The people of Oran, being so involved in their banal shallow lives, refuse to accept the reality of the disease. They lead a usual life without majuscule. Only when the city is being disconnected from the outside world, they begin to apprehend that they must face reality and fight for endurance. As the inhabitants are being killed off and shattered, few decide to flee from the town, some are bothered only for their individual lives or even try to get profit by the disease, and others decide to stay and battle the virulent disease by helping others.

In such a cataclysmic situation, man has to revolt against nature, which ruins their life. According to Camus, resistance is connected with formulating an accurate conception of reality. Characters, such as Dr.Rieux, realize the truth that plague is an irrepressible epidemic beyond human comprehension, and, indeed, he limits his reflection to the immediacy of the situation and makes possible effort to make this a dirigible one. Dr. Rieux comments to his friend Tarrou:

I have no idea what’s awaiting me or what will happen when all this

ends. For the moment I know this; there are sick people and they

needed curing. Later on, perhaps, they’ll think things over; and so

shall I. But what’s wanted now is to make them well. I know. The

figures are rising… the previous day ten deaths had been reported.

(127)

Camus’s existentialism acts as a key to purge the problem of human suffering in society. In fact, the novel deals with the struggle against nonchalance of the people, also. Though insouciance jugulate his or her life, the novel presents a perfect scenario in which all coalesces together to fight against the callous at one point of time. This ideal situation is not limited to the storybooks alone. Every man can give meaning to his life by revolting against the detriments. With these values in mind, Camus’s philosophies carry important morals that surpass any amount of explanation. Camus, an atheist and anti-Nazi activist, feels passionately the need for moral action. Yet, one cannot explain precisely from where such morality comes. So, he creates a story in which many encounters death, without purpose or dignity. Camus essentially makes the atheists’ argument for moral action in this novel. He is perturbed by the question “why people should behave as if there is a purpose and reason for all that happens, even when tragedy seems so random and indifferent?” ( Notebooks 54). Here, he, clearly, shows how man turns his back on the suffering of others, and he condemns man’s selfish way of life.

Camus, while examining human nature and its response to the reality of the disease and death, presents motley characters and their assortment of responses to the evil effects of the plague.

First, Doctor Bernard Rieux is quite different from others. When the epidemic breaks out, people of Oran take to their heels. But, Rieux, who does not believe in God or in a future life, decides to stay in the city, in order to fight the disease and rescue the people, and in doing so risks his own life. As a physicist,

Dr.Rieux is exposed to the disease, which causes human suffering. H e is aware of the fact that averting chaos in mundane world is an onerous task. But, he is for

ordering of the universe in order to avoid abyssal, at least exiguous amount. So, he may be branded as a modern Sisyphus. He poses a rhetorical question to his friend

Jean Tarrou in the following lines:

For those who had aspired above and beyond the human individual,

there had been no answer. Since the order of the world is shaped by

death, mightn’t it better for God if we refuse to believe in Him and

struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes

toward the heaven where He sits in silence? (128)

Rieux is, undoubtedly, the quintessential rebel because he struggles against the incomprehensible absurdity of existence. He, explicitly, reveals his mind to

Father Panelox when he discusses the concept of man’s salvation. Rieux observes:

“Salvation’s much too big a word for me. I don’t aim so high. I’m concerned with man’s health; and for me his health comes first” (219). So, Dr. Rieux’s prime concern is the health of the people, which is, also, a value of the present rather than salvation, which is a value of the distant future. Rieux’s lucidity grounds

Father Paneloux to the immediacy of the situation. Even though the absolute vigilance of the plague prevents Dr. Rieux from healing absolutely, he doggedly persists. He, even, says that only madman will surrender to the plague. He refuses to accept that the presence of sickness and death are natural order and he fights against them. He does not live for himself and when Tarrou points out that his victories will never be lasting, Rieux admits as follows: “ I am involved in a never ending defeat and this does not stop me from engaging in the struggle” (63). Dr.

Rieux is, also, aware that working for the common good demands sacrifice, and one cannot expect personal happiness.

Jean Tarrou, who comes to Oran, just before the epidemic erupts and decides to stay in order to save lives. The presence of Tarrou is central to the theme of the novel. Though he is as an outsider or does not belong to the town, he enervates his life for the welfare of the people. He lam-bastes the evils in society severely. When the plague strikes the town, Tarrou has no hesitation to help the people of the town. The narrator Dr.Rieux describes Tarrou’s mind as follows:

“Yet he realizes his responsibility towards others and acts on that responsibility”

(31). So, it is clear that Tarrou hates to see human suffering.. The way in which he renders service to the people during epidemic makes one to view him as a ‘hero.’

But, he objects to the word strongly, and he expresses his unwillingness deeply.

He says: “I don’t believe in heroism; I know it’s easy…. What interests me is living and dying for what one loves” (149). Elisson in Understanding Albert

Camus states thus: “If we take Tarrou’s observations seriously, we discover a more sobering message: namely, that the inherent tendency toward evil that exists in each human being must be countered daily by an act of good” (112).

Tarrou, like Dr. Rieux, spends his life in Oran to save the victims from the plague. He is, totally, opposed to the death penalty and vigorously fights to have it abolished. He struggles against it with equal determination like Dr.Rieux. Even when he is infected with the disease, he refuses to yield. Tarrou is helpless against the great leveler that snatches men from their life. His motto is to become “A saint without God” by offering his life for others.

Camus, through Tarrou, conveys his belief that man must do good to show his ‘innate goodness’ within him. Tarrou explains, “All I maintain is that there are on this earth pestilence and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible,

not to join forces with the pestilences” ( The Plague 129). Though he sees the intricacies of life, he ekes out his life with pellucid mission. The following lines reveal his goal:

It comes to this, Tarrou said almost casually; ‘what interests me is

learning how to become a saint.’ ‘But you don’t believe in God.’

‘Exactly! Can one be a saint without god? - That’s the problem, in

fact, the only problem; I’m up against today… I know that I belong

here whether I want it or not, This business is everybody’s

business.’ (130-131)

Tarrou is of the view that peace can be attained through the path of sympathy. Throughout his life, he tries to stick to this path. To him, easing the misery of others is always a delight. He, doggedly, struggles to bring congruity for his fellow men.

Through Paneloux, Camus attempts to reconcile existentialism and

Christianity. Paneloux is a learned steadfast Christian and a well-respected Jesuit priest. He, firmly, is of the view that the affliction of the epidemic is God given.

He has an influential way of speaking, and, in his first sermon, he proclaims that the plague is God-sent, to punish evil doers for their sin. He, also, claims that God may grant succor and hope. He preaches as follows:

I wish to lead you to the truth and teach you to rejoice, yes, rejoice-

in spite of all that I have been telling you…. This same pestilence,

which is slaying you, works for your good and points tour path…. It

reveals the will of God in action, unfailing transforming evil into

good. So, when you leave this House of God you will carry away

with you not only words of wrath, but also a message, too of

comfort for your-hearts. (83)

Paneloux involves himself in the struggle against the plague, helping men such as Reiux and Tarrou, and putting his faith to the trial. The trial reaches its utmost when the characters are forced to watch the slow, tormented death of an innocent child. This gruesome incident makes people to raise the question; how could something sent to punish an innocent child? The people cannot do more than to sit and watch helplessly as the child dies before them. Shortly after this event, Paneloux begins to write another sermon, which differs from the first. It reflects what he has witnessed. The death of the innocent child haunts his mind too much in the beginning. He observes: “And, truth to tell, nothing was more important on earth than a child suffering, the horror it inspires in us, and the reasons we must find to account for it” (101). Slowly, he is awakened to the fact that only the malediction of the people is responsible for their struggle. The second sermon, affirms that God does not send plague; it is part of an evil which is present in the universe and in which he as a Christian must confront. In this way, he tries to make use of theological sense in order to create awareness among the people about the annoying epidemic . Doctor Rieux characterizes Father Paneloux in these words,

Paneloux is a man of learning, a scholar. He hasn’t come in contact

with death; that’s why he can speak with such assurance of the truth

– with a capital T. But every country priest that visits his

parishioners and has heard a man gasping for breath on his deathbed

thinks as I do. He’d try to relieve human suffering before trying to

point out its excellence. (19)

In the words of Doctor Rieux, Camus criticizes the dogmatism and certitude of Father Paneloux, who lacks humility in the face of suffering and death. Also, he criticizes Father Paneloux for his lack of involvement in the fight against the plague. Doctor Rieux refuses to believe the magnipotence of God. He challenges Father Paneloux’s actions in this way: “If he believed in all – powerful

God he would cease curing the sick and leave that to Him” (120). Paneloux’s

Kierkegaardian concept of Christian faith is unacceptable to Dr.Rieux. Paneloux’s acceptance of the situation without any revolt is a form of philosophical suicide.

According to him, man must make a ‘leap of faith’ and must accept the condition because ‘God wills it.’

Nietzsche satirizes the modern man’s values with his ironic portrayal of the

“Higher Man” in his book On Genealogy, who lives like Paneloux by his morality of moderate mediocrity because he is unable to live authentically (182). Nietzsche criticizes the travesty on the part of the people, in the way; they follow moral values in their life. He lams people for leading inauthentic life under the pretext of higher values. This idea falls in tune with Sartre’s term “Bad Faith.” Nietzsche sees religion as a nub to inculcate false morality relegating itself to be called as

‘dead’ religion. He blames the priestly class for the inversion of aristocratic values, with their promotion of the lowly and the suffering as blessed, and the high and mighty as damned. This is a manufacture of lowly ideals, and an imposition of false belief, which scuttles human development, and diminishes the stature and value of man. He is against meek surrender to God and, not ready to believe the

concept of human suffering as God’s predetermination. The concept of predetermination, Nietzsche, feels, imbues only false belief. Further, it stunts the growth of human beings and diminishes their stature and value. Thus, religion,

Nietzsche views, in institutionalized form, is counter-productive to human efforts.

Camus makes similar criticisms, like, Nietzsche, with regard to religion and its role in the creation of morality and meaning. In the novel, when everyone struggles to dodge of the epidemic, the priest Paneloux naturally gravitates towards the explanation of divine will. He aggravates the situation by restoring to meek surrender to God rather than exercising some tour-de-force against plague.

Camus portrays this as an abdication of personal responsibility without ultimately resolving it. The search for meaning is reduced to blind acceptance of the abstraction - the divine will. To Camus, religion becomes a smokescreen for avoiding responsibility and, thus, an institutionalization of bad faith. Camus’s criticism is that religion encourages people to be fatuous rather than a trailblazer of forming one’s own personal and authentic principles.

For Dr.Rieux, coming to terms with his own futility, the experience of the plague as an ‘abstraction’ brings home its absurdity, and he sees, in contrast to

Father Paneloux, that it has no absolute meaning. Rieux understands that the plague is while those people afflicted, isolated or bereaved by it, are the source of its meaning. Paneloux surrenders to the plague, expecting to discover absolute meaning beyond death. In Camus’s eyes, Paneloux is morally weak because he turns away from his responsibility, when actually the meaning is in his own retort to it, so, he becomes an inauthentic being. As Heidegegger states, an inauthentic person bases his existence on commonly agreed conceptions and standards. Father

Paneloux lacks ratiocination. This is in contrast to the moral strength of Dr.Rieux, who takes the responsibility and obligation, thus staying true to himself and to others.

To Doctor Rieux, the only possible and justifiable reaction in the face of the suffering of the innocent is not the passive acceptance, but rather action and revolt against the horrendous reality. He reveals his courage, which emerges from inner self, and with this determinant push, he dexterously saves the innocent from suffering. The reverberating actions of Dr. Rieux change the people of Oran to face death sanguinely. One can witness that the characters starts to exhibit

Kierkegaard’s subjective view of death and Heidegger’s being-towards-death.

This transition, on the part of the people, makes them to amend their fears or weaknesses and to engage themselves in noble deeds. The doctors, volunteers and guards, who are aware of the truth that death will come at any moment, still choose to help others. Despite the fact that people are selfish, the characters choose to overcome their fears and weaknesses and engage in noble actions .

The journalist Rambert is, also, the sufferer of the epidemic. He visits Oran to research a story on the living conditions in the Arab quarter of the town. He desperately seeks to flee the city to be with his wife. Being an uxorious, he fails to consider the predicaments of his fellow human beings and wants to gambol with his wife somewhere. In his trepidation, and frustration, he sweepingly castoffs any appeals to mull over the well being of others. Rambert explains: “Ah I see now!’

‘You’ll soon be talking about the interests of the general public . But, public welfare is merely the sum total of the private welfares of each of us” (88). His explanation seems rational to himself and others in the city, but is truly an excuse

to avoid the responsibility of helping out. Rambert once served in the Spanish

Civil War, and has since become disillusioned about altruism and self-sacrifice.

However, the determined examples of the Doctor and Tarrou show him how self- centered he is, and in the end Rambert conscience gets the better of him and he joins the volunteer squads. Rambert’s volte-face attitude takes one by surprises.

Some people in order to overcome their fear and frustration spend their time in cinemas and fancy restaurants. It is observed:

Most of them seem determined to counteract the plague with a

lavish display of luxury…. In the early days, when they thought this

epidemic was much like other epidemics, religion held its ground….

And all the hideous fears that stamp their face is in daytime are

transformed into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom

fevering their blood. (12)

This impulse to spend their remaining time in frolicsome pleasures is explicable, but not obliging. People can overcome their baser urges and help their fellow man. Altruism is the result of a choice, and that freedom to choose makes actions moral or immoral. Human suffering is one of the most acute and difficult human problems. Everyone, at one point or other in one’s life, has to face and struggle with it. As the plague rages on, more and more people are affected, they rummage around for ways to comprehend the crisis and find some sort of meaning. Many characters fail to grasp that the deaths of the plague have no

meaning, and that they cannot control their own fates. As T.S.Eliot observes in

“The Hollow Man,”

This is the dead land

This is cactus land

Here the stone images

Are raised…. ( Collected poems 144)

T.S.Eliot in this poem compares modern man to stony rubbish. Modern men have become stone-hearted; vacuity, emptiness and nihilism have grasped them. But Dr.Rieux is a different person who cares and who wants to rescue men from their sufferings. Rieux is, also, aware that working for the common good demands sacrifice; he cannot expect personal happiness. This is a lesson that

Rambert, also, learns. At first, he insists that he does not belong to Oran, and his only thought is to get back to the woman whom he loves in Paris. He thinks only of his own personal happiness and the unfairness of the situation in which he has been placed. But, gradually, he comes to recognize his membership of the larger human community, which makes demands on him that he cannot ignore. His personal happiness becomes less important than his commitment to help the community.

According to Heidegger, the ability to attain existential authenticity depends on a discloseness of Being, which in turn, presents a more originary, primordial Truth. Joseph Grand, a man with “all the attributes of insignificance”

(The Plague 44), records the plague’s statistics and an excruciating idiosyncrasy, an almost finical anxiety over his choice of words. He is trying to write a novel, but he cannot get beyond the initial sentence, as “evenings, whole weeks, spent on

one word, sometimes on a mere conjunction” (103). Grand’s ‘absurd ideal,’ which does not enable him to get beyond the first sentence of his novel, is nothing other than Truth. The recognition the ‘Truth’ is ultimately unachievable but to strive toward it (with this understanding) is, nevertheless, an existential imperative.

Grand has a desire to capture at least one thing or one sentence, Truth. While

Father Paneloux nonchalantly speaks of Truth in an abstract way, Grand tries to speak of it in the concrete language of literature, and indeed, he is trying to make his one sentence more concrete.

Grand’s attempt to ‘photograph’ reality with his words must be understood metaphorically, and his struggle for truth must be understood in terms of primordial existential Truth toward which Heidegger’s search for ‘the meaning of

Being’ points. In accordance with Heidegger’s thought, Grand recognizes that language, which is the common property of Das Man, is not up to the task. The collective narration in The Plague is achieved by means of the existence of different narrative levels. The speeches of Father Paneloux, Tarrou, Rambert and

Cottard characterize their responses to the epidemic, and each of them embodies a different response to the absurd. For instance, Cottard’s speeches reveal him to be the antithesis of Camus’s concept of the rebel, and he does not fight against the evil and injustice but contributes to them by taking side with the plague.

The plague has improved Cottard’s situation considerably because before the plague, he was extremely lonely and desperate to the extent that he attempted suicide, one of the ways of evading the absurd that Camus rejects in The Myth of

Sisyphus. However, the plague provides him with the human company that he is bereft of and, also, improves his material conditions as he delves into the black

market and earns a lot of money. After the plague, Cottard completely changes and becomes an amiable man who enjoys the company of others. He has no wish to leave the town because he has found the happiness and peace he has always longed for. He admits to Rambert: “I’ve been feeling much more at ease here since plague settled in” ( The Plague 129). Moreover, when Tarrou asks him why he does not join them in the struggle, with “an offended expression” on his face he replies: “It’s not my job… what’s more the plague suits me quite well and I see no reason why I should bother about trying to stop it” (145). Besides, he thinks that their attempts are in vain because they are doomed to suffer: “it won’t get you anywhere. The plague has the whip hand of you and there is nothing to be done about it” (144). Cottard is just the opposite of the rebel, who never bows down to his fate and struggles against it although he knows he is doomed to suffer. Thus, he embodies the negative response to the absurd, since he is resigned to his condition and takes side with the plague. This indifference is seen among the people, also. The citizens of Oran deceive themselves in order to cope with the plague. Without accepting and subsequently fighting the pestilence, they bind themselves with false assurances that the disease will pass quickly. Later realizing the truth, they decide to fight it collectively. People’s collective suffering is expressed as follows:

No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny,

made of plague and the emotions shared by all. Strongest of these

emotions was the sense of exile and of deprivation, with all the

crosscurrents of revolt and fear set up by these…. This change was

striking since, until now, they had jealously withheld their personal

grief from the common stock of suffering (151 )

Though they are suffering, the surprise is that all in collective manner shares misery and pain. They do not face absurdity on their own; the people stand together as victims. Usually, natural calamity makes people to nurture a sort of solidarity, in order to face life with assurance among themselves. Camus calls this as collective experience; this experience makes people to feel that they are alienated from the outside world. The feeling of exile is difficult to bear, but is a feeling common to them all. Once the plague, finally, subsides, Rieux considers this prevalent emotion and its counter-part, the desire for a reunion.

…. Most of them had longed intensely for an absent one, for the

warmth of a body, for love, or merely for a life that habit had

endeared. Some, often without knowing it, suffered from being

deprived of the company of friends and from their inability to get in

touch…. For want of a better name, they sometimes called it peace.

(269)

When a person is forced to confront the true horrors of the world on a large scale with many other people, a feeling of solidarity is bound to develop, and out of the ashes will rise the values needed to face life with assurance. Camus, clearly, intends to present the sentiment of exile as a collective experience. A sense of exile is the vital existentialistic grief to which invariably all the characters of the novel are trapped and they are exposed to unspeakable weariness, revolting spirit, senseless anxiety and an inclination towards death. Exile or isolation is one of the fundamental themes that characterize existentialism. Exile takes many forms in the

modern tradition. With the creation of the modern society, people become isolated from their labor or from God or Being.

For Heidegger, the notion of exile or isolation occurs when Being has been abandoned by humanity, and this has occurred in modern times; in fact, humanity is essentially exiled, isolated, homeless. Maria-Ines-Lagos-Pope, in his Exile in

Literature, defines exile as separation, banishment, withdrawal, expatriation and displacement; its emotional expression is loss, usually manifested as sorrow, though sometimes as nostalgia. He, further, states: “Exile does not simply magnify personal separation to a collective displacement; rather, it intensifies the dialectical relation of the individual within the social” (17). Exile is a psychological experience, a response of mind and spirit to customs, codes, and political actions.

Exile can also be a self-imposed departure from one’s homeland. After

1940’s there was a wide spread trend, especially, prominent in the existential philosophy to perceive a human being as an isolated existent, who is thrown into a strange universe, to conceive the universe as possessing no inherent value or meaning. Sartre, while defining the concept of humanism in Existentialism and

Human Emotions , explains that fundamentally man is an isolated being and he defines man’s condition as follows: “Man is constantly outside of himself; in projecting himself, in losing himself outside of himself, he makes for man’s existing” (50).

Camus, extensively, deals with the theme of isolation and separation, because he believes that each individual is fundamentally alone. One’s essential lack of communion with others makes the individual ultimately, responsible for

his or her own decisions. The individuals neither feel they are of the human institutions- the society or the family nor can they understand their workings. They live in alienation from their own family and society. They repeatedly keep saying they are alone. They do not have a sense of having roots in a meaningful past nor do they see themselves as moving toward a meaningful future. As a result, they say that they do not belong to the past, to the present, or to the future. Yet, they are far from forgetting it or escaping from it. Camus calls this state of being as exile.

In this novel, people of Oran become isolated from society, not by choice, but out of necessity. The fear of spreading the bubonic plague from one inhabitant to another or, even worse, to another town forces each to withdraw into smaller worlds. Each person craves a way to get away from society, yet, in finding that escape, they become trapped within it. They are conscious of their isolated state; mar their inter-personal relationships forgetting their potentiality to make their life meaningful. The narrator observes: “For at the precise moment when the residents of the Oran began to panic, their thoughts were wholly fixed on the person whom they longed to meet again” (64). Camus shows that the absurd takes many forms. The absurd is perhaps more noticeable in cases of calamity and can foster feelings of exile. Camus states that exile is, often, experienced solitarily, but it is not one alone in this sensation. For a while, many try to get beyond the boundaries of the town, an impossible aspiration due to the quarantine imposed as a safety measure. Each person, in separation, discovers his or her desire for human contact. This is the moment when they realize that returning to society is just as necessary as withdrawing from it. There is a common level on which exile reaches all mankind. On this

level, the burden of exile can be shared. The perspective gained from solitary reflection allows each one to find meaning in living a life surrounded by others and provides a coherence that was not readily apparent in the beginning.

The type of exile that Rieux refers to Tarrou is the self-imposed exile dedicated to a moral life. Likewise, throughout the novel, Rieux is separated from his wife. She is ill for a year and lives in a sanatorium. Dr.Rieux is uncertain of her well being; and near the end, he receives a word that she is dead. Rambert is a second character that represents an individual experience of exile. His case is somewhat different from Rieux’s because Rambert, the French journalist, is trapped in the quarantine town of Oran on an assignment. Once the town gates are closed, Rambert pleads with the town authorities to allow him to leave Oran, but the precautions of the quarantine prohibit this. Rambert’s mental agony reflects the sentiment of the nostalgic human being looking for a type of justice. But, once when he starts to recognize his role, he is no longer an exile, an outsider. Tarrou, who lives according to an ethical code, commits himself for the well being of the community, even ready to risk his life for any eventuality. When he tells Rieux the story of his life, he adds a new dimension to the term plague. He views plague not just as a specific disease or simply as the presence of an impersonal evil external to humans. But, it is a destructive impulse within every person, the will and the capacity to do harm, and it is everyone’s duty to safeguard against this tendency.

He is concerned with helping others and in this way he is able to overcome his exile. He describes his views to Rieux:

‘I have deliberately taken the victims’ side and tried to share with

the fellow citizens the only certitudes they had in common- love,

exile, and suffering. What’s natural is the microbe. All the rest –

health, integrity, purity, (if you like) – is a product of the human

will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The good man, the man

who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of

attention.’ (186)

Thus, Tarrou, truly, suggests that fulfillment lies in small victories over the everyday joys of life that afford the opportunity of happiness. Dr. Rieux, also, struggles hard to promote solidarity among the people of Oran, and he manages to make the highly self-centered Oranians aware of the fact that everybody is “in the same boat.” He is able to unite them, but, expresses his chagrin when the epidemic trim down. Nevertheless, he recognizes that he has been mistaken in his belief and that the sense of solidarity will survive because after the epidemic dies out, he sees that nothing has really changed. The people of Oran returned to their old complacent lives. It is not valid to claim that Dr. Rieux’s idealistic nature has changed as a result of his recognition, but he has gained a much deeper view of man’s nature because he has learned that man is inclined to deny the cruelty of the human condition and hide himself in his illusory world governed by habit.

The feeling of exile produces many changes in attitudes and behaviors.

At first, people indulge in fantasies, imagining the missing person’s return, but, then, they start to feel like prisoners, drifting through life with nothing left but the past, since they do not know how long into the future their ordeal may last.

The past smacks only of regret, of things left undone. Living with the sense of abandonment, they find that they cannot communicate their private grief to their neighbors, and conversations tend to be superficial. Rieux returns to the

theme at the end of the novel, after the epidemic is over, when the depth of the feelings of exile and deprivation is clear from the overwhelming joy with which long parted lovers and family members greet each other. For some citizens, exile is a feeling more difficult to pin down. They simply desire a reunion with something that can hardly be named but, to them it seems to be the most desirable thing on Earth. Some calls it peace. Rieux numbers Tarrou among such people, although, he finds it only in death. The theme of exile and separation is, also, present in the other nameless citizens, who are separated from loved ones in other towns or from those who happened to be out of town when the gates of Oran are closed. In another sense, the entire town suffers from exile, since it is completely cut off from the outside world. Rieux, as the narrator, describes what exile meant to them all:

The sensation of a void within which never left us, that irrational

longing to hard back to the past or else to speed up the march of

time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire. A feeling

normally as individual as the ache of separation from those one

loves suddenly became a feeling in which all shared alike and—

together with fear—the greatest affliction of that long period of

exile that lay ahead (112)

This understanding of exile suggests the deeper, metaphysical implications of the term. It relates to the loss of the belief that humans live in a rational universe in which they can fulfill their hopes and desires, find meaning, and be at home. Camus puts it in The Myth of Sisyphus as , “In a universe that is suddenly

deprived of illusions and has light, man feels a stranger. His is an irremediable exile” (72).

The impersonality of the narrator may, also, be related to the value of moderation inherent in Camus’s conception of rebellion. Rebellion is the only proper response to the absurd. Camus observes this in his work The Rebel as: “The rebel struggles for order amidst chaos and unity at the very heart of the ephemeral”

(10). Alienation and suffering, born out of the absurd, is common to all men, so men should rebel against the chaos and injustice collectively. They should be united in their struggle for order and for the elimination of suffering.

Existence is valuable despite injustice and suffering, and men should do everything to protect the value of human existence. Besides, according to Camus, the rebel should be ready to take risk in his struggle. However, it does not mean that there are no boundaries to his actions. On the contrary, Camus is in favor of limits since absolute freedom contributes to the evil and injustice. Therefore, the rebel’s actions should be guided by the ethics of moderation, in other words, his actions should never transgress the values he defends, the value of moderation. It is seen that Rieux never wants his actions to be considered heroic, for heroism is a concept entailing extreme actions and contributing to the evil and injustice.

Dr.Rieux’s straightforward and plain narration aiming to achieve comprehensibility is, also, in accordance with his dislike for such abstract values leading to extreme actions. This, also, reflects, “Camus’s distrust for rhetorical, spectacular, and heroic discourses used for the obfuscation manipulation, and oppression of men” ( Camus;A Study 64). Lazere, a critic, argues, “By the time of

The Plague Camus has become committed to a straight forward literature, having

developed an antipathy toward the abuses of linguistic ambiguity” (The Unique

Creation of Albert Camus 176). So, Rieux, as a narrator, represents Camus’s view of the ideal artist, whose duty is to avoid such discourses and to be as plain and comprehensible as possible.

The ravages of the plague in Oran vividly convey the absurdist position that humans live in an indifferent, incomprehensible universe that has no rational meaning or order. In the face of this metaphysical reality, what must be the response of individuals? Should they resign themselves to it, accept it as inevitable, and seek what solace they can as individuals? Or should they join with others and fight back, even though they must live with the certainty that they cannot win? Camus’s answer is clearly that they should revolt. It is embodied in the characters of Rieux, Rambert, and Tarrou. Rieux’s position is made clear, when he converse with Tarrou. He asserts that his fight against the evil goes on forever and he will not yield to it. Rieux is aware of the demands of the community; he does not live for himself alone. When Tarrou points out that “your victories will never be lasting,” Rieux admits that he is involved in a

“never ending defeat,” (63) but, this does not stop him engaging in the struggle.

For existentialists, anxiety, despair, and dread have their source from the deprivation of the worldly affair. Existential anxiety pervades our whole being, and waiting for an unguarded moment to possess entirely. ‘Angst’ is the dread of nothingness of human existence. Discovering nothing to be afraid of does not remove anxiety; it merely shows that fears are groundless, which may increase one’s anxiety. For existentialists, the existential feelings originate from the

consciousness of one’s isolation and the estrangement, and, thus, acting in one way as the revelatory of human condition.

Camus maintains a humanistic frame of reference; he has confidence in man’s ability to fulfill himself; he finds his source of values in human experience.

According to him, the realization of absurdity of human existence is a necessary condition for accomplishing anything in life. The absurd describes the relation between man and the world. Man is born, struggles, and dies; he is innocent, yet, he suffers, he is tormented and ultimately, he is alone. If the man has authentic consciousness of the presence of the absurd within him, he has chances of comprehending the despair of the universe and accepts his life and existence heroically without resorting to the idea of committing suicide. The awareness of the absurd, in man, is a situation where no great tragedies can play havoc with basic human values. It is about how to take life and how to make it tolerable, even as the purposelessness assails it.

Camus illustrates his theory on absurdity with reference to the ythological character Sisyphus. He is punished by God and is given the task of rolling a large stone to the top of a mountain whereupon the stone will always roll back down.

Purposeless labor is to be his eternal punishment. What appeals to Camus with regard to this mythological story is that the instant when Sisyphus reaches the summit, he watches the stone that he rolls back down the ountainside, and then go downward himself to take up once again his eternal task. During this phase,

Camus understands that Sisyphus is conscious of the extent of his torment, of his own misery, and this recognition transforms his destiny into victory. Choice plays a vital role, which the people of Oran understands and chooses to fight the plague collectively.

CHAPTER –IV

Chapter - IV

Existential Consciousness- The Fall

I stand like a lonely pine-tree egoistically shut off,

pointing to the skies and casting no shadow, and

only the turtle-dove builds its nest in my branches.( Journals 49)

Man’s consciousness is the projective source from which meanings proceed. Man confronts the unknown or dark forces of the universe, which drives within himself. The conscious man must wrestle with all the contradictions and paradoxes of his inner self with fluctuating emotions and perpetual alternations of his perceptions. In a state of consciousness, man, constantly, judges himself, and seeks judgment. Camus advocates that man must forever re-evaluate his conscious life without the help of external factors or of divine or secular authority. The realization that man lives an un-examined existence and how authentic living can be attained is a questioned to be probed.

Heidegger’s concept of ‘Dasein’ and the concept of ‘Being-towards-death’ are indicative of man’s existence because plants, trees, stones or animals do not have the conscious ability to feel guilty about the quality of their lives. Man feels guilty if he fails to rise to the occasion of his life and he is not living a kind of life, which he is expected to live. The feeling of guilt is at the basis of Heidegger’s concepts of Dasein and Being-towards-death and Sartre’s concepts of ‘Being-in- itself’ and ‘Being-for-itself.’ Sartre’s Being-in-itself means if man treats himself as a table or a chair, he does not recognize the ability to be different from what he is. In Being-for-itself, the importance of the word ‘for’ represents the future and with this he sees mere meaning in the present because the present is determined by

the future. Heidegger’s claim is that one may exist either as an authentic or an inauthentic human being. The inauthentic people are controlled by the ‘they’ of their existence, which means that they are controlled by the other people thought or by the rules of society. Heidegger maintains that ‘they’ of Dasein, “Makes no choices, gets carried along by nobody, and thus traps itself in inauthenticity. This process can be reversed only if Dasein explicitly brings itself back to itself from its lostness in the ‘they’” ( Being and Time 312). On the contrary, the authentic Dasein never completely separates the ‘they-self,’ from society but it modifies the ‘they- self,’ it questions the validity of directives from society and may reject certain behavioral norms of society. This adds to the individual’s authenticity.

Heidegger’s “the call of conscience” reveals to Dasein the ‘they-self,’ because the call of conscience has the character of an appeal to Dasein by calling it to its own most potentiality for Being-its-self; and this is done by way of “summoning to its own most Being-guilty” (314). The most important characteristic of human consciousness is the call of conscience to become authentic.

In Heidegger’s philosophy of authenticity, the main characteristic of one’s consciousness is a call to be authentic, to distance oneself from the ‘they-self.’

Heidegger notes that it is from one’s self, the call is made. It is one’s self that constitutes the content and the purpose of the call. Thus, one’s consciousness serves to give an imagistic medium. One can use to authenticate one’s ‘self’ against the peer pressure to move toward inauthenticity. Michael Gelven, in his

Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time, summarizes Heidegger’s concept of authenticity in the following passage:

The self that is called…is precisely the self that has been lost in the

they-self and the calling is an attempt to bring that self to leave the

company of the they-self. The calling is about the self in the sense

that conscience awakens an awareness of the mode of existence in

which the self finds itself-authentic or inauthentic. The call is to the

self in that it is an appeal to the self to be authentic. (163)

Heidegger emphasizes two perceptions of death – rational and subjective perception of death. The ‘rational perception of death’ as interpreted by man means that ‘everyone must die’ while the ‘subjective perception of death’ means that, the ‘individual,’ will die. The contemplation of one’s own individual death alone brings the seriousness of finitude into Dasein, and makes each jiffy important. Camus, in his works, explores the problems of man in a state of consciousness. In The Fall, Camus presents the crisis of an individual, who is entangled in the complicated contemporary life with its confusion of values and moral anarchy.

The Fall is about a ‘dark crisis’ in the human soul. It depicts the anguished attempt of a guilt-stricken individual to retrieve his innocence and honour. It portrays the effort of a man, who tries to impose meaning and order on his life, which lacks them. The novel, also, contains a rigorous criticism of a disintegrating society with its meaningless pursuit of success and career, unscrupulous amassing of wealth in defiance of the sanctified values of the society. The novel is told through the reflections of a man, who looks back his past. In the retrospective account of his life, Clamence, the narrator cum protagonist of the story, tries to trace the root of his soul’s sickness and the reasons behind his fall from innocence.

As stated by Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, states: “Any man who has a conscience must pay the price if he is aware of his error. That is his punishment”

(81), Clamence, in the course of his monologue, gradually, strips himself of all protective pretences and reveals more of his hypocrisy, cowardice, corruption, and debauchery. By his skillfully manipulated confession, he interweaves his unease and the uneasiness of others. Clamence builds up a portrait that becomes a mirror to his contemporaries, which he himself says: “The image of all and of no one”

(The Fall 102). The novel mirrors the moral crisis of individual as well as society.

The chapter probes how Clamence, the protagonist a man with interior corruptness, is concealed from the world and for a long time from himself by a life of philanthropy and active sympathy for his fellow men. Further, it studies the duplicity and insincere life of Clamence using Sartre’s concepts of Bad Faith,

Other, Guilt and Heidegger’s Dasein. Clamence’s consciousness in being thrown into the world brings inexplicable miseries. The focus, also, remains on how

Clamence’s egotistic and narcissistic personality leads him to guilt. The chapter, also, offers a clear division of Clamence’s moral transition and his discovery of dual-self. In this context of guilt, Herbert Fingarette observes:

Responsibility must be accepted…. This acceptance is evident if

there is genuine care or concern of the kind, which is peculiar to

moral responsibility. There are many marks of such concern beyond

the obvious-caring behavior. There may be inner moral conflict,

self-restraint, remorse, guilt, or other such manifestations. ( Mapping

Responsibility 2)

The Fall is a dramatic monologue by Jean-Baptise Clamence, a famous

Parisian lawyer who has voluntarily leaves his country and vocation to live in retirement in Amsterdam. He feels guilty and he decides to re-examine his life. So, he conducts his business at the bar, where he waits for the occasional bourgeois tourist to enter. The whole story of his life is told in the form of confession to an unnamed and silent tourist. His confession reveals his self-centeredness and his aid to victims of injustice is a means of self-aggrandizement. He becomes a ‘judge- penitent’ in Amsterdam. The setting for him seems to be symbolic. Partly surrounded by the inclement sea, Amsterdam seems to be set in the midst of concentric circles reminding Clamence of the circles in Dante’s Inferno . Thus, here as in Sartre’s No Exit , the point is made that it is man’s everyday life, which is hell, and that men are inhabitants well suited to the environment. Clamence spends most of his time in a bar called ‘Mexico City’; the whole recite is an uninterrupted sequence of one-sided conversations, which he has with a French man whom he meets there. The listener is not individualized except that Clamence refers to him as a lawyer and a man something like himself. Clamence introduces himself to the stranger in the following manner:

But allow me to introduce myself: Jean-Baptise Clamence, at your

service. Pleased to know you. You are in business, no doubt? In a

way? Excellent reply! Judicious too: in all things we are merely ‘in

a way’. Now, allow me to play the detective. You are my age in a

way, with the sophisticated eye of the man in his forties who has

seen everything, in a way; you are well dressed…I amuse you. ( The

Fall 9)

Clamence’s characterization of the listener is a bit suspect because it is part of his confessed technique to size up his listener and then play upon real or fancied resemblances, which the stranger bears to himself. The owner of the Mexio-City is an another man in the book, whom Clamence considers as nebbish, calls him the

Gorilla. He runs a bar for sailors from all over the world, he speaks nothing but

Dutch and limits himself mostly to grunts. Clamence reveals himself partly through the narration of the events of his earlier life and the decision to which they lead him and partly through his explanation of his present outlook. Clamence mixes past and the present as in the case of Hager Shipley in Margaret Laurence’s

The Stone Angel.

Jean-Baptiste Clamence is not his original name, because, he himself admits: “I know what you’re thinking: it’s very hard to disentangle the truth from the false in what I’m saying. I admit you are right. I myself…”(2), as the quotation indicates, Clamence readily acknowledges not only that he will not give the truth but that he himself is uncertain about the truth or falsity of some (or, perhaps, all) of what he says. Clamence tells that, he is ‘double,’ which is the condition of having concealed motives, and he has chosen a quintessentially human occupation, which he says: “My profession (as a Judge-penitent) is double, that’s all, like the human being” (10). For Clamence, all human things are double, he even feels as his own reflection smiling at him, after the disturbing events of his fall, which he states: “My reflection was smiling in the mirror, but it seemed to me that my smile was double” (40). He considers his true profession and identity as double and

views: “A double face, a charming Janus, and above it the motto of the house:

‘Don’t rely on it’” (46-7). This, clearly, shows that he is disturbed by his double natured behavior.

Clamence confesses that he had been admired for his charm, his elegant and persuasive language, and altruism in the past. Also, as a lawyer, his success with women was incredible and he knew to handle affairs so delicately and that he avoided all scandal and unpleasantness even, in ending a relationship. He was specialized in defending the poor and the accused, thus, being on the right side of the law. He had done his best for the unfortunates, who committed crimes as the result of social pressures. These actions of his shows, that, his conscience might be completely clear. He devotes himself, utterly, to the benefit of humanity that, he enjoys with clear conscience the approval, which the world bestowed upon him.

He, even, admits that he wants to be physically elevated so, he admired mountain climbing and skiing. Clamence has won the public admiration for the good deeds he did for others, he could smile at his self-satisfaction and in fact, can consider himself one of the elect, a man especially destined for happiness. But, he refuses to do so, because his real motives are different from his actions.

There are certain invariant facts about every one (the dates of birth, the biological parents, certain physical traits), when one speaks of these facts in a more conventional vein; they are mostly sediment by layers of interpretation, which are the product of prior choices that are freely made. Thus, human beings lives in a fundamental tension that is delineated by the complex interrelationship between one’s invariant ‘facts’ (facticity) and freedom (‘transcendence’-one is always beyond one’s facticity). This leads to bad faith, which is derived from over

emphasizing one of these at the price of the other. Here, Clamence does not reject the invariant facts, he has helped the poor and the needy but, once, the present recedes into the past there is, some ‘objective’ fact of the matter that, not only the actions that one has committed but, also, the motivations behind them are important. Perhaps, one’s true motivations with respect to any action can never be absolutely known. Yet, Clamence stripped down his prior actions to the barest, and then reconstituted them in accordance with his current motivation, just to make himself look as compromised as he can. Clamence, like Coleridge’s Ancient

Mariner, and Ratan Rathor in Arun Joshi’s The Apprentice , narrates his internal struggles to a stranger.

Camus’s most of the books revolve around a crucial split in consciousness.

Clamence, in The Fall , believes himself to be a respectable altruist, until his failure to rescue the woman on the bridge, who committed suicide. His inability to rescue the woman creates a sense of tiff in his mind, which brings an irreversible break in consciousness, forcing him to realize the absurdity of the false existence he plays out. From that jiffy, he has come to terms with his own true nature, which leads him to reject the principles, which he has been following in ‘bad faith.’ This incident proves to be a scram in Clamence life.

Recognizing absurdity involves a ‘fall’ into a new consciousness of meaning, and forces one to realize that one has a choice in the matter of accepting responsibility, even if one does not want it. Here, Clamence is forced by his conscience to judge his past activities. He, describes the universal desire to postpone judgment, to cling on to a sense of innocence in order to avoid the responsibility for personal guilt- his guilt of failing to save the woman, and

furthermore, the guilt of committing ‘philosophical suicide’ and living in bad faith. Once, when a man falls from the grace, he has to create a personal morality and live by it.

Clamence is aware of the truth that he cannot go back to his past state. So, to replace the invalid absolute systems of morality, he himself designs a personal morality based on being ‘judge-penitent.’ This involves the confession of guilt, and the assumption of responsibility for his past action, as the way to self- empowerment. So, Clamence, by submitting to the judgment of others, wants to free himself from his guilt and plans to live a life by his own code of morals. He is the perfect example of living in bad faith, which means he lives by a system of externally created principles. As a lawyer and an altruist, he is supposedly a good example of living according to the ‘law’ and accepted social morality. However, in reality, Clamence lives through a facade and is entirely self-serving, a fact, he refuses to admit even, to himself.

Man, in general, is free to choose his course of action within the physical and social environment in which he finds himself. But, by every act, a person changes the environment within which another has to choose. If he fails to make a proper choice he will be questioned by the Other. It is by its very existence forces man to probe his existence. The Other is a concept, which belongs to phenomenology- a part of philosophy that deals with people’s feelings, thoughts, and experiences. The experience of the Other is the experience of another free subject, who inhabits the same world as the person does. In its most basic form, it is the experience of the Other that constitutes inter-subjectivity and objectivity.

The concept, the Other is most comprehensively used by the feminist

existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir. She used this concept in her feminist book; The

Second Sex, to show how, despite women’s sincere efforts at proving themselves as human beings, firmly, established in their own rights, men continue to relegate to them a status of a lower inferior ‘Other.’

Sartre in Being and Nothingness depicts human relations as inescapably associated with guilt; the guilt is existential but, not due to any religious doctrine.

He states, how man feels guilty, when questioned by the Other in the following way:

It is before the Other that I am guilty. I am guilty when beneath the

Other’s look I experience my alienation and my nakedness as a fall

from grace, which I must assume. This is the meaning of the famous

line from Scripture: “They knew that they were naked.” Again I am

guilty when in turn I look at the other, because by the very fact of

my own self-assertation I constitute him as an object and as an

instrument, and I cause him to experience that same alienation.

(140)

People in general, are guilty towards each other because they are constantly causing the internal hemorrhage to others world. Sartre, states, that the existence of consciousness creates an inevitable conflict of claims or demands. The most basic need of an individual is to move freely in a world to which his own subjectivity gives form and meaning but, the existence of the Other offers violence to his freedom. It makes one to wonder, whether it is possible for a man to be really concerned for the Other. The basic problem, in The Fall, is not the relation of a man with another but, with his own the ‘Other.’ Clamence, when questioned

by the Other feels guilty. He is so egocentric and the only love that he is capable of is the self-love. This leads him to fall from the grace.

Jean-Baptiste Calmence is enslaved to his position of pseudo “judge- penitent” (8). His egoistic individualism – his hidden desire to evade communal responsibility and reluctance to embrace fellow citizens’ suffering leads him to indulge in debauchery and fall into endless nihilism. Through Calmence, Camus portrays a figure, who suffers from a tormented conscience after falling from the state of innocence.

Clamence’s inner anguish fails to provide any alternative moral value and it fails to exhibit authentic selfhood. His cynicism is based on egoistic elitism. Clamence’s characterization reminds one, of Camus’s criticisms on the traditional French left wings such as Sartre, Raymond Aron and Jeanson.

Camus’s refusal to adopt dogmatism in the Algerian War and the subsequent communist struggle in Cold War instigates him to create a character like

Clamence. Robert C. Solomon in his Pathologies of Pride in Camus’s The Fall , views Clamence in the following way:

Camus’s refusal to adopt dogmatism leads him to create the

Janus-faced protagonist, Clamence, who reflects Camus’s own

ambivalence regarding innocence and guilt. Clamence’s inability

to create normal human ties or embrace a vital solidarity with

other fellow citizens in a world lack of moral judgment or

principles that governs human behavior is described in the novel.

(45)

Clamence in his confession to the stranger works on a binary opposition of past and present, Paris and Amsterdam. In Paris, he is, “A truly virtuous, fully contented, enviously successful man” ( The Fall 43). This means that, he had enjoyed the pleasure of knowing that he was “on the right side” and assured “his peace of conscience” (185). Yet, his preaching and his presentation of the fall are designed to judge his past actions. A noble and immensely successful “defender of widows and orphans” (41), once, is now in the slum quarters of Amsterdam, a center of bourgeois hell. He has broken with his past and lives under the false name.

Clamence tries to play his part perfect, like a seasoned actor, people considers him generous and so he is. His crisis is that, he lived for the ‘Other’ rather than for himself. He evaluates his self-worth in the light of societal standards. Now, the self in Clamence is encountered by Clamence the Other’s reflection. He, merely, exists, and he lacks an identity of his own. As a result, alienation creeps in and he is alone by bad faith. He is judged by the Other like an object. This confrontation Sartre, clearly, explicates in his Being and Nothingness as follows:

By the mere appearance of the Other, I am put in the position of

passing judgment on myself as on an object, for it is an object that I

appear to the Other…I recognize that I am as the Other sees me.

There is however no question of comparison between what I am for

myself and what I am for the Other. (392)

Clamence is ashamed of himself as he appears to the Other. Therefore, the Other has not only revealed Clamence what he was; it has also established

in him a new type of being, which can support new appearance of the Other.

This is similar to Heidegger’s the ‘call of conscience’ to be authentic, which is to distance oneself from the ‘they-self’ that surrounds one’s environment.

Authenticity is achieved through ‘a self-conscious’ choice and it requires individual’s courage and clarity of vision. Clamence is identified with falsehood. He is guilty of bad faith and that, he lies to himself. Bad faith is a lie to oneself; lie (that is not being true) is a behavior of transcendence. The lie is also, a normal phenomenon of what Heidegger calls the “Mit-sein” (being-with others in the world). Sartre defines lie in the following way:

It presupposes my existence, the existence of the Other, my

existence for the Other, and the existence of the Other for me. Thus

there is no difficulty in holding that the liar must make the project of

the lie in entire clarity and that he must possess a complete

comprehension of the lie and of the truth, which he is altering. It is

sufficient that an overall opacity hides his intentions from the Other;

and the Other can take the lie for truth. ( Being and Nothingness 272)

Clamence experiences the Other on a evening when he was alone at night on a bridge over the Seine. This incident, act as a turning point in Clamence’s life because; he suddenly hears the laugh of someone. But, there is no one and he narrates the incident as follows:

A laugh burst out behind me. Taken by surprise I suddenly wheeled

round; there was no one there…. I turned back towards the island

and, again heard the laughter behind me, a little farther off as if it

were going down stream. I stood motionless. The sound of the

laughter was decreasing, but I could still hear it distinctly behind

me. ( The Fall 30)

The laugh, that Clamence hears which comes from within him, is a projection of the judgment, which he passes upon himself. One can call it conscience or can call Sarterean ‘Other’ or the ‘Look,’ which may be present in the mind even though no living Other is within sight. Clamence starts to hear the laugh more than once in the days, which follows. It has the disturbing effect since; it makes him to remember things, which he previously tried to forget. Life becomes knotty for Clamence and, he is in complete depression and remorse. He expresses his gloominess in the following way: “When the body is sad the heart languishes…. I even find trouble expressing myself. I’m not talking so well, it seems to me, and my words are less assured” (33).

The incident, which proves himself that he, is a hypocrite happened in a traffic jam, which troubles his memory. During that incident, he has allowed himself to become provoked by a motorcyclist and descended to fisticuffs. Even worse, when a third person intervened and punched him, Clamence has let the blow go unreturned. The episode bothers him in two ways. First, by the fact that, he has not returned the blow and has spent several days indulging in revenge fantasies; this seriously threatened his view of himself as a man who could rationally control events or if necessary rise above them. Second, the mere fact that, he has lost his temper and got involved in a street fight, seemed to indicate that his being on the right side of the law is chiefly accidental. In a crisis, like this, he is as ready as anyone else to resort to violence and asocial conduct. This incident proves him that he is a double natured man. Clamence needs the Other to

realize his double nature. As Sartre points: “One needs the ‘Other’ in order to fully realize all the structures of my [his] being” ( Being and Nothingness 393)

The truly devastating memory, which troubles Clamence, is his inability to rescue a woman. It has occurred on one midnight, when he has to cross a bridge.

He notices a young woman leaning over the rail but, paid little attention. A few minutes later, he hears a splash and cries of fright. His true self forbids him to indulge in action so; he failed to save the lady. He narrates his actions thus:

I wanted to run, and I did not move. I was trembling, I believe, from

cold and from shock. I told myself that I must act quickly and I felt

throughout my body an irritable faintness. I have forgotten what I

thought then ‘Too late, too far…’or something of the sort. I was still

listening, as I stood motionless. Then, slowly, in the rain, I went

away. I told no one. (82)

It is important to note that in this occurrence; Clamence does not act, or refuse to act, as the result of conscious reflection. If he had time to contemplate that life depends upon his action, he would have felt that he must save the woman.

But, he does not feel that, actually, the fact that his refusal is more a reflex than a decision, which makes him a liar in his own eyes later. It seems to him that the impulse comes from his deepest and most basic outlook on life. If the situation had allowed for more reflection, the real Clamence would have refused to save the woman and only the play-acting Clamence might possibly have acted in the situation. He has been able to repress his awareness of the event’s significance by avoiding reading the newspapers on the following days; this provides an additional evidence of his callousness. After this incident, he hears the laugh and he is

haunted by the guilt. He feels shame as, Sartre, defines it in Being and

Nothingness ,

Shame of self; it is the recognition of the fact that I am indeed that

object which the other is looking at and judging. I can be ashamed

only as my freedom escapes me in order to become a given

object…. The Other’s look makes me be beyond my being in this

world and beyond this world. What sort of relations can I enter into

with this being which I am and which shame reveals to me? (401-2)

Although, Clamence is bogged down by his memory, he cannot act at the present or cannot exclusively live in the past. Solomon states in his Pathologies of

Pride in Camus’s The Fall, “Clamence is a man with a plan geared toward a

‘negative’ future in which salvation will come to pass when we all sleep on the floor” (85), Clamence has already dropped to the floor, and he now seeks transcendence not by his own actions but, instead, by judging other’s actions, or to be more precise, by judging others failure. He expresses his anguish in the following way: “Who, Cher Monsieur, will sleep on the floor for us? Am I capable of at myself? Look, I’d like to be and I shall be. Yes, we shall all be capable of it one day, and that will be salvation” (The Fall 25).

Clamence is over wrought by the hollowness of his existence; he refuses to love anyone except himself. His sole outlet to protect himself from the laughter is to indulge in various forms of debauchery. He elicits: “There was nothing but debauchery, a substitute for love, which quiets the laughter, restores silence and, above all, confers immortality” (51). He, even, declares his liberation from the reality, which can be found in debaucher because “it creates no obligation” (52),

so, he freely enjoys that liberation. Solomon argues that, “Clamence’s fall and move from Paris to Amsterdam reveals the falseness of his sense of earlier superiority and his innocence” ( Pathologies of Pride in Camus’s The Fall 42). He refers to The Fall as, “a morality tale on the pathology of pride” (44). Clamence’s pride makes him exceptional and lofty; yet, his excessive pride, or narcissism renders him vulnerably to fall from the highly cultured sophisticated state to complete despair. Edward Wasiolek in his Dostoevsky, Camus, and Faulkner;

Transcendence and Mutilation, offers a similar interpretation:

Clamence perceives [that] his life before the fall was sham and a lie,

that he was not as good as he had imagined himself be, […] that he

had turned virtue, humility, self-sacrifice, and social benefactions to

the service of himself. He is courageous enough to act on his

lucidity. Yet, his lucidity brings him to a devastating arraignment of

man as capable of nothing but deception and slavery. (135)

Clamence holds a transcendent view of himself before the fall. Before the fall, he believed in an abstract good man, and after the fall, he believes in an abstract evil man. In a sense, Clamence’s life in Paris as an eminent and successful lawyer, and the subsequent life in Amsterdam as a ‘judge-penitent,’ shows, a clear division of Clamence’s moral transition. His Parisian life is devoid of reflection on himself, and thus, no self-condemnation and/or moral judgment can be detected, whereas Clamence in Amsterdam, though, he still pretends to be innocent and does not take life seriously, “the possibility of failure and his vulnerability” ( Pathologies of Pride in Camus’s The Fall 45), is morally reflective

and thus, opens an eye to self-condemnation. Solomon is right on the mark when he observes:

Clamence’s life in Amsterdam is caught up in reflection. He lives

heavily, like the gloomy Dutch weather; through embittered and

resentful thinking…he remembers and interprets his earlier

seemingly innocent and noble life as too much of sham. But, in

Amsterdam pretends to ‘judge-penitent. ( Pathologies of Pride in

Camus’s The Fall 46 )

Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus says that the inevitable conflict between the individual and the irrational universe marks the onset of the feeling of the absurd. Likewise, Parisian Clamence under the mask of justice and innocence is transfigured to Clamence in Amsterdam and thus, he is gradually aware of his inner corruption. Calmence’s conflict between his narcissism and discovery of his dual-self provides him a significant moment of self-condemnation, and, at this moment, he is clearly aware of the absurdity of the dual-self. Clamence’s existence is replete with dual identity, both as an ardent advocate of the poor and as a hypocrite, who never assumes to be virtuous without the presence of others.

He hides his duplicity in defense of “the fundamental duplicity of the human being” ( The Fall 84).

Though, Clamence is aware that the keenest of human torment is to be judged without a law, he, still, leads a dual life. Philosophy and Literature expresses Clamence’s nature as: “The apparent face of innocence and nobility is contrasted to the face of the Amsterdam devil on the other side” (45). This can be seen as his desperate effort to maintain his pride and image in a member of the

upper class. Thus, in spite of his ever-increasing humiliation, his duplicity shapes his behavior pattern; thus, his selflessness is, in fact, motivated by pure “self interest and vanity” ( Philosophy and Literature 46). Clamence exults:

I always lived free and powerful. I simply felt released in my

relations with everyone else for the excellent reason that I

recognized no equals. I always considered myself more intelligent

than anyone else…more sensitive and more skillful, a crack shot, an

incomparable driver, and a better lover… I found nothing but

superiorities in myself and this explained my goodwill and serenity.

(The Fall 54)

Clamence, as an elite believes himself to possess a noble soul, fails to recognize, or does not take seriously, his inauthentic motivation in doing virtuous, heroic acts. However, Clamence’s several generous acts for the sole manifestation of his elitism are not understandable by his peers because, nobody perceives him as highly superior. Thus, his sheer motivation of generous acts comes from the self-satisfaction, which reveals his self-defensive and self-deceptive stance. This is what Sartre calls bad faith, he, further, argues: “We can choose ourselves as indecisive, fleeing, and the like, as well as heroic; but in each instance, a choice has taken place” ( Being and Nothingness 472). Heidegger makes it quite clear that authenticity of Being is the true meaning of Dasein; however, this so-called ‘true meaning’ (Dasein) can be lost, when one is pushed toward a state of inauthentic

Being. From the view of Sartre and Heidegger, Clamence as both states, is in bad faith and inauthentic state. Clamence uses his success as a bourgeois lawyer to raise himself above others. He judges himself in advance, to evade being judged

from others. For this reason, he adopts to use the prophetic language in his monologue and declares judgment both for himself and others.

The laugh, which forces Clamence to recall and re-examine his life, serves not only as the death blow to his feeling of moral superiority but also as , “he opens up the Pandora’s box of reappraisals of all his acts and attitudes” ( Humanistic

Existentialism: The Literature of Possibility 78). He has always prided himself on being able to help people and then honestly forget that they are under obligation to him. Now, he begins to realize that the truth is not that, he has forgotten the obligation but, the people involved meant so little to him that he has forgotten them. When someone thanks him for a favour, he says, “Nobody else would have done as much” ( The Fall 54). In another occurrence, he gives assistance to a blind man and tips his hat to the public. Gradually, he discovers that the altruism is but obverse of a profound egocentrism.

Clamence is modest, kind, and helpful because he wants to have both in his own eyes and in the eyes of others the reputation of being humble and considerate.

Every virtue, every noble act is one more stone in the monument of his own self- pride. Throughout his life, he has been possessed by the love of self. Clamence’s first reaction to this new view of himself is to achieve innocence by acknowledging his guilt. But, even this act is not born of true humility; in this way, he wants to assert superiority by placing himself on the side of the one laughing. He resolves to make people see him for, “what I [he] really is” (63). He turns to debauchery to find a temporary relief. The Other essentially exists for him, since the justification of life in all relation to Clamence is grounded upon his needs and whims.

Clamence’s narcissist nature makes his profession change. He notes that, “I conceived at least one great love in my life, of which I was always the object”

(58). Clamence, in his transcendence, believes that his future happiness lies in proclaiming himself a leader, a type of sadistic savior, of the guilty. He laments:

“After all one can’t get along without domineering or being served” (44). He can no longer stay in Paris, so he naturally, gravitates towards the dregs of society where he can most easily float to the top of the heap. Thus, he assumes a monarchical position of importance, which he states: “We rarely confide in those who are better than we. Rather, we are more inclined to flee their society. Most often, on the other hand, men confess to those who are like them and who share their weaknesses” (83). Clamence leaves Paris to overcome his past and this clearly proves that he is in self-deception.

Clamence’s true memory is responsible for his fall. He is never able to forget the suicide he might have prevented. This memory is the beginning of his fall. From this incident onwards, Clamence begins to see within himself the arrogance and the insincerity that he possessed. He begins to realize that, his former good deeds had been done only for the sake of popular approval. He cannot remember any moral or courteous acts that, he had performed, when there were no witnesses present to applaud his actions. Overcome by the emptiness of his existence, he decides to protect himself against the artificial fulfillment, he once acquired. Clamence is aware of the fact that human’s has an essential deceptiveness in behaviour and the keenest of human torments is to be judged without a law. This means that, no punishment by law can amount to the pain he has felt so; he devotes himself to the role of ‘judge penitent.’ Solely by judging

himself he can escape the judgment of others, and he can explain this discovery to others only through his own confession. Dostoevsky observes judgment as follows:

Every man has reminiscences, which he could not tell to everyone

but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind, which he

would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself and that in

secret. But there are things, which a man is afraid to tell even to

himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored

away in his mind. ( Notes from Underground 118)

Clamence is of the view that one cannot die without confessing one’s sins.

He says: “Otherwise, were there but one lie hidden in a life, death made it definitive” (90). This is also, an expression of Sartre’s belief that a man sacrifices his identity to others at the moment he dies. A man ceases to exist as he sees himself and exists only as others see him. If a man lives his entire life pretending to be someone else and dies without telling anyone, he ceases to exist. According to Sartre, there is no God to know the truth, and nobody has any awareness of the person he really was, only the person he had pretended to be, continues to exist in some form. Clamence has been afraid that this is the fate in store for him. When,

Clamence realizes that life is not wholly good, he wants to appear as a ridiculous figure and in order to find his identity he makes the Other to judge him and he views: “Since I was a liar, I would reveal this and hurl my duplicity in the face of all those imbeciles, even before they discovered it…. In order to forestall the laughter, I dreamed of hurling myself into the general derision” (68).

Clamence tries confession as a mode to overcome his guilt. Guilt is a state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. It is, also, a cognitive or an emotional experience that occurs when a person realizes or believes that he/she has violated a moral standard, and bears significant responsibility for that violation. Guilt, in the Christian Bible is not merely an emotional state but, is a legal state of deserving punishment. The Greek New Testament uses a word for guilt that means “Standing exposed to judgment for sin” ( Romans 3:9). Guilt cannot be remedied in the Bible, as sin must always be punished. Redemption is possible only if one truly confess the sins. In literature, the theme of guilt has been widely used by many writers. Guilt is a main theme in John Steinbeck’s East of

Eden , Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment , Tennessee Williams’ A

Streetcar Named Desire , William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth , Edgar Allan Poe’s

“The Tell-Tale Heart ” and many other works of literature. It is a major theme in many works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is an almost universal concern of novelists who explore inner life and secrets.

Here, Clamence confesses to alleviate his unbearable sense of guilt but, he could not succeed in it. So, he tries to forget his guilt and dissatisfaction by losing his identity in drunken orgies and sexual debauchery. He reveals his mind as follows: “At a certain degree of lucid intoxication, lying late at night between two prostitutes and drained of all desire, hope cease to be a torture, you see, the mind dominates the whole past, and the pain of living is forever over” ( The Fall 76). His life shows how the modern world has failed to come to terms with the loss of established values.

Clamence spends much of the first part of his confession describing his erotic relationships with women and the manner in which they serve and reflect his self-love. One feels that, he is holding nothing back, not even the duplicity inherent in the very act of confession. But, beyond all the introspection, it is possible to see even more bad faith than Clamence admits in himself. As Sartre states, it should be noted that bad faith is not a continuous and dooming occurrence for the individual. The individual can get out of bad faith when, he comes to a realization that he has potential and when he is ready to make a decision that will give a new meaning to his life. This reflection that one is in bad faith makes man to become anguish. Now, Clamence is in the state of anxiety after knowing the truth that, he exists only to fulfill his pleasures.

The laughter that initially accompanies the experience of Clamence throughout the novel neither condemns nor harms Clamence in any way. Indeed,

Clamence describes the laugh as: “Benevolent” – “a good, hearty, almost friendly laugh, which re-established the proper proportions” (96). But, it does not remain so. The laughter demands nothing for itself and does no harm. It, merely, tells

Clamence, the truth about himself, without condemnation and with the full range of possible responses left completely open to him, including the one he ultimately settles on. The experience becomes sinister only after Clamence refuses the laughter’s influence altogether, and takes matters in his hands. Then, his life becomes dark indeed. The laugh that begins as a gentle encouragement to mend his ways becomes so unsupportable that, Clamence equates it to the experience of being tortured. The particular device he uses to describe the experience is the

“little ease,” a medieval instrument of torture in which a prisoner is confined in a

cell that is too short to stand in and too narrow to lie down. In such circumstances the “prisoner is never able to feel at ease” (78). The effect of the punishment is to eliminate delight and create an inescapable sense of guilt. Man experiences guilt as mentioned below:

Every day through the unchanging restriction that stiffened his

body, the condemned man learned that he was guilty and that

innocence consists of stretching joyously…. Moreover, we cannot

assert the innocence of anyone, whereas we can state with certainty

the guilt of all. Every man testifies to the crime of all the others- that

is my faith and my hope. (79)

This experience of guilt is both constructed and natural. It is constructed because Clamence admits that knowing his guilt he cannot enjoy innocence, so, he judges himself. It is natural in the sense; he cannot follow the promptings of his conscience. He recognizes and acknowledges his guilt but, refuses to amend them.

Clamence’s elaborate sophistries therefore have a natural or psychologically intelligible motivation. Clamence’s fall affords him an opportunity to overcome self-interest and achieve existential and moral health through an encounter with the Other. But, he fails to do so. Although, he refuses that encounter, he cannot thereby, return to his old ways. So, if he wishes to continue satisfying his narcissism (as he does) he must devise a way to do so consciously and reflectively.

By revealing Clamence’s duplicity and insincere life pattern, Camus, intentionally, criticizes people of bourgeois society and attacks their dual identity to maintain their status quo. Thus, Camus, vehemently, criticizes moral crisis of contemporary society prevalent with sham and duplicity. Clamence is the epitome of selfishness,

and he is aware of it. Even, his charitable acts are committed out of self-interest.

He gives a rather amusing image of his unbridled egoism:

From as far away as I could see a cane hesitating on the edge of a

sidewalk, I would rush forward, sometimes only a second ahead of

another charitable hand already outstretched, snatch the blind person

from any solicitude but mine, and lead him gently but firmly along

the crosswalk among the traffic obstacles toward the refuge of the

other sidewalk, whereas would separate with a mutual emotion.

(21)

Clamence, serves as a fine example, of an individual practicing bad faith and throughout the novel, he emphasizes his extraordinary ability to forget in the following way: “To be sure, I knew my failings and regretted them. Yet I continued to forget them with a rather meritorious obstinacy” ( The Fall 76). This admission seems peculiar; mostly people do not boast forgetfulness. But, as the self-deception theorists like Robert Trivers suggest: “Forgetting something— especially something relevant to self—can be a useful tool for maintaining consistency and avoiding anxiety or pain” ( Natural Selection and Social Theory:

Selected Papers of Robert Trivers 42). In this case, the fact that Clamence’s failings illustrate that he is aware of them. In addition, his ability to forget incidents deliberately indicates that these failings must have initially created considerable anxiety. So, he pretends as if he has forgotten the incidents and he is not sure of the happenings. This, clearly, shows that he does not want to remember

the unpleasant things. The following passage suggests his motivation to forget:

In the interest of fairness, it should be said that sometimes my

forgetfulness was praiseworthy. You have noticed that there are

people whose religion consists in forgiving all offenses, and who do

in fact forgive them but never forget them? I wasn’t good enough to

forgive offenses, but eventually I always forgot them…. A man…

admires my nobility of character or scorns my ill breeding without

realizing that my reason was simpler: I had forgotten his very name.

The same infirmity that often made me indifferent or ungrateful in

such cases made me magnanimous. ( The Fall 49-50)

It is noticed that Clamence at the time of confessing his forgetfulness, he paradoxically identifies the individuals he has supposedly forgotten. Therefore, really, he has not forgotten, but, to escape the judgment he pretends as if he has forgotten. His lapse in memory is shown through one more incident:

I contemplated, for instance, jostling the blind on the street; and from

the secret, unexpected joy this gave me, I recognized how much a part

of my soul loathed them; I planned to puncture the tires of invalids’

vehicles, to go and shout “lousy proletarian” under the scaffoldings on

which laborers were working, to slap infants in the subway. I dreamed

of all that and did none of it, or if I did something of the sort, I have

forgotten it. (91-92)

Clamence’s desire to engage in destructive and antisocial behavior is set against his ability to forget these impulses. His deliberate act of forgetting contributes to his positive self-image. He, even, avoids telling the man in the bar

that he does nothing to prevent a woman from committing suicide (only later does the reader make this unsettling discovery). He, actually, intends to project a positive self-image. Even though, he avoids rescuing or dealing with the woman at the time, it affected him. The incident tormented him very much, which he expresses as follows:

Whether ordinary or not, it served for some time to raise me above the

daily routine and I literally soared for a period of years, for which to tell

the truth, I still long in my heart of hearts. I soared until the evening

when . . . But no, that’s another matter and it must be forgotten . . . I ran

on like that, always heaped with favors, never satiated, without knowing

where to stop, until the day—until the evening rather when the music

stopped and the lights went out. (29-30)

Camus, a keen observer of human experience, recognizes certain themes that define the overall project of bad faith. The one, which he recognizes is the ‘motivated forgetting,’ while another is ‘laughter,’ which appears throughout

Clamence’s confession. Clamence in his bad faith uses forgetfulness and laughter as a device to escape his guilt. At one point, Clamence states, “I again began to laugh. But it was another kind of laugh; rather like the one I had heard on the Pont des Arts. I was laughing at my speeches and my pleadings in court” ( The Fall 65).

Clamence realizes the absurdity of his actions as a lawyer when, he questions his own arguments. Laughter serves to bridge the gap between the disparities of what he believes and how he presents himself; Clamence laughs to avoid the pain of incongruity. Clamence is playing the part of a lawyer, and as Sartre contends, one assumes any convenient role in order to avoid making decisions.

Clamence can be compared with Stavrogin in Demons . Both of them problematize their patterns of existence by representing themselves as morally crippled figures in spite of their highly-prestigious position in their society. They are indifferent to other fellow citizens and thus, demonstrate two novelists’ deep concern of egoistic individualism. Clamence diagnoses his strategy of confession and leads himself to recognize in common perception that, he can observe from other fellow citizens. Eventually, he confirms that he and his fellow citizens are the same species in essence:

Immingle what concerns me and concerns others I choose the

features we have a in common, the experiences we have endured

together, the failing we share –good form, in other words, the man

of the hour as he is rife in me and in others. With all that I construct

a portrait, which is the image of all and of no one. A mask, in short,

rather likes those carnival masks, which are both lifelike and

stylized, so they make people say: ‘why, surely I’ve met him. (89)

Clamence’s confession and acts of self-accusation can only be understood in terms of the fundamental ambiguity. His confession of guilty is an act of bad faith since; it functions as a vehicle to avoid other’s condemnation. His discourse reveals only his egoistic individualism- that he requires unrequited affection and unqualified obligation from others without reciprocating. He, perfectly, conceals his intention to dominate others. He expresses his view about obligation in the following way: “Do you know why we are always more just and more generous toward the dead? The reason is simple. With them, there is no obligation”(77).

This, clearly, shows that his real self does not want to help others and, he feels that

there is no need of being generous to a dead body because, it will not have any obligation.

Clamence’s freedom has no limitation, no commitment. Camus poignantly discovers, through Clamence, an isolated ego who seeks to objectify others to stage him at center. Clamence’s relationship with the silent interlocutor and the reader consists of a complex rhetorical strategy designed to allow him to dominate others in order to avoid being dominated. His only concern is to protect himself from the critical scrutiny of others. For this, Sprintzen argues: “Human beings’ fundamental relation revealed in The Fall is only on a mastery and servitude basis” (Camus: A Critical Examination 201). Throughout his confession, he tries to dominate others. Clamence seeks accomplices, not friends. He believes that everyone, including himself, to be forever and inexcusably guilty, and proclaims that, “A human being’s basic duplicity” (79) is the incapable guilt of all people; he perpetually judges others before they judge him.

Further, Clamence is haunted by the concept of freedom. Clamence’s view of freedom can be associated to Sartre’s concept of freedom. In that there is no determinism, and human beings are free to act however, they choose in any situation. The only limiting factors are the physical laws of the universe, one’s past, and the will of others. Sartre believes that freedom causes anguish because; one cannot escape the need to make decisions. Clamence admits that he used to celebrate freedom, but has since changed his mind. He laments:

I didn’t know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is

celebrated with champagne… It’s a chore, on the contrary, and a

long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting…Alone in a

forbidding room, alone in the prisoner’s box before the judges, and

alone to decide in face of oneself or in the face of other’s judgment.

At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is

too heavy to bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or are

distressed, or love nobody. ( The Fall 85)

Human beings are responsible for all of their actions because of free will; it means that they are choosing their actions. With responsibility comes guilt, and

Clamence has much to feel guilty about. Anguished by the freedom and frightened by his awareness of death, Clamence finds a solution to the problems by becoming a ‘judge-penitent.’ In order to judge his actions and others, he hangs around a seedy bar in Amsterdam looking for intelligent people who may serve his purposes. He talks to them for days and confesses everything about himself, reveals to them all of his vices and misdeeds, then waits for them to do the same.

This serves to alleviate Clamence’s worries about guilt and death. He lets others to know the truth about himself so that no longer, he needs to worry about any of his lies being made definitive. Conversely, the burden of freedom and the guilt one possess as a result of it can never be eliminated, although it can be lightened.

Clamence is of the opinion that judgment cannot be escaped but, it can be shared.

He further elicits:

Is not the great thing that stands in the way of our escaping it

[judgment] the fact that we are the first to condemn ourselves?

Therefore it is essential to begin by extending the condemnation to

all, without distinction in order to thin it out at the start. No excuses

ever, for anyone; that’s my principle at the outset. (97}

Through his confession, Clamence is not asking for forgiveness, nor is he offering it. He is concerned only with understanding. He wants people to understand that they are not different from him. By judging himself, he forces others to judge themselves, thus spreading the burden of freedom and alleviating his guilt. Andrew J. Swense defines the modern “hero” of the nineteenth and twentieth century as one who emerges from the modern city: the complicated situation – economic development and population growth of the modern city rouses up the vicious element of human nature. Likewise, Clamence replete with self-doubt is highly sensitive to the moral corruption of his contemporary world yet, his reaction to the absurd is opposite.

Clamence’s fall from the grace reminds one the fall as a kind of judgment.

Thus, it has not only a literal meaning but, also, a symbolical one. When the woman jumps off the bridge, the fall Clamence feels is his decision, his judgment not to help. In a wider frame, his decisions and impacts describe the Fall of Man.

Evidently; Clamence eats the apple like Eve did once. Through the bite he gains too much knowledge and falls out of heaven. When Clamence has fled from the drowning girl, he sees within himself the duplicity of his existence and takes the role of the ‘judge-penitent.

This fall is entirely self-inflicted, so one can say that Clamence has fallen out of heaven as a hypocrite. Most of the time, Clamence can cover up his flaw through eloquence of speech, but when it comes to action (e.g. the woman on the bridge), he appears to be frozen. Even though, Clamence falls out off the society’s frame, he should not have let himself fall far enough and should have done something about his situation. In the role as an observer, Clamence is at his very

best, but, when it comes to being human, he lacks empathy and more surprisingly

– judgment. This is surprising because, his job as a lawyer fundamentally deals with judgment. His personal court and ability to judge is focused on the outside world and not his own. This lawyer keeps life in a secret distance for a long time in the book and realizes only in the end (and may be too late) that he needs to make a final judgment about himself. Clamence punishes himself for cowardice, the worst of possible crimes. He has sentenced himself to the worst fate he could imagine that is isolation. He isolates himself from the past sophisticated life and profession.

In The Fall , Camus describes Clamence who aspires to be free from guilt and is still obsessed with shame. Camus seeks to rescue human beings mired in the morally diseased modern civilization. They are dehumanized and brutalized by the two world wars. His great conviction is that it is necessary to redress the failure of humanism, which turns to be his pervasive thematic concern in the later stage of his literary career. Camus’s, endeavors to fully grasp the socio- political situations and attempts to promote fundamental social values. Thus, he is acutely aware of the desperate need of moral - political renewal, which flexibly functions as a touchstone, to engender a radical transformation of his contemporary societies.

Camus, willingly, shares the suffering and happiness of all human beings and tries to establish a perpetual dialogue with future generations. In spite of individuals’ solitude among the chaotic and anarchic state of existence and the physical limitations, the existentialists recognize that man cannot avoid his engagement, thus, man’s existence is inevitably combined with his social political

milieu. In this respect, he shares the existential view. Similarly, Clamence’s monologues assume an existentialist perspective, as he states: “We play at being immortal, and after a few weeks, we can hardly drag ourselves through to the next day” ( The Fall 159). Thus, Camus’s basic structure of existence and fundamental human projects, stem from his physical/mortal vision and his emphasis on the present. In general terms, an individual’s existential patterns of behavior should seek an achievement of authenticity. This is a quest for true selfhood, which helps one to obtain one’s ultimate freedom and communal responsibility by choosing one’s decisions and actions.

The Fall deals with the protagonist’s endless destructive despair at the result of extreme solitude and egoistic individualism. By describing the protagonist’s ignorance of human solidarity and egalitarianism, Camus warns the collapse of human beings’ moral spirit and the lack of human dignity based on mutual respect. Clamence’s illusion of self-importance leads him to fall into intellectual vanity and his emotional solipsism pervades his insincere patterns of life. Clamence as a depressed, narcissistic recluse who, in his “past-life,” had a noble career at one point, but due to his complete nonexistence of any morals, lost everything and ends up in the shadiest section of Amsterdam: a part of town that shortly becomes his own personal hell. His monologue shows that he is happy with his shady existence but, if one further analyzes his psyche, one may notice that Clamence is truly unhappy with the decisions, he has made based on his absence of morals.

Though in his confession Clamence, talks about the past mostly in terms of self-glorification, he is obsessed with the present moment of his life- confession.

His confession becomes his perpetual present. So, like Sisyphus, it is perpetual present in which Clamence lives. Clamence can be also, seen as narrative re- presentation of Sisyphus. People like Clamence and Sisyphus pass their life in a dream, as it were, in a state of non-reflection and habit, searching only for a passive state of satisfaction. Living in such a condition, one finds meaninglessness and absurd.

CHAPTER –V

Chapter -V

Narrative Technique

Technique is the means by which the writer’s experience, which is

his subject matter, compels him to attend to it; technique is the

only means he has of discovering, exploring, developing his subject,

of conveying its meaning, and, finally, of evaluating it. (Technique

as Discovery 18)

Albert Camus, a zealous observer of the modern world, has felt the imperative need to fashion his theme and thoughts, expressions and emotions to arouse interest in his modern readers using new technique in his narrative pattern. Art transmutes the experiences of life. By selecting and re-arranging elements from reality and composing them into an imaginative pattern, the artist gives them meaning and coherence. A work of art, therefore, provides an imaginative re-creation of reality. It is sustained by the vision of the artist that shapes its contours and gives it form. Of the various forms of art, the novel is regarded as the most effective medium of embodying and recreating the complex and varied experiences of man in the modern age. Willa Cather’s definition of a novel incorporates this notion: “A novel seems to me, is merely a work of imagination in which a writer tries to present the experiences and emotions of a group of people by the light of his own. This is really what he does, whether the method is ‘objective’ or ‘subjective’” ( A Study of Style and

Technique 48).

A major advantage in studying technique is that its element can be identified, defined, and taught. Technique bridges the gap between the

components of literature and the actual use of those various parts. Plot, character, setting, and theme are inert ingredients; the techniques by which they are assembled produce the art of literature. To fully appreciate writer’s achievement, therefore, it would seem imperative to examine the techniques that structure his or her work. So, the focus of the chapter is the narrative technique indentified within

Camus’s novels namely, The Stranger , The Plague , and The Fall . Camus’s view of art is reflected in his way of constructing his characters. He presents them as particular individuals, by providing them with names and surnames, and with families, friends, an occupation, and a social world that they interact with. He reflects the absurdity of existence in the lives of particular individuals. He, portrays, the absurdity in the relationship between the individual and the world.

According to him:

This world is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what

is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild

longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The

absurd depends as much on the man as the world….

Absurdity…determines my relationship with life. Living is

keeping the absurd alive. Keeping it alive is, above all,

contemplating it. ( The Rebel 6)

To Camus, “the absurd is essentially a divorce” (23) between man and the world, and that is why, he depicts, his character in their relationship with life. Since the aim in realist tradition is to represent life as it is, one of the most important features of realist characterization is to depict characters as particular individuals. Camus portrays his characters as autonomous wholes. They can be

easily distinguished from others by their physical and psychological characteristics. Naming is one of the most significant parts of the individualization of the character because it gives the character a social identity and also, places the character in the context of a contemporary life. Camus meets this criterion of realistic character-portrayal because Meursault in The

Stranger , Dr.Rieux and Father Paneloux in The Plague , and Clamence in The

Fall are neither historical nor type names, but the names give the character a social identity, and, places them in the contemporary life. The chapter makes an attempt to study the mode of narration, plot and structure, setting, language and style, symbolism and imagery of the novels. Camus’s use of detachment, conflict, complication, suspense, and colors to spotlight the complexities of human nature has been studied. Furthermore, it examines the characters mindset and their craving for significant and sensible existence.

Psychological self-examinations are common in French first-person narratives, but Camus’s The Stranger has given the technique of psychological depth a new twist at the time it was published. Instead of allowing the protagonist to detail a static psychology for the reader, the action and behavior is given to the reader to decipher. Narrator is one of the most essential devices of narrative composition, because the narrator functions as the mediator between the author and the reader and between the story and the reader. Therefore, a proper understanding of the narrator’s relationship with characters and with the reader is essential to the reader's understanding of the narrative. There is no information about the physical appearance of the major characters of the three novels, but there is a great deal of information about their actions, from which one can infer

their personal qualities. Meursault’s qualities, in The Stranger, are considered weird, and that have caused his downfall. It, also, demonstrates his ignorance of the social roles, he is expected to play.

The Stranger follows the journal / diary format from the beginning to the end and this produces ambiguity. Normally, the writer of a diary records his/her experiences, observations, and impressions as Meursault does in the novel, and he does not have the aim of communicating them to the reader. For example, the manner in which Meursault relates his mother's death evokes the sense that he is writing an entry in his diary. The sentences are quite short, and there are no subordinate or coordinate conjunctions since his aim is not to communicate these events to the reader. Besides, the time of narration confirms that Meursault recounts the events just after they have taken place. The first sentence of the narrative shows that Meursault has recorded the death of his mother on the day he has received the telegram informing him of her death, in the following way:

“Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: ‘Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.’ That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday” ( The Stranger 3). Sentences such as “today's a

Saturday” (13) and “I worked hard at the office today” (19), elucidates the fact that

Meursault records his events as diurnal, and proves that he has not written his narrative during his imprisonment, which takes place in the second part of the novel. Though, one tends to think that the narrative is in the diary format,

Meursault may be classified as a reflector-character in accordance with Stanzel's theory. He argues:

A reflector belongs to the figural narrative situation in which the

narrator is replaced by a reflector: a character in the novel who

thinks, feels and perceives but does not speak to the reader like a

narrator. The reader looks at the other characters through the eyes of

this reflector-character. Since nobody ‘narrates’ in this case, the

presentation seems to be direct. ( A Theory of Narrative 5)

However, the ambiguity begins, when he speaks in a manner as if he is giving information to the reader about the characters as a narrator. Meursault in part one, seems to be a narrator presenting the characters when he talks about

Salamano and his dog:

On my way upstairs...I bumped into old Salamano, my next-door

neighbour. He had his dog with him. They have been together for eight

years. The spaniel has got a skin disease range. I think.... After living

for so long, the two of them alone together in one tiny room,

Salamano has ended up by looking like the dog. He's got reddish

scabs on his face and his hair is thin and yellow. And the dog has

developed something of its master's walk, all hunched up with its neck

stretched forward and its nose sticking out. ( The Stranger 30-31)

Meursault sometimes describes the setting and assumes the role of a narrator:"My room looks out onto the main street of the suburb" (25). Such sentences seem out of place for a diary entry because there is no need to identify the characters or describe the setting in a diary. Then, it is ambiguous whether

Meursault is a reflector-character or a narrator. However, it can, also, be argued that Meursault may have included such passages in his diary, thinking that

somebody may read it in the future because even in the most private writings

(like diary), one has a serious reader in one's mind. This seems to be the reason for the ambiguity concerning the role of Meursault in the narrative. In this sense, Meursault can be considered as a reflector-character and a first-person narrator. The breach between how Meursault behaves and what society expects is hinted from the very beginning of his narration.

In contrast to The Stranger , The Plague is a retrospective narrative. The narrator, Dr. Rieux records his experience, which he considers a journal, after the plague comes to an end. So, his vantage point is different from that of

Meursault, and there exists a difference between the two narrators with the necessary emotional detachment with which Dr.Rieux narrates the events.

Retrospective narration provides him with detachment because before he reports the events, he has time to reflect on them and to look back to them from a distance.

As he himself explains, "he expressly made a point of adopting the tone of an impartial observer" (The Plague 71), his aim is to portray the collective revolt of the people of Oran, against the injustice of their condition. Although, Dr. Rieux, as a physician, is one of those who have the most direct contact with the plague, he avoids reflecting his emotional involvement because he says: "In the community of anonymous misery, it would be unsuitable to invoke the intimacy of one's own recollections” (141). His use of third person point of view, also, serves an attempt to achieve emotional distance. Besides, he conceals his identity from the reader till the end to conjure up the sense of credibility in the mind of the reader. At the beginning, he introduces himself as a narrator whose narration is motivated by objectivity, and who is determined to tell the truth. He states: "[A narrator's]

business is only to say: ‘This is what happened,' when he knows that it actually did happen, that it closely affected the life of a whole populace, and that there are thousands of eyewitnesses who can appraise in their hearts the truth of what he writes" (6).

Dr.Rieux does not allow the reader to be emotionally involved in the narrative and identifies with those suffering. The horrifying details are related dispassionately. His detached manner describes the death of a rat as, “It moved uncertainly and its fur was sopping wet. Its mouth was slightly open and blood was spurting from it. After gazing at it for a moment, the doctor went upstairs” (8). Dr.

Rieux's account of the agonies of the patients loaded with medical details carries the same impersonal tone avoiding emotional involvement, which he narrates:

That evening a neighbor of his old patient in the suburbs started

vomiting, pressing his hand to his groin, and running a high fever

accompanied by delirium. The ganglia were much bigger than

M.Michel’s…. Their limbs stretched out as for as they could

manage, the sick man went bleeding Dark patches. Usually the sick

man dies in a stretch of corruption. (22-33).

The impersonal style that Dr. Rieux adopts, especially, when he describes such horrifying scenes is, also, closely related to overcome the absurd as Masters, a critic, emphasis: “The clear-sighted lucidity which Camus claims is necessary if one is to overcome the Absurd” ( Camus: A Study 64). Rieux describes such scenes as if they are ordinary in order to give the reader the message that it is simply the human predicament. The reader is supposed to have the same ‘clear-sighted lucidity’ to recognize and face human predicament

like Dr. Rieux. Focalization, also, has a significant role in creating an emotional distance between the reader and the narrative. Focalization in Stanzel’s words:

“Is the ‘prism,’ ‘perspective,’ ‘angle of vision,’ through which the story is mediated to the reader” ( The Theory of Narrative 71). As in The Stranger, in The

Plague ‘seeing’ and ‘speaking’ is carried out by the narrator, which enables the reader to see everything through Dr. Rieux's impersonal and objective perception. He relates, even, the most tragic scenes in a detached manner, seeing everything through his eyes prevents the reader from identifying with the victims of the plague.

The Fall, too , is retrospective narrative. Clamence, the narrator, relates the past events of his life. However, different from the two previous novels, the narratee, "the agent addressed by the narrator," as Rimmon-Kenan opines in his

Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (104), plays an important role in the narrative. To him, every text has a narrator and a narratee, and a narratee, like a narrator, is a "constitutive...factor...in narrative communication" (88). Rimmon-

Kenan, also, classifies the narratee as "covert" and "overt." He observes:

Narretee is a constitutive factor in narrative communication. Like

narrators, narratees can be either covert or overt. A covert narratee is

no more than the silent addressee of the narrator, whereas an overt

one can be made perceptible, through the narrator's inferences of his

possible answers... the narrateee's actual answers or comments... or

his actions (104).

Clamence, in The Fall, is talking to another man whose voice is never heard, but the reader infers his comments from Clamence's own words, so the narratee in

The Fall, is an overt one. Although, his voice is never heard, the narratee has an important function in the narrative because for Clamence it is essential to have a listener to make his confessions and to achieve his aim; to restore his sense of superiority. Lazere, indicates, that the identity of the narratee also, creates a question mark in one's mind about the existence of him. Lazere, in his work, The

Unique Creation of Albert Camus, expresses his doubt in the following way:

Camus's narrative design provides another dimension of literary

ambiguity in the final identification of Clamence's ‘client’ as a

fellow Parisian lawyer. Perhaps his visitor is a hallucination, and

Clamence is talking to himself. Or perhaps Clamence is not really a

lawyer but-alters his whole story to match that of each different client

he waylays, so that each of us readers too is being lured to confess

our personal variant on ‘what happened to you one night on the quays

of the Seine and how you managed never to risk your life.’ (183)

Narratee, in The Fall, has an anonymous existence. But, he makes narrator a transparent figure. Also, the narratee is not particularized and he is a passive listener. In his anonymity, the narratee becomes a transparent figure, so, in the course of the narrative, the reader feels as if Clamence is addressing to him and directs his questions to him. Like the narratee, the reader begins to recognize him in the mirror that Clamence holds. Thus, the whole narrative is based on the strategies that the narrator uses in order to trap the narratee and the reader.

Suspense is one of the strategies that Clamence uses to ensnare the

Narrate/reader. Lazere indicates, “the structure reflects Clamence's entrapment of his listener/reader. By juggling the sequence of the past events he is recounting, and by

dropping hints of what is to come, he builds up suspense throughout the first half of the book for the successive, climactic revelations in the second half” ( The

Unique Creation of Albert Camus 183) . Throughout the narrative, Clamence sows the seeds of curiosity in the narratee/reader, which grows more and more on them as he refuses to satisfy the curiosity. For instance, when he accompanies his listener on the way to his hotel, he does not cross the bridge and explains as follows:

I never cross a bridge at night. It's because of a vow. Suppose, after

all, that someone should jump in the water. One of two things - either

you follow suit to fish him out and in cold weather, that's taking a

great risk! Or you forsake him there and to suppress a dive

sometimes leaves one strangely aching. ( The Fall 13)

As the narratee inquires Clamence about that particular night, Clamence deliberately delays disclosing his secret. Whenever the narratee attempts to bring Clamence back to point, he gives replies such as, “What? What evening?

I'll get to it, be patient with me” (25), or "What? I'm getting to it. Never fear; besides I have never left it" (28). However, he does not tell what has happened that night until their fourth meeting. Moreover, he awakens the narratee's/reader's curiosity, through his interesting profession. At the beginning, he introduces himself as a judge-penitent. The next day, when they meet at the bar again, the first question of the narratee is about Clamence's queer profession.

Clamence replies:

What is a judge-penitent? Ah, I intrigued you with that little matter. I

meant no harm by it, believe me, and I can explain myself more

clearly. In a matter of speaking it's really one of my official duties.

But first 1 must set forth a certain number of facts that will help you

to understand my story. I was truly above reproach in my

professional life. (15)

Nonetheless, he answers the question four days later, and in the meantime, although, the narratee keeps asking about Clamence's profession,

Clamence goes on relating the past events that have led him to his present position. As he continuously delays the answers, he appears to the narratee/reader as an enigmatic man with full of secrets.

Focalization, also, plays an essential part concerning Clamence's manipulation of the narratee/reader. Clamence both as the narrator and the focalizer confers to the narratee/ reader only what he wants to confer. As a result, Clamence manipulates his narratee/reader, as he likes, for the narratee/reader has to depend upon Clamence's focalization throughout the narrative. He, also, deliberately creates ambiguity by blurring the line between truth and fiction as his words reveal:

“I know what you are thinking: it's very hard to disentangle the true from the false in what I'm saying. I admit you are right” (88). The narratee/reader does not know whether Clamence's stories are true or invented because, “In the realm of mask, deception and seduction one can never be sure whether the pointing is straight, or, indeed, if it is directed to anything at all” ( The Compulsion of the Minimal: The

Aesthetics of The Fall 148). This, also, adds to the sense of suspense because of the ambiguity it creates. But, to Clamence, it does not matter whether his stories are true or invented: “And my stories, true or false, do they not all tend towards the same end, do they not have the same meaning? Well, then, what does it matter

whether they're true or false, if, in both cases, they point to what 1 have been and what I am” ( The Fall 88). The content of his stories is important as they reveal the basic duplicity of man.

One can infer from Clamence's ideas about people's obsession with judgment, guilt, and innocence that people confess because of their need for self-justification emerging from self-righteousness. As Clamence points out, “it is extremely important for man to feel justified, and he does anything to elude judgment” (56). For this reason, Clamence makes confessions to elude judgment through his attempt to make his listeners feel that the sense of guilt and duplicity are common features of all humanity.

The narratee's (listener’s) curiosity and attraction to Clamence's story can be observed in his increasing willingness to see Clamence, as inferred from

Clamence's words, “I'll see you again tomorrow, probably. Tomorrow, yes, that's right” ( The Fall 31). But, the narratee is so curious about the story that he asks

Clamence if he cannot stay more, but Clamence replies, “No, no, I can't stay”

(The Fall 31), and leaves him at the peak of his eagerness to hear the rest of the story. At their third meeting, Clamence's first words, also, reveal how much the narratee is interested in him “I am indeed grateful to you, mon cher compatriot for your curiosity” (33). Furthermore, after the first meeting, it is always the narratee asking Clamence to meet again. The more elusive Clamence is, the more he is chased after by the listener, which is observed from Clamence’s reply:

“Tomorrow yes, if you wish” (52). The other strategy of Clamence is that he builds up intimacy with the narratee by using such intimate terms as “Monsier et cher compatriot” (13), “cher Monsieur” (22), “mon cher compatriot” (33), and

“cher ami” (54). Clamence uses such intimate terms in order to make the narratee feel closer to him and to give him the sense that he is helping an extremely lonely man, who needs somebody to understand him. He says:

“Drink up with me, I need your understanding” (24). Clamence’s past experiences trouble him so, he wants to know how others will react to such a call for help, and that he can feel superior.

Besides, just like Clamence, it makes the listener feel that he is a virtuous man, which adds to his sense of superiority. Since, the narratee thinks that he is helping a man filled with sense of guilt by listening to him; he does not recognize the subtle accusations and judgment behind Clamence's words. Since, the narratee does not suspect that Clamence is in fact accusing and judging him, he does not take his guard against his accusations. Clamence is aware that man becomes defensive and does everything possible to prove his innocence when he is accused or judged directly. But, if he thinks that the other one is accusing or judging him, he does not need to take his guard against the other, so, he, being defenseless, begins to adapt these accusations to himself and to see himself in the other person.

Camus’s success with his narration is immediately recognized to be extremely innovative. The Stranger is divided into two parts, the first part describes Meursault’s life until the murder and the second describes his imprisonment and trial, at the end awaiting his execution. The two-part structure, provides, a set of contrasts between two ways of looking at the world. The two parts contrast Meursault’s acceptance of immediate sensations as truth with society’s need to find abstract motivations. Each of the events, that Meursault

describes in his objective manner in Part One- his mother’s funeral, his affair with

Marie, and his attempt to help Raymond- is seen in a totally different light during the trial, in the Second Part. The two parts of the novel, also, show the two faces of the external world. When he is free, Meursault is able to enjoy the beauty of nature, physical contact with Marie, simple companionship with others. When imprisoned, Meursault is placed in a cell where he cannot see the external world; his contact with Marie is reduced to a sterile interview in the prison visiting room; his attempts to be friendly with his counsel are rebuffed.

The plot of The Stranger is built around death and judgment. From the beginning, a feeling of judgment against Meursault is gradually built up. He feels vaguely at fault, even when asking his employer’s permission to attend his mother’s funeral. In his conversation with the Director of the old people’s home, he states: “I had a feeling he was blaming me for something” (12). At the vigil before the funeral, the old people look at Meursault curiously and he comments:

“For a moment I had an absurd impression that they had come to sit in judgment on me” (18). After the murder, Meursault is made to see himself as a criminal. The examining Magistrate frightens him, but he reminds him that, “It was absurd to feel like this, considering that, after all, it was I who was the criminal” (75). Later,

Meursault realizes that not only his crime is being judged but his way of living, which is guilty in the eyes of society is, also, judged.

Meursault’s descriptions of natural phenomena show an aesthetic sensitivity and an intelligent power of direct observations; these are essential features of his character. As he realizes in prison, the values in his past life were,

“warm smells of summer, my favorite streets, and the sky at evening, Marie’s

dresses and her laugh” (148). The Truth is what he feels at the present, and beyond this, he refuses to explain occurrences rationally. He knows no other explanation for his crime except, the term, “because of the sun.” When his defense counsel asked him whether, he is grieved by his mother’s death, Meursault refuses. To him, grief is a meaningless abstraction. Meursault is not a moral monster nor is he devoid of normal human sensibilities. His attitude towards his mother, like the attitude of Raymond towards his mistress, or of Solamano towards his dog, is an ambiguous mixture of love and hatred. Meursault recognizes this, but, because of his desire to speak only of what he can describe clearly, he limits his statements about his mother to the exact feelings of particular moments. He has not assumed the stereotyped role of loving son, even though it may save his life during the trial.

Meursault’s imprisonment symbolizes how man is caught in a hostile world. He becomes less self-assured, less able to communicate with others. He is a stranger to himself, and he is separated from Marie. His, only, protest against his imprisonment is his sterile effort to remember the past and recollect every detail of his room. Like the absurd artist, Meursault tries to repeat and to mime an eternal reality that he cannot otherwise conquer. He sees himself in prison as Sisyphus, condemned to a never ending task, which he anguishes: “To me it seemed like one and the same day that had been going on since I’d been in my cell, and that I’d been doing the same thing all the time” (115).

Meursault wholeheartedly, advocates his indifferent outlook on life and he continues to remain as insouciant by believing in the inevitability of death, which obliterates all the significance of other things. His, outbursts, relieve

him from the timely anxiety and express his relief as:

I woke up with stars shining on my face. Sounds of the

countryside were wafting in. The night air was cooling my

temples with the smell of earth and salt. The wondrous peace of

the sleeping summer flooded into me…I felt ready to live my life

again. As if this great outburst of anger had purged all my ills,

killed all my hopes. I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in

the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign

indifference of the world. And finding it so much like myself, in

fact so fraternal, I realized that I’d been happy, and that I was

still happy. (116-117)

These statements show how Meursault is the perfect example of a man who suffers from the crisis of existence. Meursault has come to terms with the futility of life and the nothingness of death and is ready to welcome them unquestioningly. So, Camus in The Stranger portrays the alienated condition of man through Meursault.

In The Plague , the events are arranged in a careful pattern, based on the five parts. Part I and V and parts II and IV contain many parallel episodes. The five sections of the novel suggest a circle of experience from the commonplace to the height of suffering, and, then, returning to ordinary life. This circle begins again because the plague bacillus never dies. The arrangement of the novel suggests that man’s history is a cyclical repetition. The Plague is more than

Rieux’s objective report of happenings in Oran. The language has symbolic implications of which he is unaware. Details are chosen to reflect symbolic

meanings or to reinforce the themes. Even, the music played in Oran during the plague deals with the separation of lovers. Rambert’s gramophone record is ‘St

James Infirmary.’ The traveling opera company is forced to stay in Oran, when the gates are closed, gives repeated performances of Orpheus and Eurydice . The impersonality of the narrator may, also, be related to the value of moderation inherent in Camus's conception of rebellion.

Rebellion is the only proper response to the absurd. Camus views, “The rebel struggles for order amidst chaos and untidy at the very heart of the ephemeral” ( The Plague 10). Alienation and suffering born out of the absurd is common to all man, so man should rebel against the chaos and injustice collectively. They should be united in their struggle for order and for the elimination of suffering. Existence is valuable despite injustice and suffering, and men should do everything to protect the value of human existence. Besides, according to Camus, the rebel should be ready to take risk in his struggle. However, it does not mean that there are no boundaries to his actions. On the contrary,

Camus is in favor of limits, since absolute freedom contributes to the evil and injustice that the rebel fights against because it gives way to nihilism and to its claim that “everything is permitted” (57). Therefore, the rebel's actions should be guided by the ethics of moderation, in other words, his actions should never transgress the values he defends.

The value of moderation is, also, reflected in the narrator's impersonal style characterized by moderation. It is seen that Rieux never wants his actions to be considered heroic, for heroism is a concept entailing extreme actions and contributing to the evil and injustice. Dr. Rieux's straightforward and plain

narration aiming to achieve comprehensibility is, also, in accordance with his dislike for such abstract values leading to extreme actions. Masters, in Camus: A

Study reflects: “Camus’s distrust for rhetorical, spectacular, and heroic discourses used for the obfuscation manipulation, and oppression of men (64). Lazere argues,

"by the time of The Plague Camus has become committed to a straight forward literature, having developed an antipathy toward the abuses of linguistic ambiguity"

(The Unique Creation of Albert Camus 176). So, Rieux, as a narrator, represents

Camus's view of the ideal artist, whose duty is to avoid such discourses and to be as plain and comprehensible as possible.

The Fall mocks the moral tragedy of contemporary life. Camus varies the narrative point of view and style to catch the distant features of each character and to suggest both the hero’s relationship to society and his psychological tensions.

Clamence uses his monologue, as a means of self-display. His story is an image of the dangers inherent in the metaphysical aspirations of contemporary political philosophy. Clamence appears to himself and to others as the epitome of good citizenship and decent behavior. Suddenly, a handful of circumstances explode his sleek self-esteem, and he sees through the deep-seated hypocrisy of his existence to the condescension, which motivates his every action. From this discovery, he enters into debauchery, then into self-judgment, finally, he settles in the fog-bond wilderness of Amsterdam’s waterfront as a self-styled ‘judge-penitent,’ and describes his fall to a chance acquaintance. The structural elements of the novel converge to give a stylized form to the theme of the work. The physical background of mist and fog, the setting in the concentric and spiraling circles of

Hell, the many illusions to water and drowning, the confusing nature of the talk,

create an image of whirlpool that symbolizes the moral void of modern man, who is caught in the snares of his own thought. The Fall is a picture of a contemporary

Hell.

Structure is responsible for developing a pattern of the novel in terms of setting, story and time factor. Placing the character in a recognizable and contemporary setting is quite significant, for it adds to the credibility and the particularity of the character. The setting of The Stranger is realistic because when Meursault describes his environment he gives many details, which make it possible for the reader to visualize it. He describes his flat: “After lunch I was a bit bored and I wandered around the flat. It was just right when mother was here…with some rather saggy cane chairs, a wardrobe with a mirror that’s gone yellow, a dressing table and a brass bed. The rest is in a mess” ( The Stranger

25). Also, he describes one of the Sundays in minute detail, which reinforces the reality effect by its specificity. In his description, the inhabitants of his neighborhood seem quite familiar and life-like:

First of all it was families out for a walk, two little boys in sailor

suits with the trousers below their knees looking a bit cramped in

their stiff clothes, and a little girl with a big pink ball and black

patent leather shoes. Behind them the mother, an enormous

woman with a brown silk dress, and a father, a small rather frail

man whom I know by sight. He was wearing a straw hat and a

bowtie and carrying a walking stick. (26)

All these details about Meursault’s environment convey the sense of memory and man’s inclination to build up habits. The routine, into which man imprisons himself to screen away from the sense of vainness that Camus expresses in The Myth of Sisyphus, is depicted graphically, by Meursault.

Dr.Rieux is, also, placed in an authentic social environment because the city where he lives is portrayed as a typical bourgeois city in which people’s

“chief interest is in commerce and their chief aim in life is, as they call it,

‘doing businesses” ( The Plague 4). In such a society, it is quite natural for people to be individualist and hold their comfort and interest above anything else . By placing Rieux, in a capitalist society, Camus, sharply, emphasizes

Rieux’s distinction from the majority of this society. As Krapp states: “Though

Rieux’s financial security as a prominent physician would ostensibly qualify him as a bourgeois,” ( Time and Ethics in Albert Camus’s The Plague 5) has a critical attitude towards bourgeoisie. Besides, he charges no fee for the treatment of Joseph Grand, who has “suffered for long time from a constriction of the aorta…as he is poor” ( The Plague 17). At first, the people do not want to recognize the epidemic, and they try to conduct business as usual. Krapp states,

“they are neither accustomed to nor enamored of anything that disturbs their economic routine. Even, public safety is motivated by the preservation of the status quo” ( Time and Ethics in Albert Camus’s The Plague 6). Once the epidemic starts to slaughter many people, they begin to recognize the necessity of fighting against the plague all together.

The different attitudes of the characters reflect different attitudes in the

French population during the occupation. Some like Father Paneloux, thought that

France has to be blamed for the calamity that have befallen on them. They believe that the only solution is to submit gracefully to an historical inevitability – the long-term dominance of Europe by Germany, Many people, however, have become members of the French Resistance, and they have the allegorical equivalents of the voluntary sanitary teams in the novel such as Tarrou, Rambert, and Grand, who fight back against the unspeakable evil (the Nazi Occupiers).

Father Paneloux delivers his first sermon with great strength and personal conviction and tries to explain to his congregation the cause and the nature of the plague. In examining his first sermon, one sees how the thoughts of Father

Paneloux prevail among Christians and priests even today. Merton, the critic, calls the first sermon as, “a typical of French classic pulpit oratory – a vibrant, authorization delivery of all the right answers” ( Albert Camus’s The Plague 34).

Father Paneloux addresses his congregation in second person plural, “you” as if he is on the other side of the fence of the dreadful reality of the plague. His first reaction is to accuse the people. He starts with explaining that the plague is the punishment of God for the sins of the people, and, therefore, “the just man need have no fear, but the evildoer has good cause to tremble” (90). Further, he states that God is dissatisfied with the people’s behavior, so, “too long this world of ours has connived at evil, and the punishment had to come” (90). God sees the malevolence of everyone and finds him or her to be guilty. God is offended; He eventually has turned His face away from the people of Oran. According to

Father Paneloux, people are too native to think that their brief formalities with

God such as: “Bending of the knee would recompense God well enough for their criminal indifference” (92). But, he says, God does not work like that and wants

to see His people in church more often. Now, it is too late for repentance, though people have to learn their lesson.

Father Paneloux, through effective sermon, explains the reasons and purpose of the plague. He claims that God sends evil on people as the punishment for their sins, and will transform this into good. This is a well known syndicalism of Saint Augustine, who is the master of Father Paneloux that suffering helps to get greater good. Boethius, in The Consolation of Philosophy states: “Essentially all fortune is good and that evil that happens to people can eventually produce greater good” (93). He, further, supports his claim by quoting Saint Paul, who says, “we are well aware that God works with those who love him, those who have been called in accordance with his purpose, and turns everything to their good”

(Rom 8:28). In Paneloux’s opinion, God is disappointed with the conduct of the people: He punishes them in order to give them another chance to become good.

Alfred Cordes, another critic, views: “ Father Paneloux uses the traditional concept of divine providence whereby God ‘transforms’ evil by having it result in a positive spiritual benefit necessary for man’s salvation” ( The Descent of the

Doves: Camus’s Journey to the Spirit 73). Onimus opines: “Father Paneloux’s response is the easiest one, that of Job’s friends: if God strikes you, it is because you are guilty” ( Albert Camus and Christianity 46). Father Paneloux gives a patently Augustinian interpretation of the events, suggesting to the anxious citizens that the plague is a punishment from God, which they deserve. He preaches:

If today the plague is in your midst that is because the hour has

struck for taking thought. The just man need have no fear, but the

evildoer has good cause to tremble. For plague is the flail of God

and the world His threshing-floor, and implacably he will thresh out

his hardest until the wheat is separated from the chaff. There will

be more chaff than wheat, few chosen of the many called… For a

long while God gazed down on this town with eyes of compassion;

but he grew weary of waiting. His eternal hope was too long

deferred, and now He has turned His face away from us. And so,

God’s light withdrawn, we walk in darkness, in the thick darkness

of this plague. (87)

The idea of the absurd has much more of an abstract quality in The Plague than in Camus’ earlier work, but, always, it is an ever-present theme. The plague, itself, can be read as a metaphor for absurdity or at least as the type of devastating circumstance such as a war that brings people face to face with the absurd.

The geographical setting of The Fall plays an integral part in the novel because it establishes an atmosphere of entrapment. Maurice Blanchot comments: “Through the bleak, fog-bound world of Amsterdam with its sunless and unsmiling flat land… [and] through the gray labyrinth of its waters, reflecting Clamence’s own entrapment” ( The Fall: The Flight 142). Clamence is trapped by his obsession with a sense of guilt and judgment. Furthermore, the atmosphere reflects his trapping and preying on his victim by means of his confession. The concentric canals of Amsterdam, also, enhance the sense of entrapment, as they “resemble the circles of hell” ( The Fall 13). The bar called

Mexico City, where the narrative begins, also, seems important. It is a sailor’s

bar and a place where Clamence most probably feels at ease with himself, since nobody is in a position to judge him.

Specifying the exact time of narration is important because its misunderstanding can change the whole meaning of the novel. Chaiting, the critic, points out that some critics regard The Stranger as a trial novel because they consider it a retrospective narrative. He, further, states, “In trial novels, there is the use of retrospective narration in which the hero reviews, evaluates and interprets his past life from the new-found perspective attained through some radical change in circumstances” ( Narrative Desire in The Stranger 127).

But, the novel is not a retrospective narrative because Meursault cannot have written his narrative in prison under the light of his new understanding. The time of narration is, also, important in terms of the defamiliarization. It is a term, first, used by the Russian formalist Schlovsky. Through defamiliarization, in

Martin’s words, the author "renews our perception of what lies around us"

(Recent Theories of Narrative 47). As Stanzel in The Theory of Narrative comments:

Defamiliarization can be attained by concentrating on the point of

view of characters from the fringes of society. The number of

outsiders, of outcasts and declasses who are entrusted with this

function in the modern novel… Meursault in Camus's The

Stranger is remarkably large. In all these cases it is precisely the

complete shift of the point of view into an outsider, which produces

the estrangement by causing the reader to see a reality, which is

familiar to him with entirely 'other eyes.' (10)

The time of narration, also, plays a crucial role in achieving defamiliarization because the reader witnesses Meursault's immediate reactions to the events. If Meursault would have written his narrative after he has attained a new awareness, the defamiliarization effect would be lost because Meursault would not have his child-like naivety and ignorance any more. However, by means of his immediate reactions, Meursault's naivety and child-like ignorance of social conventions and rules are revealed. Sprintzen states: “ Meursault, from the very beginning is presented as a stranger to our normal feelings and expectations…. We sense a distance" ( Camus: A Critical Examination 23), he also states, one feels "scandalized by… [one’s] initial encounter with Patrice

Meursault" (23). However, Meursault as Sprintzen views:

…does not aim to scandalize or offend. He is far from it. He is rather

quite unassuming, almost shy…. Expressing an air of naivete, he often

experiences an undercurrent of uneasiness as to what is expected of

him. Occasionally he is moved to apologize without quite knowing

what he is guilty of. ( Camus: A Critical Examination 3)

Sprintzen, also argues, “Stringed of our normal ‘conceptual lenses,’ one sees that world increasingly as arbitrary, capricious, pretentious, and even hypocritical” (23-24). In other words, the reader begins to see all these conventions and rules, which Meursault has internalized with totally new eyes.

In this way, Camus makes the reader to reconsider these values and norms and exposes their arbitrariness and irrationality. The theme of collective revolt against the absurd is, also, reflected in The Plague in the technique of Dr. Rieux's

“collective narration” in Shyrock's words. Shyrock argues, “The collective action

that helps to overcome the plague or reduce its effects is mirrored in the collective narration” ( Discourse and Polyphony in The Plague 2). The narrator states at the beginning, that he includes in his narration, “the accounts of other eyewitnesses… and…documents that subsequently came into his hands” (6), and, so, he reports the speeches of Cottard, Father Paneloux, Rambert and Tarrou.

Rambert is another character, whose response has changed remarkably. As his speeches reveal, love is the most important value in life. However, after Tarrou tells him that Dr. Rieux's wife is in a sanatorium outside the city, he realizes that the doctor’s personal happiness is secondary to the collective happiness. He admits that one should take all the risks and should sacrifice his personal happiness, when it is required.

Tarrou, like Dr. Rieux, is the embodiment of Camus's vision of the rebel, as his speeches and entries in his journal indicate. He is the one who organizes the sanitary squads, and by doing so, he puts his own life into risk. He says to

Dr.Rieux, “I've drawn up a plan for voluntary groups of helpers. Get me empowered to try out my plan, and then let's sidetrack officialdom” ( The Plague

114). When the doctor warns him about the risks of such an undertaking, he replies, “I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when all this ends. For the moment 1 know this; there are sick people and they need curing.

Later on, perhaps, they'll think things over, and so shall I. But what's wanted now is to make them well. I defend them as best as I can, that's all” (115). As a rebel, he is aware that he should take all the risks to fight against the cruelty of human condition and to achieve justice and order.

The inclusion of accounts of the different characters' and Tarrou's journal in the narrative as, Shyrock views: “Helps the narrator to produce the type of narrative discourse that he desires because it incorporates an air of credibility to the doctor's account” (Discourse and Polyphony in The Plague 2), which is essential to achieve in a 'chronicle.’ Therefore, Dr. Rieux's determination to narrate the truth, his impersonal narration, and his report of different characters' accounts reinforce the illusion of reality and, also, projects him as a reliable narrator.

Time, as a device, is used in a different manner, in The Fall . Clamence narrates his life, but he does not do it chronologically. Camus deliberately chooses to disrupt time. So, the events that occur in Clamence’s confession are listed in chronological order to avoid confusion. First, the traffic jam incident and around at the same time, a woman jumps off a bridge and he fails to save her. Clamence promptly forgets both of these incidents. Second, Years later, Clamence hears laughter coming from the water below the same bridge. Third, only after the laughter he remembers the motorist incident and the woman he failed to save.

Fourth, these recollections, among many others, constitute a ‘period of discovery’ in which Clamence ‘falls from grace,’ leaves Paris, and moves to Amsterdam.

Fifth, he ends up sitting at Mexico City with the stranger (reader), take the role of the judge-penitent. The readers hear about the laughter, which comes from water before one hears about the woman who jumps off the bridge. The reason is one has to experience these events the same way as Clamence has experienced. At the time, when Clamence heard the laughter, he had already forgotten the woman who died. To him, it felt as odd as it did to the readers. In other words, one experiences a ‘period of discovery’ just like Clamence. This is similar to the movie Memento .

The movie goes backwards so that one feels the same confusion and uncertainty that the hero does. Another possibility is that the disruption of time represents a disruption of cause and effect. Things are backwards. Nothing makes sense. It’s all very absurd. In this modernist style The Fall is written.

Sartre, in his essay The Explication on The Stranger , comments on the form, which resembles that of the eighteenth-century moralists, which contrasts to the theme of disordered world. The readers witness in Sartre’s Explication of The

Stranger “the amorphous, everyday flow of reality on the one hand …and on the other the edifying reconstruction of this reality by human nature” (121). The language of the novel, is also, carefully patterned, showing a similar variation in each of the sections. Meursault’s style of narration is extremely matter-of –fact.

His sentences are short descriptions of precise events; his vocabulary is restricted and concrete one. He gives everything equal weight, he does not establish connections between events in terms of any rational causality. His style and tone subtly change, when he is emotionally aroused. He, occasionally, writes brief poetic passages describing some landscape that gives him a sense of beauty or of peace. At the end of each part of the novel, there is a violent break in the normal tone. Moreover, the structure of the novel portrays the futile and cyclical nature of human life. Meursault’s average day consists of waking up, going to work, coming home, and smoking cigarettes. He notices that his fellow neighbors share a similar, monotonous life. For instance, he notes the routine of his neighbor Salamano:

Twice a day, at eleven and six, the old man takes the dog out for a

walk. They haven’t changed their route in eight years. You can see

them in the Rue de Lyon, the dog pulling the man along until Old

Salamano stumbles. Then he beats the dog and swears at it. Once

the dog has forgotten, it starts dragging its master along again, and

again gets beaten and sworn at. Then they both stand there on the

sidewalk and start at each other, the dog in terror, and the man in

hatred. ( The Stranger 27)

A sense of anxiety, also, appears in Meursault’s belief that all choices are equivalent. One of the most important passages of the novel appears at the end.

While sitting in the jail cell just days before his execution, Meursault says: “I have lived my life one way and I could have just as well have lived it another. I had done this, and I hadn’t done that. I hadn’t done this thing but I had done another.

And so? Nothing, nothing mattered.”(121). Here, Meursault gives us a summation of his belief system. The balanced two-part structure, with parallel events and parallel tonal patterns, is part of the classical order, as Camus understands it that the artist must impose on his material.

The Plague, story is told through the character Rieux. However, Rieux does not function as a first-person narrator. Rather, he disguises himself in the third person and only at the end of the novel reveals his identity. The novel, thus, appears to be told by an unnamed narrator, who gathers information from what he has personally seen and heard regarding the epidemic, as well as from the diary of another character, Tarrou, who makes observations about the events he witnesses.

Rieux concealed his identity because he wants to give an objective account of the events in Oran. He, deliberately, adopts the tone of an impartial observer. Rieux is like a witness who, exercises restraint to testify about the disease, and he describes what the characters said and did without speculating about their thoughts and

feelings, although he does offer generalized assessments of the shifting mood of the town on the whole. Rieux refers to his story as a chronicle, and he sees himself as an historian, which justifies his decision to stick to the facts and avoid subjectivity. This explains the reason for the style of The Plague, which often gives the impression of distance and detachment.

In The Fall, Clamence's mastery of language is his most effective weapon to ensnare the narratee/reader. Lazere notes that, as a narrator,

Clamence is very different from Meursault and Dr. Rieux and he elicits: “The

Stranger and The Plague are both calculated to give at least an illusion of nonliterary style and viewpoint…. In contrast… [Clamence's] language is studiously refined and elegant” ( The Unique Creation of Albert Camus 184). As a lawyer, Clamence is a very good speaker, who has the skill to manipulate his listener as he wishes through his speech. As he himself admits, he speaks as if he is pleading a case in the court: “But I am letting myself go! I am pleading a case! Forgive me” ( The Fall 12), and he excuses himself saying, “Heavens, how easily one slips into a habit; 1 am on the point of making a speech to the court” (84), but, it is a conscious act aiming to attract the narratee. The narratee/reader is attracted to Clamence's story and drawn into Clamence's hell.

The range of Camus’s imagery is fairly narrow and derives, almost, entirely from the central experience of his life, his encounter with nature along the North

African littoral. There are details in the novels that suggest a symbolic level of meaning. Camus says that Meursault is “The only Christ we deserve” (143).

Meursault’s life, ironically, recalls the life of Christ. His companions have names with religious resonances: Emmanuel, Celeste, and Marie. Like Christ, Meursault

is silent at his trial. He refuses three times to let the prison Chaplin talks to him about God, an ironic echo of Christ’s three refusals to be tempted by Satan. He wants to be greeted with cries of hatred at his execution, choosing a role like that of Christ, jeered by the soldiers and the people at his crucifixion.

In Camus’s autobiographical essays, ‘sun’ and ‘sea’ are frequently set in contexts, which lend them emotional overtones that prefigure the symbolical significance they attain, later, in his imaginative writing. In his essays and fictions, allusions to the sun, constantly, evoke a tonality of violence and the sea features as the constant solace, the source of refreshment in a burning climate.

The Stranger crystallizes this tendency more precisely in a series of related acts and offers a striking example of the process by which the sun is transformed into a symbol. A blinding, artificial light floods the vigil scene; the sun blinds

Meursault on the beach before he shoots. He is disturbed by the heat and the light in the Magistrate’s chambers and later in the courtroom, where the Prosecutor announces that he proves Meursault’s guilt, “by the facts of the crime, which are as clear as daylight” ( The Stranger 140). These images of light and heat are balanced by the images of coolness, evening, and the sea, which are frequently associated with Marie or with Meursault’s mother. Meursault meets Marie in the water; sea bathing is one of the delights of Meursault. The sea is the scene of his first tentative caresses of Marie; it is a source of intense physical pleasure. When she comes to visit him in prison, he is looking at the sea; while watching the cool evening sky after his acceptance of death, he thinks of her and of his mother. The sea is often, a feminine principle in Camus’s universe, the sun is dominant and masculine. Sun and sea, masculine and feminine are identified with the two

opposing faces of the world: hostility and beauty. Meursault’s revolt against the sun shows that he is against the hostile masculinity of the world, also. Through the sun and sea imagery of the novel, Camus, suggests, that Meursault’s act may be considered as a murder of the father in order to reach harmony with the mother.

In The Plague , the symptoms of the plague and its spread are linked to the weather. When it is hot, the disease gets worse, and, when it is cold, the disease gets better. At times of worst depression and suffering, the sun is out and the sky shines, even, the weather is indifferent- much like the rest of the world to the plight of human suffering. Letters, telegrams, books, diaries, sermons, writings etc. are an important form of communication, and, yet, they all fail to communicate human warmth. In The Plague, one of the consequences of the epidemic is the closing of the beaches and bathing pools of Oran. Maritime traffic ceases completely and the port is deserted, cordoned-off by military pickets.

Although, the sea is there, it exists in the background, and, as the plague increases in severity, the presence of sea becomes less and less real in the minds of the inhabitants of the town. As a symbol of freedom, the sea diminishes in reality as the action of the novel proceeds.

The death motif is predominant in Camus’s novels. Death is the most inexorable that is given to the human condition. This is feared and dreaded by the characters. They treat death as dreadful, which is ready to consume the lives of the near and dear ones. The characters’ perception and apprehension of death suggest their consciousness of emptiness and their incapacity to deal with life’s situations through effort. With the incarnation of versatile themes and brilliant narrative techniques, Camus has achieved an ingenious synthesis of his perception,

imagination and expression. His focal interest is to express his conviction that man is responsible for his problems. Camus states:

I…chose justice in order to remain faithful to the world. I

continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But I

know that something in it has a meaning and that is man, because

he is the only creature to insist on having one. This world has at

least the truth of man. ( Resistance, Rebellion and Death 241)

Clamence, often, speaks of his love for high, open places and everything from mountain peaks to the top decks of boats as: "I have never felt comfortable except in lofty surroundings. Even in the details of daily life, I need to feel above "

(The Fall 42). It is paradoxical that Clamence leads his cher ami away from the man-made symmetries of a picturesque town to sit on a level, seaside expanse.

The location of Amsterdam, as a city below sea-level, therefore assumes particular significance in relation to the narrator. Moreover, Amsterdam is generally, described in The Fall as a cold and wet place, where a thick blanket of fog constantly hangs over the crowded, neon-light-lined streets. Beside, the atmosphere of the city has been chosen by Camus for a more peculiar reason. In the opening pages Clamence casually remarks,

Have you noticed that Amsterdam's concentric canals resemble the

circles of hell? The middle-class hell, of course, peopled with bad

dreams. When one comes from the outside, as one gradually goes

through those circles, life…and hence its crimes… becomes denser,

darker. Here, we are in the last circle. (24)

The canals of Amsterdam appear as a series of concentric circles emerging from the city centre, which leads Camus to compare them to Dante’s circles of

Hell. The ‘last circle of hell’ is the site of Amsterdam's red light district and the location of a bar named Mexico City , which Clamence frequents night after night and where the bulk of his narrative gradually unfolds. The setting, thus, serves to illustrate, literally and metaphorically Clamence's fall from the heights of high- class Paris society to the dark, dreary, Dantesque underworld of Amsterdam, where tortured souls wander aimlessly among each other.

It is, also, significant, particularly as Camus develops his philosophical ideas that the story develops against the backdrop of the Second World War and the holocaust. Clamence tells that he lives only a short distance from Mexico City , which was formerly the Jewish Quarter, and he states: “Until our Hitlerian brethren spaced it out a bit. ... I am living on the site of one of the greatest crimes in history" (The Fall 48). The naming of the bar, also, recalls the destruction of the

Aztec civilization, whose ruined capital has been supplanted by modern Mexico

City. Among other things, The Fall is an attempt to explain how mankind can be capable of such evils.

Modern man, having gained wide knowledge in the world that beholds tremendous changes and technical innovations, has not attained the basic wisdom of self knowledge and contentment and this has lead to the emergence of fragmented and alienated individuals. Art is a protest in the name of life against the immutable decree of death. That is why, Camus seeks to affirm life and repudiate the nihilism on which his vision of the absurd is based. Camus’s creative strength derives not from his ‘principle’ but, from his capacity for

responding sensuously to the variegated beauty of the earth. Camus is honest, and his style, his sense of myth, his authentic passion, his ability to become involved in an issue without being dominated, makes one to call him as, “The conscience of a generation.”

Hence, Lazere in The Unique Creation of Albert Camus , says, “Camus’s concise and clear prose and tightly [and] symmetrically structured form” reflects his love of art (21). Also, Esslin observes, “Camus expresses the new content in the old convention” ( The theatre of the Absurd 19), since he considers literature a source of unity. In one of his essays titled as Create Dangerously , Camus expresses his ideas concerning his view of art and the ideal artist and, also, mentions two different models of writing, both of which he is critical as follows:

If…art adopts itself to what the majority of our society wants, art

will be a meaningless recreation. If it blindly rejects that society, if

the artist makes up his mind to take refuge in his dream, art will

express nothing but a negation. In this way we shall have the

production of entertainers or of formal grammarians, and in both

cases this leads to an art cut off from living reality. (253)

According to Camus, art should neither “flee reality” as that of artists, who adopts the theory of art for art’s sake nor “defer to it” like that of 19 th century naturalists, “but rather a precise dose of reality the work must take on as ballast to keep from dragging along the ground with weighted boots” (265). To Camus, the artist, should always, take his source from the reality of society and translate it into a universal language, so that will be accessible to all men in the world eventually.

The artist has to translate the sufferings and happiness of all into the language of

all so that, he will be universally understood. As a being, absolutely, faithful to reality, he achieves complete communication among man. The ideal of universal communication is indeed, ideal of any great artist.

Camus views art as “a revolt against everything fleeting and unfinished in the world” (264). Therefore, to Camus, while art takes its source from the mundane world, it reshapes the reality. His writing is greatly influenced by the poverty and illness of his youth. He, also, writes extensively about the conditions of poverty in Algeria, while working as a journalist for an anti-colonialist newspaper. In this modern age, Camus stands face to face with a flat and inexplicable world. His keen insight of it strengthens his sensibilities to make his characters as rebels against the world that appears to be malevolent and absurd.

With the incorporation of versatile themes and brilliant narrative techniques,

Camus has achieved an ingenious synthesis of his perception, imagination and expression. His, main interest, is to express his conviction that men are responsible for the calamities of their lives.

CHAPTER –VI

Conclusion

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play . . .

Lest we should see where we are,

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good . (“The Age of Anxiety” 76)

The most important aspect of the twentieth century literature is the analysis, and criticism, of the degrading influence of large-scale mechanization on the individual. In the wake of rapid metropolitan development and stupendous technological progress, writers and creative artists come to detect a dreadful enemy of the human spirit-materialism. The dehumanizing effects of mechanized civilization on the individual find a poignant expression in the works of the post- war writers. The new social system sees the emergence of a new type of hero whom the sociologists labeled as ‘economic man.’ He is reduced to a functional role and is totally conditioned by the norms and requirements of his work and the society. The exclusive demands of the society cause a feeling of complete estrangement from the fundamentals of life, such as the need for experiencing the vitality of existence and for meaningful human contact. They struggle to discover their own identity in this complex universe. The search is not smooth as the individual may experience negative existential crisis that may undermine the personal integrity. In order to be different in ideological orientation, man leads

himself into existential crisis, which will ultimately destroy him. Adrian Van

Kaam and Lathleen Healy in their study, The Demon and the Dove: Personality

Growth Through Literature discusses the factors that are responsible for the state of negative existential crisis as follows:

Existential crisis when it leads to personal fulfillment is a sequence

of psychological death, decision and rebirth. But man may remain

fixated in the negative stage of existentialist crisis. In this case, he

fails to experience the positive phase of crisis of the negative stage

reveals itself in a total revulsion against the past. If a victim is weak

in existential will, his revulsion leads to utter despair, suicide or

destruction through alcohol or drugs. (18)

Existential problem is more threatening today than any other emotional problem. The moral confusion of modern man who lives on an ‘ad-hoc basis’ shows a duel code of behavior. The rise of opportunism, treachery, cowardice, hypocrisy is due to their moral inertia and flabbiness, which creates in them the emptiness of a hypnotized people. A few writers have made significant efforts to delineate the existential dimension of the modern man and woman. The existentialists determined struggle to be free at any cost, usually, leads to their downfall. The novels of Albert Camus concern the personal tragedy of individuals in social conditions, political events and mundane habitant of the characters. He brushes aside unimportant things of the individual and gives fleeting thoughts with razor-like sharp awareness of the futility of individual’s existence.

The character in The Stranger , The Plague and The Fall propose different responses to the existential problem. Meursault of The Stranger and Clamence of

The Fall , are two characters that exemplify the choices of lived experience, in which the ‘quality’ of life falls by the way side. Camus portrays this as an abdication of personal responsibility, a way of dealing with the problem without ultimately resolving it. When man becomes conscious of his state that he is free to make his choices but his freedom is restricted in many ways, he is filled with anguish. The consciousness of absurdity stirs in the characters mind a deep sense of anxiety. Any viable response to the existential problem poses by the absurd depends not only on a dialectical relation between lived experience and reflection but, also, on a large social context. Indeed, this is what one sees in certain characters of The Plague . The analysis of the novels, also, shows that the protagonists are postmodern individual, who almost had an anonymous existence.

According to Rosenau the, “Postmodern individuals are concerned with their own lives, their particular satisfaction, and self promotion. Less concerned with old loyalties and modern affiliations as marriage, family, church, and nation, they are more oriented toward their own needs” ( Post-modernism and the Social Sciences

53). This is apparent in the character of Meursault, Rambert, Clamence and other characters.

Dr.Venkatraman, the former president of India in his keynote address delivered in the Fourth International Conference on peace and Non-Violent Action conducted in New Delhi in the year 1999 says:

What is the fate of humanity today? What will be the fate of

humanity in the next millennium? Will humanity march towards

peace and joy in the succeeding millennia or be wiped out the next

millennia itself? - Questions like these are staring at the face of this

generation. (Gandhi (ed) 2000; 10)

Dr.Venkatraman’s fears are not unfounded. The world has witnessed the destruction and the extent to which human beings can stoop down from their moral and ethical stature in the two World Wars. Apart from the World Wars, one has, also, witnessed the spread of communism, the rise and fall of Fascism and dissensions that have led to colossal damage of people, property and environment.

In the modern era, where man is oriented only towards science, the scene becomes rather distorted. So much of emphasis on science leads to unidirectional development. There is an imbalance and this unidirectional adds fuel to the fire.

Dr.Radhakrishnan observes in his essay “An Ideal before the Youth”:

Escape from decline and catastrophe depends not on scientific ideas

and material forces but on the perception of men women…. Any

satisfactory system of education should aim at a balanced growth of

the individual and insist on both knowledge and wisdom. It should

not only train the intellect but also bring grace into the heart of man.

Wisdom is more easily gained through the study of literature,

philosophy and religion. They interpret the higher laws of the

universe. ( A Collection of Essays 13)

Having realized the fact that the reading of literature, philosophy and religion brings wisdom, the study is an attempt in that direction. Every organism in the world wants to be happy, and, at this point, one is reminded of Sigmund

Freud, who stated that the goal of every living organism is to avoid pain and their attempt is to gain more happiness. Man’s nature is to wonder and marvel about

their own existence, ultimate destiny and sense of their lives. They discover in themselves a gap between their desire of immortality and the inevitable reality of suffering and death. Human beings are the creatures, who do not accept their condition. Moreover, in the experience of suffering they recognize their own limitations and wonder what has caused it. Suffering and violence should not be the way of life. First, the very word ‘man’ has to be understood deeply. The word man comes from the Sanskrit root ‘manushya.’ Manushya means consciousness and consciousness is ever expanding. It is a never-ending process. Dr.Peck’s observation is of immense value in this regard:

The science of anthropology and neuro-anatomy strongly suggests

that the direction of all evolution is towards the development of the

frontal lobes and hence the development of consciousness…. Thus,

our evolution into consciousness has a far more profound

implication…. It is when we are conscious that we have free will.

More than anything else, God gave us free will. There is no free will

when we are operating at a purely reflexive or instinctive level.

(Road Less Travelled 66-67)

The problem of human being is that the process of growth is continuously on. This makes man anxious and tension-ridden. Fredrik Nietzsche says, in his monumental book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, that man is a rope stretched between animal and Overman (superman). Nietzsche is immaculate in his observation. Man is only a possibility. He has tremendous potential to be actualized. If the potential is not unleashed, man will be nothing more than a living vegetable. Nietzsche, further, differentiates between the Overman and the ordinary man. He says: “The

common man is a laughing stock and a thing of shame to the Over-man as apes are to the common man” (121). Existentialist philosophers have emphasized the importance of psychologically critical moments where basic truths about human nature and existence come crashing down upon man, upsetting one’s preconceptions and shocking one into a new awareness about life. The ‘existential moments’ of crisis, then, lead man to feel more generalized feelings of dread, anxiety, or fear. This fear or dread is, usually, not regarded by existentialists as being necessarily directed at any specific object — it’s just there, a consequence of the meaninglessness of human existence or the emptiness of the universe.

However, it is conceived as a universal condition of human existence, underlying everything about man.

Kierkegaard uses the term “dread” to describe the general apprehension and anxiety in human life. According to Kierkegaard, dread is built into one, as a means for God to call one to make a commitment of a moral and spiritual way of life despite the void of meaninglessness. He has interpreted the void in terms of original sin, but other existentialists use different categories. Angst is a German word which means simply anxiety or fear, but in existential philosophy, it has acquired the more specific sense of having anxiety or fear as a result of the paradoxical implications of human freedom. Man faces an uncertain future, and should fill his life with his own choices. The dual problems of constant choices and the responsibility for those choices can produce ‘angst’ in man. In response to

Hegel’s ‘science of experience,’ which culminates in ‘absolute knowing,’

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche emphasize the personal experience. They attack the

‘herd mentality’ and ‘slave morality,’ and in response to Hegel’s emphasis on

‘spirit,’ Kierkegaard and Nietzsche emphasized ‘the individual.’ Kierkegaard writes about guilt, despair and sin. Sin, according to him, can be defined as,

“despair at not willing to be oneself or at willing to be oneself before God” ( The

Sickness Unto Death 186). When man is not able to perform an act according to his will, he falls in despair. Kierkegaard says that the full account of the individual’s existence is obtained from his practical life. He believes that the life of action expresses the true nature of human existence. He advises that man should ignore objectivity and probe inward to know about himself, that is, ‘subjectivity truth.’

Martin Heidegger uses the term “angst” as a reference point for the individual’s confrontation with the impossibility of finding meaning in a meaningless universe and of finding rational justification for subjective choices about irrational issues. According to Heidegger, man in despair considers himself to be a patsy of external conditions, but when he comes to understand that the trouble is within, this intensifies his predicaments. He finds that he is standing on the ground of nothingness and suffers from the dread of death, a version of insecure feeling. Heidegger prefers to be identified as a philosopher of ‘being’ and not as one concerned with ‘existence.’ His main interest is to investigate for being

[sein] especially man’s being [dasein]: “The being that exists is man. Man alone exists…. The proposition ‘man exists’ means; man is that being whose being is distinguished by the open standing-standing in the unconcealedness of Being, in

Being” ( Being and Time 214). The reality of existence is to be found only in choice, decision and in the deliberate acceptance of the authentic and rejection of the inauthentic existence. In his philosophy of existentialism, the existence of

individual is more associated with despair or anxiety. An individual, who experiences anguish, is in a state of nothingness. This helps one to understand

Heidegger’s concept of human existence. Dread is a type of fear which is mixed up with indefiniteness. The realization of the contingency of one’s own indefinite situation in the world creates anguish.

Sartre seems to prefer the word “nausea” to describe a person’s realization that the universe is not neatly ordered and rational but is a highly contingent and unpredictable. He, also, uses the word “anguish” to describe the realization that humans have total freedom of choice in terms of what one can do — that there are no real constraints on man but for those one choose to impose. Sartre, also, considers anguish to be the outcome of man’s uncertainty. Anguish of death and the notion of nothingness suggest man’s loneliness. What Sartre points out is that man is free within his situation while, at the same time, he is restricted by it. All man can do is to choose among alternatives within the stock situation in which he finds himself, however, he is not free to choose the situation itself. Robert

Solomon maintains, “In so far as we are determined by our situation Sartre tells us we have facticity” ( Dark Feelings, Grim Thoughts: Experience and Reflection in

Camus and Sartre 274). Transcendence means that man can rise above the situation in which he finds himself.

For Sartre, the external world acquires meaning only in terms of human consciousness that projects itself towards it. Consciousness is something pure and negates what is given. Sartre encourages man to confront brute reality without recourse to illusion, and there by enter into authentic existence with the help of reason. He, daringly, asserts, “there is no human nature, since there is no God to

conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be after the thrust forward existence” ( Existentialism and

Human Emotions 15). Sartre believes that mankind defines itself through the act of living. In other words, first a man or woman exists, and then the individual endeavors to change his or her essence. He, repeatedly, says in his literature that life has no meaning and the search for meaning in existentialism is the search for self. It is the doctrine that states ‘existence takes precedence over essence’ and holds that man is totally free and responsible for his acts. This responsibility is the source of dread and anguish that encompasses mankind.

In all these cases, the dread, anxiety, angst, anguish, and the nausea are products of the recognition that what one thought about one’s existence. Man is taught to expect certain things about life, and for the most part, he is able to go about his life. At some point, however, the rationalized categories that man rely upon will somehow fail and he will understand that the universe just is not the way he assumed. This produces an existential crisis which forces man to re-evaluate everything he believed. There are no easy, universal answers to what’s going on in his lives, no magic bullets to solve his problems.

According to Camus, the man, who is obsessed with angst, perceives the world as irrational: The individual and the universe are incompatible with each other. This disparity creates a sort of meaninglessness. This means, the futility comes from the confrontation between the individual’s “deepest desire” ( The Myth of Sisyphus 17) for the absolute truth and the limitations of reality, thus, the futility or absurd always involves contradiction and presupposes the inevitability of one’s death. In fact, Nietzsche’s atheistic stand that God does not exist in the

contemporary human society and one cannot experience God empirically leads

Camus to explore the absurd state of mind. The contradiction between Camus’s desire for unity and the world’s irrationality, disunity, and fragmentation is the primary thing in his concept of the absurd, which is expressed in the following lines: “my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle” ( The Myth of Sisyphus 51).

Furthermore, he explains that the reconciliation between the two is impossible.

Camus opines: “The definitive awakening to a strong attachment to the present life, can be a resolute solution for the absurd man to overcome his complete despair” ( The Myth of Sisyphus 13). Thus, through the denial of eternal life,

Camus conversely finds a greater intensity of life in the present and suggests a possibility for happiness.

Moreover, Camus’s denial of suicide leads him to suggest three subsequent affirmations of values within the absurd –freedom, revolt and passion, and these elements provide ample reasons for not committing suicide. For Camus, revolt is the first affirmative value in overcoming a “constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity” ( The Myth of Sisyphus 54). Freedom, as second solution in overcoming the absurd situation: man is no longer concerned with the future, for

“death is there as the only reality” (57). The denial of a future offers independence and freedom from constraints that human hearts can experience and live in passion, the third solution.

For Camus, the act of deification or the leap of faith as propounded by Karl

Jaspers, Leon Chestov, Soren Kierkegaard, which is committed, “through a blind act of human confidence” is irrational since it is human beings’ detrimental

obstacle in achieving lucid consciousness to resolve the antinomy between human beings and the world. Camus says: “The moment the notion of the absurd transforms itself into eternity’s springboard, it ceases to be linked to human lucidity” ( The Myth of Sisyphus 33). When everything that gives meaning and purpose to life and existence turns out to be illusions, the old and familiar world becomes alien, in which man feels lost. Camus opines:

A world that can be explained by reasoning, however faulty, is a

familiar world. But in a universe that is suddenly deprived of

illusions and of light, man feels a stranger. His is an irremediable

exile, because he is deprived of memories of a lost homeland as

much as he lacks the hope of a promised land to come. The divorce

between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes

the feeling of Absurdity. ( The Exile and the Kingdom 5)

So, the world is no longer an amalgamated one, but “a disintegrating world that … [had] lost its unifying principle, its meaning, its purpose- an absurd universe” ( The Theatre of the Absurd 301). In such a world, it is quite natural for man to feel alienated since it is no longer possible for him to know “why it was created, what part man has been assigned in it, and what constitutes right actions and wrong actions” (313). This urges Camus to reflect the absurdity of existence in the lives of particular individuals. In other words, he portrays the absurdity in relationship between the individual and the world.

The philosophy and literature of existentialism are closely related. Many of the principal existentialist philosophers, also, write creatively, expressing some of their most important philosophical convictions in their novel. The protagonist of

an existentialist novel is an individual, who feels estranged from other people and comes to a realization of the indeterminate nature of being and the falseness of social and intellectual orthodoxies. Roquentin of Sartre’s Nausea, who rejects his life in academia after an epiphany revelation of the superfluousness of existence, is the most noted character. Plot in existentialist literature, often, involve a gratuitous action which demonstrates free will or a character facing death, only by being aware of one’s morality and being confronted with the void, the authors contend can only realize the need to act purposefully and freely.

The existentialists, strongly, believe that by bringing man back to his existence, by restoring his freedom and by giving him chance to choose and decide like a responsible individual the maladies of modern society can be cured. As a philosophy, absurdism, also, explores the “fundamental nature of the absurd and how individuals, once becoming conscious of the absurd, should react to it” (Camus: A Collection of Critical Essays 61). It advocates that, one can construct meaning not by recognizing any religious or moral constraints but by revolting against the absurd and simultaneously accepting it as unstoppable.

Of course, a lack of meaning is very easy to develop. Man lives in an ever- growing population where competition for jobs, life partners, wealth and social status is the norm. The sheer multitudes of people overwhelm human beings and make them feel small or worthless. The countless numbers who suffer and die in horrific wars around the globe, teach man subliminally that the value of human life is not as high as one has hoped. The myriad ways in which the governments treat man like statistics lead one to believe that he is unimportant and does not count.

Instead of developing one’s unique talents to the unbelievable levels, one prepares

to, continually, compare oneself to others. Thus, man does not even bother to begin the works that could bring joy. T.S.Eliot observes this condition of modern man in his poem “The Hollow Man” in the following manner:

Life is very long.

Between the desire

And the spasm,

Between the potency

And the existence,

Between the essence

And the descent,

Falls the Shadow. ( The Modern Poetry 114)

The same is the case in Camus characters who are affected by the moral confusions affecting their psychic conditions. They become existentialists treating the universe absurd and their lives meaningless. Camus’s protagonists and the other characters define themselves through the act of living a life of their own.

Their problems are self-made and the sufferings that they undergo are owing to their own psychic conditions. Having no clear set goal in their mind, without making use of the choice available to make their life meaningful and not availing the freedom to get redeemed from absurdity, these men continue to live in the world. They are self- deceptive and pretentious. They hide their true self. Almost all the characters, except Dr.Rieux, show very less symptoms of positive progress in their disposition or in their thinking. They hold contemptuous attitude towards life and existence. They continue their search in the absurd universe to find the meanings and value of them through self-probing, retrospection of the past,

leading a selfish life and alienating experience of the present without realizing that the solutions for all their problems are lying within them.

An analysis of Meursault’s character in The Stranger proves that he is undoubtedly an existentialist. His existential predicament, using Sartre’s concept of bad faith, freedom of choice and responsibility, clearly shows how ‘anxiety’ about his existence has changed his life completely. He is tortured by his own meaninglessness and hollow existence. Consciously or sub-consciously, he goes deep into his own psyche and exposes his inner-self. Meursault’s predicaments that begin with his alienation and strenuous efforts to cope with the demands of his inner cravings and desire to make him to go astray or break from normal life arouse in him the existential crisis. This is expressed through his emotional turbulence, perpetual silence, indifferent ideologies, rebellious mind and obsession with death and chaos.

Camus presents Meursault as a confused single man. He is an alienated individual who does not give importance to conventional codes of life. Meursault is a typical modern man always feels as an outsider. He is a rebel, unwilling to compromise with the existing norms and codes of life. Masters, a critic, states:

“Meursault, is a man who has lived a life of the senses in total simplicity and innocent enjoyment, but whom Society eventually roots out, humiliates, and crushes”( Camus: A Study 19). The reason why society excludes Meursault is that he, from the beginning till the end of the novel, exemplifies the characteristics of an absurd man, which are delineated in The Myth of Sisyphus: He has an indifferent attitude towards life, and he rebels against the established conventions and beliefs of society.

The most conspicuous event, which exemplifies how Meursault can easily be affected by the immediate experience and physical stimuli, happens on the beach when he confronts the Arab. Before this confrontation, Meursault witnesses that Raymond has a fight with two Arabs and demands that Raymond has to give his gun to him so that there will not be any other fights. Raymond hands over the gun to Meursault and returns to the beach hut. Although, Meursault says that it is too hot and “unbearable just standing there in the blinding rain that was pouring down out of the sky,” and he concludes “whether I stayed there or moved, it would come to the same thing” ( The Stranger 58), so, he chooses to walk on the beach.

This remark again discloses Meursault’s absurd outlook on life.

Meursault, who exemplifies the inauthentic being, avoids responsibility and merges into the background and becomes a number. He does not conform to the conventional way of existing. He does not grieve at the loss of his mother or shows no remorse at committing a murder and his life is based on following the easiest path available whilst being emotionally disconnected from his experiences.

The suffering that Meursault undergoes is owing to his own psychic conditions.

Having no set goal in his mind, without making use of the choice available to make his life meaningful and not availing the freedom to get redeemed from absurdity, he continues to live in the world. This proves that Meursault is self deceptive and pretentious, which means he is gripped in bad faith. He experiences anxiety because he is probed by the question of his existence. Craig observes:

Once we begin to acknowledge aspects of authenticity such as

our freedom to choose, our meaningless and eventual

nothingness, we are naturally going to experience anxiety. The

inauthentic response to this would be a fleeing from, and denial

of our human being, while the authentic response advocates a

resolve and courage to face this anxiety, even to go so far as to

'bid it welcome' as Kierkegaard suggests. ( The Shorter

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 294-5)

Having faced with absurdity, which consists of the confrontation between the pathetic call of man and the unreasonable silence of the universe, Meursault remains indifferent to the people and the events of life around him. The nonchalance produces a sense of purposelessness of life, a life that is characterized by ephemerally and flux and which appears to be absurd to him.

Meursault suffers from a haunting sense of transience and of the precariousness of all human sufferings. He looked upon the world as a heap of crumbled illusions, where nothing is real and permanent. He is devoid of any system of morality and clear-cut frame of reference. His is a disinherited mind, which is deprived of the laws and structure, the value-system and the social customs. The unrelieved experience in the chaotic world induces a state of withdrawal and inaction in

Meursault. He withdraws himself from the world into the darkness of life.

Meursault’s detachment is a mask, which is like Pirandello’s characters, who invent conveniently and as a matter of necessity to avoid reality and its ineluctable problems. In order to evade reality, which is “vague, indefinite, insubstantial… a labyrinth where the soul wanders through countless conflicting images without finding a way out,” Pirandello’s characters construct artificial pattern for which Pirandello terms it as ‘contruisi’ ( Each in his Own Way 36). In its simplest form, it refers to the social masks, which man wears. In the

ontological sense, it stands for conscious self-deception. Meursault’s ‘contruisi’ or protective mask is unfastened by the hard blow of reality, which places him before the mirror of his consciousness. He, then, faces the contradiction between the artificial forms and the inner flux, both in the world and within his own self.

Meursault is incapable of making decision because of his failure to understand either himself or his fellows or the real nature of the world in which he is placed.

At the crucial moment of his life, he does not act according to the urge of his inner self and rejects reflection. Meursault’s detachment to avoid reality with its squalid, repellent and pain racked conditions elucidates, clearly, that he is in bad faith.

Camus’s writing mainly focuses on the incomprehensibility of the world or his attempt to rationalize an irrational, and how in disorderly world the characters are thrown into this world wherein they are compelled to confront absurd situations leading to disintegration of mind and self. The consciousness of absurdity stirs in them a deep sense of anxiety. Meursault fails to have a lively sensual experience in life because he has no pure unreflective life. Camus gives a realistic portrayal of a modern man, especially, middle class man, who undergoes the pangs of suffering due to his existential thinking.

The manner in which Meursault leads his life shows that he does not come to terms with his existence and lives out the life of the ‘everyday man.’ When he is asked to speak and clarify his motivation for the crime, he denies having returned to the beach with the deliberate intention of killing the Arab, but no one listens to him. In fact, Meursault is not convicted of the murder, which he committed, but because of the indifferent attitude he displayed at his mother’s funeral. The

Prosecutor announces: “He had no place in a society whose most fundamental rules he ignored, nor could he make an appeal to the heart when he knew nothing of the most basic human reactions” ( The Stranger 99). Hence, the Magistrate proclaims that Meursault committed a premeditated murder and deserves to be sentenced to death by guillotine. He is unaware of his possibilities and finite existence, so in terms of Heidegger’s theory, he is an inauthentic being. This is an important factor in Heidegger’s notion of being. There is an emphasis on accepting one’s mortality and experiencing the consequent emotions such as anxiety and guilt, and this will lead one to become an authentic. But, Meursault fails to project any of the qualities of authentic being.

In essence, to exist authentically, there is a requirement to be aware of the nature of existence that men are finite beings, who have a responsibility to recognize their potentialities regardless of their meaningless existence. They must, also, question what it means to be ‘oneself.’ According to Sartre, human beings “possess a consciousness of self and hence are able to create and re- create themselves” ( Being and Nothingness 195). Meursault is an existentialist not because of his indifference to the society but, he exhibits Sartre’s bad faith and freedom of choice. Sartre believes that most people face some crisis situations in their lives over which they have limited or no control and how they react to this situation determines the degree to which they become authentic. One of the fundamental changes that come over Meursault, in the course of the novel, is his recognition that others see his life and values it in an entirely different perspective from his own. He, eventually, draws strength from this distinction, realizing that he can create his own path in life. This

brings about the final state of exhilaration that he attains at the end of the novel in the form of accepting death.

Meursault finds a perverse pleasure in rejecting society, which has confined him to meaningless tasks like Sisyphus. The last line in the novel says that he “had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate” ( The Stranger 123).

Meursault is responsible for the events that have lead to his demise. As Sartre points out in his Explication of the Stranger , Meursault does make choices even if he himself is not aware of the choice, his freedom to choose, which can perpetually manifest itself in choosing not to choose, is inescapable. Even the scene of killing the Arab illustrates that; Meursault is making choices throughout the incident. Due to his inner disintegration wrought by his radical bad faith, he is not able to articulate the reason for his choices, and, thus, attributed them to something outside himself.

One experiences anxiety at confronting the world’s loneliness, mercilessness, and nothingness. One becomes overwhelmed by the sense of lonesomeness and the lack of intimacy one encounters. Anxiety is a negative emotion, which serves a purpose for human existence. People generally try to avoid by fleeing into bad faith. In terms of a social context, moving into bad faith requires the individual to maintain a pretense thus never totally committing to relationships. Man is continuously looking for meaning, to find a connection with others and the world. Ultimately, he fails miserably to establish a reason for living or to reveal an intelligible concept, which explains the world beyond doubt. Consequently, man does not recognize the abilities,

which the self possesses. Man does not embrace his freedom, instead, easier alternatives are sought in order to avoid anxiety, and this leads him to slip into bad faith. In the case of Meursault, he rejects the very concept of ‘selfhood.’

This extreme rejection of ‘self-responsibility,’ and all that it entails is at the root of Meursault’s strangeness, which shows his bad faith.

The plague teaches its victims the absurdity of life by destroying freedom and killing at random. The death sentence that is the human condition is merely accentuated and made more immediate by the plague. The destruction of freedom is an equally important element of the absurd condition forced upon the citizens of

Oran. Like the French citizens in occupied Germany, they found their possibilities shrink from nearly limitless to virtually nonexistent, and eventually all of their separate destinies converge into one. Struggling against evil is not merely for heroes; it should be expected from all men. Camus expresses, this sentiment, through Rieux, when he describes the work of the sanitation squads:

Doubtless today many of our fellow citizens are apt to yield to the

temptation of exaggerating the services they rendered. But the

narrator is inclined to think that by attributing over importance to

praiseworthy actions…. The narrator does not share that view. The

evil that is in the world always comes out of ignorance; wand good

intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack

understanding. ( The Plague 120)

Anxiety is always present, much like the plague is. It never really goes away, but one puts it out of one’s mind in order to continue with one’s live. One starts of in the state of innocence and ignorance. Here, one ignores certain truths,

like the people of Oran who have happily returned to this state at the end of the novel. They do not want to know that they lie with the plague, but they could find that out and cast themselves into a life with anxiety. The people of Oran deceive themselves saying that the plague does not exist anymore. But, the plague bacillus and anxiety are always present, and they do not go away. Whether one chooses to acknowledge that plague exists or not is one’s choice. However, the plague can awaken at any time and allow it to be known. With the rats, the plague can announce itself and cast the people of Oran back into an anxious state. Same is with anxiety; it can spring onto them at anytime. It is always there, lying in every aspect of their lives, silently awaiting a chance to re-emerge.

The plague and anxiety have nothing that can restrain the people of Oran.

Rieux engages himself in the Sisyphean labor of trying to cure the plague bacillus.

He tries relentlessly to find cures, to do possibly to subdue the bacillus, but he cannot. The plague bacillus, like anxiety, however takes on the role of controlling the people. It takes away the life of the Oranians. It reduces them to live in a controlled environment and it takes away their hopes, and their future. This shows the relationship of anxiety to the individual. Anxiety, like the plague, cannot be controlled; however it can control the individual. Anxiety has no object, however, the people of Oran have tried to treat it, and make it go away. Anxiety lies dormant, much like the plague, but it is not hidden from man; it is merely covered.

The people of Oran could not control the plague, they do not know enough about it, and they do not have the proper medications to combat it. They had to wait for it to run its course.

Camus considered life and existence to be absurd. In such an absurd existence, the act of living is a form of rebellion. When the quarantine takes effect and town gates close, absurdity is established as the common condition of all. The heart of the novel is the depiction of the various ways in which individuals react to the fear and isolation imposed by this sudden state of siege, in which the invading army is invisible. To convey the variety of responses to such an extreme and concentrated crisis in human affairs, Camus, deliberately, eschews the convenient device of the omniscient narrator, making the depiction of every event and scene an eyewitness account in some form: the spoken words of reports or dialogues, the written words of letters or private diaries, and, as the main device, the written record of the daily observations of the novel's main character, Dr. Rieux.

The Plague has no philosophical abstraction but a specific event of

Camus’s own life: the frustration and despair that he experienced during the war, when the aftermath of the Allied invasion of North Africa trapped his wife in Oran

(while he was in the Resistance organization in the Massif Central) and cut off all communication between them. This experience germinated in his mind and evolved as a fiction, and as a literary model he followed Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year , which gives the idea in more concrete form. Central to the idea of The Plague , certainly, is the theme of man's encounter with death. The Plague concerns not an individual's quest in relation to death but as a collective involuntary confrontation with it. In the novel, death is depicted as a chance outgrowth of an indifferent nature that suddenly, and for no apparent reason, becomes an evil threat to humankind. Death in the form of a plague is unexpected, irrational-a manifestation of absurdity and radical absence of meaning in life.

However, Camus proposes the paradox that when death as a manifestation of the absurd, galvanizes something in person's spirit that enables the individual to join with others to fight against death and thus give meaning and pur pose to life. The novel seems to suggest that happiness will emerge from evil . The painful irony of the human condition is that they often discover their own capacities for courage and fraternal affection only if they are forced by the threat of evil to m ake the discovery.

Bernard Rieux, a doctor , risks his life every day to lead the fight against the plague. He knows that he cannot cure victims of the plague and suppresses his sympathy for them if he is to be effective in palliating their suffering and in keeping them from infect ing others. As a result of this, Rieux strikes his patients and their families as cold and indifferent; he ends up being hated by those whom he tries to help. The fraternal bond with others , who are trying to help, develops in on ly a few instances, since most of his fellow citizens are , too, frightened or egocentric to join him in the effort. The limits of the fraternal bond are most graphically expressed when Rieux and Jean Tarrou see the first sign that the plague is receding, decide to go for a swim together, in celebration. Though, each feels a sense of fraternity , each is, also, conscious of being ultimately quite alone in the joy and freedom. In spite of the shared emotion that unites them, each feels the swim to be predomin antly a solitary experience. Finally, when the plague wiped out , Rieux finds himself strangely empty and alienated from the joyous crowds. The urgency of his task no longer exists to summon forth his courage.

Indeed, he feels more alone than ever after the plague because he has lost those dearest to him-his wife and Tarrou. He, still, makes his medical rounds. For Rieux,

these rounds contain a ‘certitude’ that gives him purpose. Rieux finds solace when he returns home to see his mother.

Once the disease leaves the city, Tarrou is killed by the plague, Joseph

Grand recovers and resumes his self -imposed task of writing a novel, of which he has yet to complete the first sentence, because he has endlessly revised and recast it in a fruitless search for perfection; Rambert, a journalist who is trapped in Oran by the plague, leaves when it is over, but without having written anything about it, having found his profession inadequate to such an awesome task; and Cottard, who engages in black-market profiteering during the plague, goes crazy when the plague ends, shooting citizens at random until he is caught and killed by the police. There is little in this novel to nourish an optimistic outlook, except for the hesitant and tenta tive statement of Rieux, at the end of his chronicle, that amid the ravages of pestilence, one learns that "there are, in men, more things to admire than to despise."

The Plague is the longest, the most realistic, and artistically the most impressive of Camus's novels, offering a richly varied cast of characters and a coherent and riveting plot, bringing an integrated world memorably to life while stimulating the reader's capacity for moral reflection. It has, also, been widely recognized that The Plague is a profound meditation on the frustrating limits of human language both as a means of communication and as a means of representing the truth about human existence.

Camus’s shows that rebellion is not completely futile, and there are instances of life t hat are worthy of resistance. Throughout the entire novel,

Dr.Rieux never ceases to struggle. His behavior is seen in sharp contrast to the

Priest, who believes that the disease has an absolute meaning. Father Paneloux surrenders to the plague, expecting to discover absolute meaning beyond death. In

Camus’s opinion, Paneloux is a morally weak person, who shuns his responsibilities, and according to Sartre and Heidegger, it is termed as Bad faith and inauthentic existence.

Camus uses the symbol of a mother’s love to communicate the usefulness of Rieux’s struggle, in the following way: “Something always changed in his mother’s face when he came in. The silent resignation that a laborious life had given it seemed to light up with a sudden glow” (122). The look of approval and adoration on his mother’s face tells Rieux that there is some essence in the world for which one to fight. In the beginning, when the people of Oran felt that they cannot control the plague that intensified their anxieties, but their recognition to fight the plague collectively is the change among the people that one witnesses.

The narrator, Rieux observes: “They knew that if there is one thing one can always yearn for and sometimes attain, it is human love” (232).Camus ends the novel in a somber tone: The plague is a metaphor for the reoccurring absurdity of existence.

Rieux states:

The jubilant crowds does not know but could have learned from

books that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that

it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests,

cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would

come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse

up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city. (238)

For absurdists and existentialists, man inhabits a world in which nothing

is certain or reliable. They feel that death is certain at the end. Death is “the most obvious absurdity” for Camus ( The Myth of Sisyphus 71) because man is sentenced to death for reasons unknown to him. Since life ends in death, death makes all man’s efforts senseless, and it “makes nonsense of any attempt to give ‘meaning’ to life” ( Camus: A Study 16). However, this does not mean that man should give up life and sink to despair. Thus, for Camus, death is turned into a means of intensifying the passion for life, which is seen in the novel The

Plague . So, the absurd man is determined to live his life as best as he can, and the only way of doing this is to live ‘the present moment,’ knowing that life is short. To Camus, this is, also, a way that man should rebel against death, which dignifies him.

As Friedman points out in To Deny Our Nothingness , “beyond the tedium, the doubt, the painful sense of morbidity, there is that resolve. Their determination to go on in spite of all their anguish and helplessness may be regarded as their rebellion against death,” which Camus mentions in The Myth of Sisyphus that man should rebel against death . For Heidegger, this recognition helps one to attain authentic existence since, “acceptance of death make possible a unity of existence, setting one free from the ‘they’, whose ‘everyday falling evasion in the face of death is inauthentic Being-towards-death” (40), which Bohlmann indicates in his book Conrad’s Existentialism . This provides the necessary freedom to choose one’s own self and to from one’s own values. So, like Camus, Heidegger has an affirmative attitude towards death. On the other hand, for Sartre, death has no such positive role in establishing authentic existence, and he, openly, expresses his disagreement with Heidegger as seen in the following:

We must conclude in opposition to Heidegger that death, far from

being my peculiar possibility, is a contingent fact, which, as such on

principle escapes me and originally belongs to my facticity….

Death is a pure fact as is birth; it comes to us from outside and it

transforms us into the outside. They everyday talk of they about and

the way death enters Dasein. (Being and Nothingness 545)

When the citizen of Oran decides to fight the plague, death and suffering, they try to give meaning to their lives. Not doing anything is, also, an option; however, not doing anything and doing something are all the same when one gets the disease. Through this novel, Camus, like Sartre, tries to inform the readers that only through action and active engagement people can say that they are truly alive, that they truly exist, even if the efforts of the people may be proven futile.

The Fall is a long confessional monologue addressed to a stranger. The confessional note is present in Camus’s first two novels, The Stranger and The

Plague . In The Fall, confession has acquired the hero’s central concern. The dislocation in the inner world of Clamence and his arduous quest for an order leads him to an intense self-examination. The exploration of a guilt-stricken consciousness and the compulsive forces leads Clamence to confession.

Clamence’s confession serves a three-fold purpose in his life. First, the need for confession is an attribute of criminal consciousness. By compelling the stranger to listen to his grisly tale, Clamence regains some of the human converse of which his crime has robbed him. Secondly, it offers him the possibility of cleansing his soul, which is piled as filth during his ‘successful’ career as a lawyer. Finally, through his confession, he seeks to achieve a perception, which he does not

achieve. His confession makes him to recognize that all his fellow citizens share the same guilt.

Clamence is haunted by the memory of his inability to rescue a girl who committed suicide. For him, the life, at present, is unbearable because of the memory of his past life. The memory of that incident is burrowed in his soul, which is mocked by laughter. He hears the insidious laughter behind him, which makes him to recognize the deep-seated hypocrisy of his existence. He finds it difficult to communicate the agony to any one and as a result the panic remains. A gloomy sense of painful and boundless isolation has welled up in him and he decides to cut himself off from everything and everybody else. Clamence’s extreme helplessness, his ineffable agony and solitude are, also, reminiscent of those of the Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner:

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony. (235)

The anguish of Clamence increases when he finds himself alone and rubbed of all familiar ties. This makes him to feel a sense of emptiness with guilt tormented soul. The mocking laughter is, thus, his conscience that taunts him with the suppressed memory of guilt: The admired man of virtue is in reality a fraud, and a sinner like a common man. His solution to the inner conflict is his brilliant invention of a new career for himself as a judge-penitent.

Clamence, as a dual-self, hides his duplicity and assumes himself to be morally superior. Camus depicts the existential protagonists, who in confrontation

with the irrationality of the world fail to offer any resolution to that confrontation.

In short, the protagonist exiles himself from the realities. Yet, he fails to suggest a new vision of kingdoms: he acts as if exile is the only reality. With the general picture of desolation, Clamence locks himself out and ignores the kingdom he glimpses and becomes a prophet at the cost of remaining a pseudo-judge. Camus, elaborately, sketches the extremely passive and morally crippled protagonist who is cut off from “the world of common humanity,” ( Religion and Literature 54) unless Clamence makes a desperate efforts to pursue in recovery after his fall from the state of innocence, stand on the path to go down into the destructive abyss of nihilism. Thus, the modem hero is alienated from the mentally corrupt society and his real life becomes separate from social life. He continues to live in the state of bad faith.

Clamence’s every positive attribute, in the beginning, is turned around into a negative one during the confession. He slowly announces his vanity, his excessive way of life, and his inability to connect with others. Clamence is a hypocrite, who is aware of his flaws, someone so deeply stuck in his own crisis that his way of dealing is to ignore and leave it. The whole monologue appears to be a confession; a confession of how men make judgments and how wrong judgments can haunt their lives. Clamence’s judging starts in the beginning with the Dutch bartender, whose accent he teases, further the Dutch people, his home – the French and furthermore Parisians, the girl on the bridge, the motorcyclist he encounters and so forth. The list is endless, and the reason is very simple as

Clamence, finally, declares himself that “People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves” ( The Fall 85).

The study reveals that Meursault, Father Paneloux, Rambert, Grand and Clamence place their failures on society, people and environment. This proves that they live in ‘bad faith’ by abrogating their responsibility. The saying, ‘real hell is within us,’ becomes painfully true in the lives of characters in Camus’s novels. Sartre, in his discussion of “bad faith,” defines consciousness as “a being, the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being” ( Being and

Nothingness 147). The anxiety of “nothingness,” which creates a sense of

‘lacking’ or ‘need,’ directs itself towards some type of understanding. Sartre admits that ‘bad faith’ can best be understood as a lie to ‘oneself.’ Man fails to reflect on his engagements in the world. An individual may either state the engagement as his own, or does not state it altogether and this is similar to denying responsibility. Generally, the original project of bad faith is itself a decision made in bad faith. The authenticity of a being is influenced by the threat or reward and such an apprehension poses towards ‘self.’ The anxiety is avoided by not

‘noticing’ the very thing that threatens one’s identity. The crucial step towards

‘bad faith’ is rooted in a failure of attention. According to Camus, one is not destined to a life of denial and deception. To the contrary, he believes that one may choose the careful, painstaking path of avowing one’s engagements with the world. It must make one’s motivations apparent. On the contrary, Meursault,

Father Paneloux, Rambert, Grand and Clamence fail to choose the authentic living.

In existentialism, man is responsible not only for himself but also for others, which increases man’s anguish. In Sartre’s words, “man being condemned to be free carries the weight of the world on his shoulders; he is responsible for the

world and for himself as way of being” ( Being and Nothingness 52). Besides this, man’s radical freedom brings out anguish, since he has to make his choices, which

Bohlmann observes: “In an indifferent world which chances has thrown him into without any absolute guide to right conduct” ( Conrad’s Existentialism 12). There are no objectives standards of right and wrong in the irrational and uncertain universe, in which man must create his own values and make his own moral choices. Therefore Sartre says: “In the bright realm of values, we have no excuse behind us, or justification before us. We are alone with no excuses” ( Being and

Nothingness 23).

The concept of ‘freedom’ is central to Sartre’s philosophy. But, he recognizes two main limitations to man’s freedom. The first limitation, he calls

“The Other”, which means other people or the Other ‘self’ take away the freedom.

Other people/self makes one to feel shame and guilt. The second limitation, he calls “Bad Faith,” which is lack of belief in oneself. Bad Faith occurs when one loses control of oneself and become what one is playing (becomes the play- acting). The man in bad faith may lose his sense of self; in essence, he has been betrayed by his theatrical ability into believing that he is nothing but whatever role he is playing. In order to forget what he’s denying within himself, he constantly convinces himself and others that he and his role are in fact identical. Bad Faith is often, the result of one does not want to address one’s freedom of self-definition.

Instead, one may find it easier to practice a special sort of self-deception.

Camus views human existence as utterly meaningless and hopeless. Camus relentlessly attacks religion and those who cling to religious values. His criticism is that religion encourages people to draw their meaning and morality from

commandments without making them to think and finally, they become inauthentic. The only reality, Camus maintains, is the reality of the present.

Though Camus’s bitterness and resentment are understandable, his reasoning, however, cannot be accepted. Camus tries to set forward a humane moral vision while strenuously arguing in the manner of Nietzsche. The absurd mind dismisses the existence of God and hope of eternal life, and those who adhere to such beliefs according to Camus are “donkeys” that “feed on the roses of illusion” ( The Myth of Sisyphus 43). His absurd man negates everything that goes beyond the perception of his senses revealing highly materialistic attitude to life: “What I touch, what resists me- that is what I understand I have no concern with ideas or with the eternal. The truths that come within my scope can be touched with the hand” (51). Camus’s earthbound philosophy is incapable of conceiving the existence of another dimension to life, therefore: “The perception of an angel or a

God has no meaning” for him (47). Camus philosophies that the notion of sin is beyond his comprehension and, therefore, the state of blissful ignorance make him to feel innocent. If life is utterly meaningless and valueless, as Camus says, then, murder and violence are neither right nor wrong. The absurdist morality, then, implies the equal legitimacy of killing and cure, therefore, some militant regimes find in such theories a philosophical authorization and justification for the atrocities they commit.

It is widely considered that our emotions are uncontrollable and destructive, therefore, elimination of fear, anger, anxiety and guilt seem to be beneficial. In addition, having the ability to integrate emotional connect with one’s self, and thus associate with others, surely, save man from isolation. However, in

light of the discussion on existential isolation and key concepts, if one is to embrace only positive emotions, then he/she will be unable to deal with the circumstance of life and important emotions would be repressed and hidden from the outside world and from the person himself. If the repressed emotion is not dealt with and continues to be disclosed, it can dictate how one is to live and essentially, these emotions are responses to events and circumstances. In spite of positive or negative emotions, man must be responsible for their personal growth and existence. Tillich observes: “Man is able to transcend, in knowledge and life, the finitude, the estrangement, and the ambiguities of human existence” ( The

Courage to Be 125).

One of the main reasons why the characters in the novels remain trapped in the labyrinth of their anguished selves is because of their lack of faith in God or in any supreme being outside their selves. According to Jung, man possesses a natural religious function. If this remains unfulfilled, it will result in a crippling sense of meaninglessness. Belief in God constitutes an important and integral part of human existence. Rejection of this creates void, which some people fill with surrogate beliefs in human being’s omnipotence. In Camus’s philosophy, religion is discarded as unreasonable illusion and self-deception. Camus through repudiation of religion embraces nihilism, still he feels dissatisfied with the answers it gives. Eventually, he finds some solace in moderate nihilism fused with aggrandizement of man. The study discloses the detrimental effects of moral disorientation which has been brought by existential crisis at individual and societal levels.

To conclude, it is clear that the individual crisis must be managed first.

Without managing the individual’s crisis, one can never hope to think of curing the social crisis. Albert Camus’s perspective on man’s alienation eloquently depicts the meaninglessness of human existence and goes some way to answer the question posed earlier. ‘Is anxiety avoidable, if one has the ability to choose one’s emotions?’ It is perhaps more applicable to suggest that anxiety can be faced, but it is difficult to overcome. The ultimate dread occurs, when one confronts nothing.

In the face of nothing, no being can help man except God. If one develops inner strength, construct a firm identity and become attuned to the emotions, then one can face existential anxiety, firmly. The research shows that existential anxiety can be overcome by choice, which means anxiety can be faced. The most important factor is responsibility and the freedom to embrace the possibilities, particularly in relation to one’s emotional being. In doing so, man is able to know what is most important to him and tries to create his own being, which is attuned to the environment.

Stress and anxiety can play havoc with man’s spiritual aspirations. When the body and mind fights for basic survival, men do not have the energy or time to connect with God. The only sad aspect to modern-day spirituality is that it is

‘hurried’; it prays and meditates ‘on the run’ (no time to contemplate). Man has no time for reflection or any other spiritual contemplation. The religious doctrines present a system of values and guiding principles to man’s way of life and conduct. In generally accepted system of values, everything is clearly defined, and there is a strict line drawn between the right and the wrong, so man’s duty is to adopt these values and strictly follow these teachings in order to get the

promised reward at the end. Proverbs 19:2 in Bible, tells that “he that haseth with his feet sin-neth. He/she also suffers from stress and anxiety”.

Buddhism generally approaches depression from a quite different viewpoint than modern Western psychology. The existential anxiety emerges when one glimpses one’s life from out of nothingness. Miller, says, “In both

Buddhism and existentialism, importance is placed on the idea of properly experiencing and acclimatizing to nothingness, learning how to enjoy life from this standpoint, relying on this creative nothingness that we are” ( Buddhist

Existentialism 151).Buddhism is understood as a psychological study and practice that transform one’s understanding of the self and the world. The main vehicle of practice is mindfulness or being aware of what happens to the individual in the process of becoming. From the perspective of Buddhist philosophy, “mind precedes things, dominates them, creates them” ( Buddhist Existentialism 21).

However, mind and body are not considered separate entities: they are interconnected. The historical Buddha reduced both body and mind to processes of experience. This focus on experience—leaves behind the philosophical questions like, how the categorically separate mind and body interact, and how it liberates man from the sophistry of the philosophical body mind problem. Man may gain control over the conditioned nature that governs his experience by shifting the focus to the internal experience and by understanding the conditioned nature.

Buddha taught that human suffering is due to an ignorant belief that there is an unchanging entity called the self or ego-self that always says, “This is how I am; this is what I am like” (59). By insisting on its separate and unchanging identity, ego alienates man from the world and brings about difficulty

in being receptive and responsive to changes in life and the world. The ego-self, perceives the world as one, which will never fulfill the expectations of the self.

Usually, when the self’s needs and demands is failed, the self becomes vaguely discontented and anxious. It is man’s sense of ego-self that creates conflict with the external world. To the ego-self, the world seems to stubbornly refuse the self’s desires. To overcome this problem Buddhism as a psychological practice, suggests a ‘mindfulness’ practice. Mindfulness or meditation, can release this blocked energy. Mindfulness is “seeing through one’s perceptual assumptions” ( Buddhist

Existentialism 180), and its major feature is the development of attention and concentration. Mindfulness is living in the present moment and ‘authentically’ experiencing one’s present life without thinking about the past regrets or future anxieties. This is a way suggested by Buddhists to view mindfully the perceptual world. The Buddhist perspective is that an underlying selfishness/egotism is often the basic cause of feeling depressed. ( The Bhagavad Gita 449). Krishna’s injunction to Arjuna in The Bhagavad Gita (III. 20.L.3) goes like this:

Kar-many eva ‘dhi-karas te

ma phalesu kadacana

ma karma-phala-hetur bhur

ma te sango ‘stv akarmani.

[To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not

the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any

attachment to inaction.] (S.Radhakrishnan, 2008:119)

In the Bible, the author of the book of “Lamentations,” expresses the experience of desolation in a litany of extreme grief:

He has walled me about so that

I cannot escape

He has put heavy chains on me

He led me off my way and tore me to pieces

He has made me desolate. (784)

These most poetic dirges can be considered as the archetypal expression of the existential anguish of a desolate soul. But, the prophet in the Bible does not remain stagnated in the backwaters of his mental desolation. He struggles forward, repents and turns back to his Creator. Soon he realizes the steadfast love of the

Lord and is able to proclaim that; He will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love. The prophet, thus, attains peace through his firm act of faith in God’s continuing love, power and justice.

In the gloomy world of Camus, the characters reach the threshold of the final integration, but they stop there because of their inability to make that final step towards fulfillment. Meursault, Paneloux, Rambert, Grand, Cottard and

Clamence are aware of their inner reality. They acknowledge their true selfhood but then they become narcissistically stagnated in their own inner world and invariably get frustrated. Only when man becomes aware of his inner self and be receptive to its guidance, he can grow into a more complete human being.

On the whole, the study reveals in its own little way, that if one overcomes the ‘angst’- it may bring forth peace and happiness, and man should try to remove anxiety in him to gain this. Buddha says,

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.

When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

WORKS CITED

Works Cited

Aristotle. The Works of Plato and Aristotle . Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Middletown,

CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. Print.

Aronson, Ronald. Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel

that Ended it. Chicago,IL:University of Chicago Press, 2004.Print.

Auden,W.H. “The Age of Anxiety.” Modern Poetry. Eds.L.Grossberg Nelson and

P.A.Treichler. New York: Routledge, 1992, 96-101. Print.

Barnes, Hazel Estelle. Humanistic Existentialism: The Literature of Possibility .

Linoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962. Print.

Barrett, William. Irrational Man: A Study of Existential Philosophy . New York:

Doubleday, 1958. Print.

Benedict xvi. Encyclicals. Web. 23 August 2009.

Blanchot, Maurice. The Fall: The Flight. Paris: Gallimard, 1967. Print.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio . Trans. Mark Musa,

Peter Bandanella and Thomas. New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 2002.

Print.

Boethius. The consolation of Philosophy. New York: Macmillan Company,

1947.Print.

Bohlmann, Otto. Conrad’s Existentialism. New York: Macmillan Company, 1991.

Print.

Camus, Albert. Exile and the Kingdom. Trans. Justin O’ Brien. Harmondsworth:

Penguin, 1962. Print.

---. The Fall. Trans. Justin O’ Brien. New York: Vintage, 1991, Print.

---. The Stranger. Trans. Matthew Ward. New York: Knopf, 1998. Print.

---. Lyrical and Critical Essays. Trans. E.C.Kennedy. Ed.Philip Toddy.

New York: Knopf, 1968. Print.

---. The Myth of Sisyphus, and Other Essays . Trans. Justin O’ Brien. New

York: Knopf, 1955. Print.

---. Notebooks. Trans. Philip Toddy. New York: Knopf, 1963. Print.

---. The Plague. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Knopf, 1957. Print.

---. The Rebel . Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Knopf, 1961. Print.

---. Resistance, Rebellion and Death. Trans. Justin O’ Brien. New York:

Knopf, 1960. Print.

Cather, Willa. A Study of Style and Technique . Hanover: University Press of New

England, 2001. Print.

Chaiting, Gregor. Narrative Desire in The Stranger . New York: Harper, 1962.

Print.

Charlton, D.G. France: A Companion to French Studies . Great Britain: The

Camelot Press, 1971. Print.

Coleridge, Samuel T. Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner And Select Poems. London:

Kessinger Publishing LLC, 2010. Print.

Collin, Wilson. A Case Book on Existentialism . Ed. William V.Spanos. New

York: Thomas Y.Cromwell Company, 1966. Print.

Cooper, E. David. Existentialism: A Reconstruction . Oxford: Blackwell, 1990.

Print.

---. Heidegger . London: Claridge Press, 1996. Print.

Corbett, Bob. The Fall: Comments and Outlines . New York: A Vintage Book,

2003. Print.

Cordes, Alfred. The Descent of the Doves: Camus’s Journey to the Spirit .

Washington: University of America, 1980. Print.

Craig, Edward. The Shorter Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy . Routledge:

Taylor and Francis Group. 2 nd Ed.,2005. Print.

Cranston, Maurice. Sartre, Writer and Critic Series . London: Macmillan, 1962.

Print.

Dante, Alighieri. Dante’s Divine Comedy Inferno . Paris: Chartwell Books, Inc.,

2011 Print.

Detweiler, Robert and David Jasper. The Religion and Literature . New York:

West Minister John Knox Press, Ist edition, 2000. Print.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Brothers Karamazov . New York: Modern Library, 1950.

Print.

---. Crime and Punishment . New York: Simon and Brown, 2009. Print.

---. Notes from the Underground . Paris: Tribera Books, 2011. Print.

De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books, 1980. Print.

Edward, Engelberg. Solitude and its Ambiguities in Modern Fiction . New York:

Palgrave, 2001. Print.

Eliot. T.S. The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909-1950 . United States of America:

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1971. Print.

Ellison, David, R. Understanding Albert Camus (Modern European and Latin

American Literature) .London: University of South Carolona Press, 2004.

Print.

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. Garden City, New York: Anchor

Books, 1961. Print.

Eubanks. Cecil L. and Peter A. Petrakis. “Reconstructing the world: Albert Camus

and the Symbolization of Experience.” The Journal of Politics 61, No.2

Web. July 1999.

Fingarette, Herbert. Self-Deception. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969.

Print.

Foley, John. Albert Camus: From The Absurd To Revolt . London: Acumen

Publishing Ltd., 2008. Print.

Freeman, E. The Theatre of Albert Camus: A Critical Study . Great Britain: The

Camelot Press Ltd.,1971. Print.

Freud, Sigmund. New Introductive Lectures on Psychoanalysis. Trans. And ed.

James Stratchey. Vol.II. N.P: Penguin Books, 1983. Print.

Friedman, M. To Deny our Nothingness . New York: Delacorte, 1967. Print.

Fromm, Erich. On the Ambiguity of Hope . London: Continuum International

Publishing Group, 2006. Print.

---. “Alienation Under Capitalism.” Man Alone: Alienation in Modern Society .

Eds. Eric and Mary Josephson. New York, Dell Publishing Company,

1962. Print.

Fuller, Edmund. Man in Modern Indian Fiction . New Delhi: Random House,

1948. Print.

Gandhi, Mahatma. The Story of My Experiment with Truth . Ed.Venhatraman.

Ahmedabad: Navageevam Publishing House, 2000. Print.

Gelven, Michael. Commentary on Heidegger’s Being and Time . Rev. Ed. Dekalb.

Northern IIIinois UP, 1989. Print.

Germaine, Bree. Camus. A Collection of Critical Essays ( 20 th Century Views) .

New Brunswick, New: Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1972. Print.

Gill, Richard and Ernest Sherman Eds. The Fabric of Existentialism:

Philosophical and Literary Sources . Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:

Prentice Hall, 1973. Print.

Gray, Thomas and William, James. Select Poems Of Thomas Gray . Amsterdam:

Nabu Press, 2011. Print.

Grene, Marjorie. “Authenticity: An Existential Virtue.” Ethics. Web. July, 1987.

Guignon, Charles. Cambridge Companion to Heidegger . Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press. 1993. Print.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time . Trans. John Macquarie and Edward

Robinson.New York: Harper and Row, 1962. Print.

---. “Letter on Humanism.” Basic Writings. Revised and Expanded Edition .

Trans. D.F. Krell. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1949. Print.

---. The Way Back into the Ground of Metaphysics . Trans: Harper and Row,

1970. Print.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and The Sea . New York: Simon and Schuster,

1998, Print.

Heinemann, Frederick H. Existentialism and the Modern Predicament . New York:

Harper and Row, 1958. Print.

Hinchliffe, Arnold. The Absurd . New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969. Print.

Hochberg, Herbert. “Albert Camus and the Ethic of Absurdity.” Complexes and

Consciousness. New York: Thales, 1999. Print.

Hughes, Edward Joseph. Writing Marginality in Modern French Literature .

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.

Hugh, C.Holman and William Harman. A Handbook of Literature . 5 th Ed. New

York: Macmillan; London: Collier Macmillan, 1986. Print.

Holy Bible: New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers,

1982. Print.

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature . London: Penguin Books, 1969. Print.

Ines, Maria-Lagos, Pope. Exile in Literature . Paris: Bucknell University Press,

1988. Print.

Iyengar, Ashok. Ed. A Collection of Essays . Ladnun: Jain Vishva Bharathi, 2005.

Print.

Jain, Swantra. Human Anxiety: Mechanism and Impact . Noidra. Darban Pub.

House, 1998. Print.

Jaspers, Karl. The Origin and the Goal of History . Eds. Edith Ehrlich, Leonard

H.Ehlich. Athens: Ohio UP, 1986. Print.

---. Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical

Activity . Trans. Charles F. Wallraff and Frederick J. Schmitz. Tucson: U of

Arizona P, 1965. Print.

Josephson, Eric and Mary. “Introduction” Man Alone; Alienation in Modern

Society . Eds. Eric and Mary Josephson. New York. Dell Publishing Co.,

1962. Print.

Judt, Tony. Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron and the French

Twentieth Century . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Print.

Jung. C.G. “Psychology and Literature,” Twentieth Century Literary Criticism: A

Reader . Ed. David Lodge. London; Longman, 1972. Print.

Kaam, Adrian Van and Healy, Lathleen. The Demon and the Love: Personality

Growth Through Literature . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

1999. Print.

Kenan, Rimmon, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics . Chicago,

IL: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2002. Print.

Kierkegaard, Soren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Frament .

Eds. And Trans. Howard V.Hong and Edna H. HONG. Princeton:

Princeton UP, 1992. Print.

---. Either/Or volume I. Eds. And Trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong.

Princeton: Princeton UP, 1987. Print.

---. Fear and Trembling, Trans. H.V. and E.H.Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 1991. Print.

---. Kierkagaard’s Attack upon Christendom , 1854-1855. Trans. Walter

Lowrie. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1944. Print.

---. Sickness Unto Death. Trans. D. Pellauer. Chicago, IL: University of

Chicago Press, 1978. Print.

---. Stages on Life’s Way . Trans. Walter Lowrie. New York: Schocken Books,

1967. Print.

---. The Concept of the Individual . Trans. H.E.Barnes. New York:

Philosophical Library, 1989. Print.

---. The Journals of Kierkegaard . Trans. And Ed. A.Dru. London: Oxford

University Press, 1938. Print.

---. The Point of View for My Work as an Author: A Report to History and

Related Writings. Trans. Walter Lowrie. Ed. Benjamin Nelson. New York:

Harper, 1962. Print.

King, Adele. Camus: A Collection of Critical Essays. Edenburgh: Oliver and

Boyd, 1964. Print.

Kleiman, Lowell and Stephen, Lewis. Philosophy: An Introduction Through

Literature. London: Paragon House, 1998. Print.

Krapp, John. Time and Ethics in Albert Camus’s The Plague . Columbia:

University of South Carolina Press, 2002. Print.

Krishna, S. “A Study of Albert Camus’s The Stranger.” Existentialism and the

theme of Alienation. The Literary Criterion . Vol. V.No.4 Web.

Summer1996.

Lazere, David. The Unique Creation of Albert Camus . New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 1973. Print.

Laurence, Margaret. The Stone Angel . New York: Doubleday, 2002. Print.

Lottman. Herbert. R. Albert Camus: A Biography . Corte Madera: Ginko, 1997.

Print.

MacDonald,Paul.S. Ed. The Existentialist Reader: An Anthology of key Texts .

Routledge New York: Edinburgh University Press, 2000. Print.

Macquire, John. Existentialism . Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973. Print.

Malraux, Andre. Man’s Fate (La Condition Humaine) . Trans. Haakon M.

Chevalier. New York: Vintage, 1990. Print.

Marino, Gordon. Ed. Basic Writings of Existentialism . New York: The Random

Publishing Group, 2004. Print.

Martin, Wallace. Recent Theories of Narrative . New York: Cornell University

Press, 1986. Print.

Masters, Brain. Camus: A Study . London, Heinemann Educational; Totowa, N.J.,

Rowman and Little Field, 1974. Print.

McBride, Joseph. Albert Camus: Philosopher and Literature . New York: St.

Martin’s Press. 1922. Print.

McCarthy, Patrick. Albert Camus- The Stranger . Cambridge; New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1968. Print.

Merton, Thomas. Albert Camus’s The Plague: Introduction and Commentary .

New York: Seabury Press, 1968. Print.

Miller,Robert. Buddhist Existentialism . Shogam Publishers: Charlton North, 2008.

Print.

Nawale, Arvind. M. “Existentialism Predicament in Arun Joshi’s The City and

The River.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English . 1.3 Web.

December 2010.

Neil, Stephen. Christian Faith and Other Faiths . London: Oxford UP, 1966.Print.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo . Trans. Walter

Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. New York: Random House, 1989. Print.

---. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None . Trans. Walter

Kaufmann. New York: Viking Press, 1966. Print.

---. The Will to Power . Trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. New

York: Random House, 1989. Print.

Olson, Robert. An Introduction to Existentialism . New York: Dover, 1962. Print.

Onimus, Jean. Albert Camus and Christianity . Trans. E.Parker Dublin: Gill and

Macmillan, 1970. Print.

Overy, R.J. The Inter War Crisis 1919-1933 . University Park, PA: Penn State

University Press, 2007. Print.

Pascal, Blaise. Pascal’s Pensees. Trans. W.F.Trottel. Paris: Benediction Classics,

2011. Print.

Patten, Brain. “Portrait of a Young Girl Raped at a Suburban Party” Twentieth

Century Poetry and Poetics Fourth Edition . Ed. Gray Geddes. Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.

Paul, Valery. The Crisis of the Mind . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

2002. Print.

Pirandello, Luigi. Each in His Own Wayand Two other Plays . Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press, 1936. Print.

Pollman, Leo. Sartre and Camus: Literature of Existence . New York: Fredrick

Ungar Publishing Company, 1976. Print.

Radhakrishnan.S. Contemporary Indian Philosophy . New Delhi: Pauls Press,

2010. Print.

Robert, David. E. Existentialism and Religious Belief . New York: Oxford 1959.

Print.

Robinson, Christopher. French Literature in the Twentieth Century . Great Britain:

Redwood Burn Ltd., 1980. Print.

Rosenau, Pauline. Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences . Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1991. Print.

Sartre, Jean Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological

Ontology . Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Washington Square P,

1992. Print.

---. Existentialism . Trans. Bernard Friedmann. New York: Philosophical

Library, 1947. Print.

---. Nausea. Trans. Lioyd Alexander. New York: New Directions, 1964.Print.

---. The Republic of Silence . Ed. A.J. Liebling. New York: Hartcourt, Brace,

1947. Print.

Scott, Nathan. Mirrors of Man in Existentialism . New York: Collins, 1978.Print.

Scott, Peck. Road Less Travelled . New York: Simon and Schhuhnter, 1998. Print.

Sherman, Davi. Camus and the Absurd . Singapore: Utopia Press Ltd, 2009. Print.

Shorer, Mark. Technique as Discovery . London: Macmillan, 1998. Print.

Shyrock, Andrew. Discourse and Polyphony in The Plague . Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press, 2004. Print.

Solomon, Robert C. Dark Feelings, Grim Thoughts: Experience and Reflection in

Camus and Sartre . New York: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.

Sontag, Susan. “The Illness as Metaphor.” Journal of the History of Philosophy .

Web. 30 march 2008.

Sprintzen, David. Camus- A Critical Examination . Philadelphia, PA: Temple

University Press, 1988. Print.

Stanzel,F.K. A Theory of Narrative . London: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Print.

Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be . New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 1952. Print.

Todd, Oliver. Albert Camus: A Life . Trans. Benjamin Ivry. New York: Alfred A.

Knopf, 1997. Print.

Trivers, Robert. Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert

Trivers . Evanston, IL: North western University Press, 1998. Print.

Trundle, Robert.C. Beyond Absurdity: The Philosophy of Albert Camus . New

York: Humanity, 2001. Print.

Unamuno, Miguel de. The Tragic Sense of Life . Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1998. Print.

Warnock, Mary. Existentialism . London: Oxford University Press, 1977. Print.

Wasiolek, Edward. Dostoevsky, Camus and Faulkner; Transcendence and

Mutilation. London: Secker and Warburg, 1985. Print.

Wild, John. Existence and the World of Freedom . New Jersey: Penguin, 1963.

Print.

Wilson, Collins. A Case Book on Existentialism . Ed. William V. Spanos.

New York: Thomas Y.Cromwell Company, 1966. Print.

Williams, Raymond. Modern Tragedy . Great Britain: The Trinity Press, 1966.

Print.

Zaretsky, Robert. Albert Camus- Elements of A Life . Ithaca and London: Cornel

University Press, 2010. Print.