International Journal of Management and Humanities (IJMH) ISSN: 2394-0913 (Online), Volume-5 Issue-2, October 2020 ‘Reflection of Existentialism in Albert Camus’s ‘The Outsider’ Manab Jyoti Bora Abstract: Albert Camus is closely associated with French The novel expose the true self and cold nature of literature in Europe. He is one of the major contributors of human being, the freedom to choose and the chaises and the Existentialism philosophy. His first novel that deals with this idea characters and their actions paved a way for discussion and are, “The Outsider”/ The Stranger” published in 1942. Following try to demonstrate the novel as a existentialism text. ‘The outsider’ His novel ‘The plague’ and ‘The Fall ‘were Among many other novels written by Albert Camus, published in 1947 and 1956 respectively. It is for his novel ‘The plague” that got him Nobel Prize for literature. Camus ‘The researchers tries to discuss the novel ‘The outsider’. Outsider’ reflects the existential crisis of human life. It is Through this novel researchers seeks to reflect the through the action and works of the main protagonist and his existentialism / human precadement in the world. relation with other characters, and thus we can considered the novel as existentialism, and we have critically analyzed the Novel. III. SOURCE Keyword: Existentislism, absurd, Camus, Philosophy The primary source of this research the researcher takes I. INTRODUCTION Methew Ward’s ‘The Stranger’ which he translate the from French to English, while preparing this paper. And the Albert Camus was a French Algerian philosopher, researcher has taken various journals, reference as author and journalist. He won the NobelPrize in literature at secondary sources of research. the age of 44 in1957, the second-youngest recipient in history. Camus wasborn on 7 November 1913 in a French IV. METHODOLOGY: Algerian Family.Camus’s views contributed to the rise of The Sources of data, that are used in this study will be the philosophy know as absurdism and also he considered both primary and secondary. The data will be acquired from tobe an existentialist, though he rejected onseveraloccasion. various books, journals and articles. Analytical method in “The Stranger”, enigmatic first Nobel by Albert Camus, mainly used in this study. published in French as L’Etrangerin 1942. It was published 1.00 as ‘The Outsider’ in England and ‘The Stranger’ in the The contemporary French literature is considered to be United State. Following “The Outsider”, The plague, the richest literature in the whole world. The French published in 1947, that tells the story of a plague sweeping literature is expandedaround in three art movement, viz, the French Algerian city of Oran, For this Nobel he achieved cubism, surrealism and the third one is existentialism. Albert the Nobel prize in1957. “The Fall” published in 1956, and Camus one of the strongest writer of this he wrote many shortstories and plays, and gained many existentialismmovement. One such writers who is closely literaryfame. Two of Camus’s works were associated with the term existentialism, Jean paul Sartre , publishedposthumously. The first entitled ‘A happy death’ was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist and literary and second was an unfinished novel‘The First man’, which critic. During Second World War, initially Germany Camus had writing before he died. Many defeated French and they ruled France for over 4 years. philosophersconsidered him an existentialist, even though he Albert Camas, with Sartre an many others worked very hard firmly rejected the term throughout his lifetime. In 1945, in to form the independent France and they try to restore its an interview hestates that, “No, I am not an existentialist, literature and the art culture. Camus was highlyinfluenced Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked”. by the philosophicalthoughts of Sartre, but after sometimes Though he rejects to called himself as existentialist, yet his he started to oppose this philosophy. Though Camus’s philosophy was highly developed from the philosophy of themes and outlook are after sighted as examples of sartare, but he always tried to portrayed himself differently existentialism. from Sartre so he named his philosophy as secular humanism. Many times he rejected to be called himself and II. OBJECTIVE: existentialist but his philosophy ismainlyinfectedon the basis Existentialism is defined as “aphilosophicaltheory of existentialism. The major achievement of Camus’s or approach that emphasize the existence of the individual science of philosophy was that he could influence the human person as a free and responsible agent determining his or her mind to live in righteous manners. In a Conversation he own development through acts of the will” stated that whatever might ideology a man subscribed to, there are chances of being pained by slight changes in such Revised Manuscript Received on September 30, 2020. ideology. An ideology must have its own limitation, any * Correspondence Author deviation from such limitation might caused pain to human Manab Jyoti Bora*, Ph.D scholar Dept. of Assamese Gauhati being, Camus stated. University Mail : [email protected] © The Authors. Published by Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Published By: Retrieval Number:100.1/ijmh.B1139105220 Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering DOI:10.35940/ijmh.B1139.105220 & Sciences Publication Journal Website: www.ijmh.org 1 © Copyright: All rights reserved. ‘Reflection of Existentialism in Albert Camus’s ‘The Outsider’ V. EXISTENTIALISM: VI. REFLECTION OF EXISTENTIALISM IN ‘THE OUTSIDER’ Before we to discussing ‘The Outsider’ anexistentialism text, first we should learn what exactly existentialism is. It is The idea ‘existentialism’ is not only limited to philosophy a tradition of philosophical enquiry which takes as its but spread across many literature also. ‘Crime and starting point the exprerice of the human subject. It is punishment’ by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky have associated mainly with certain 19th and 20th century seen the existential crisis to some extend. But the author has European thinker, who despite have many doctrinal not mentioned any definition about it. In the works of Franz differences, shared the belief in that beginning of Kafka, Albert Camus and Sartre, all three formulate a philosophical thinking. This philosophical movement is foundation of the whole existentialism thinking. The believed to have originated in the writings of 19th century existential idea of human being’s cold nature and true self is Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard Existentialism is highly used reseed throughout the literary works ‘The basically a philosophy which developed as reaction to the outsider’ by Camus. Camus showed his existentialist beliefs Existing social situation of two world wars, this era by using his characters to make social commentary on witnessed the lack of respect for human life and dignity, it multiple social situations, includingmarriage, time and was this social situation that existentialism responded to. It society itself. It is through the novel’s protagonist Mersault is in existentialism that dignity and right of a human person the existentialist belief is reflected, his life experiences, his is paid attention to. One of the most important issue it deals relationship with Marie, the death of his mother Maman, the with the human authenticity. Existentialism views murdering of the Arab and Mersault’s trial and execution, authenticity as the highest of all virtues. In existentialism, which show that Mersault’s life have no meaning. About “The individuals starting point is characterized by what has The novel‘The outsider’ Sartre comments “Amidst the been the existential attitude or a sense of disorientation in literary production of our time this noitself was a stranger”. the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.” The first sentence of the novel-“Mother died today or Existentialism became fashionable in the post world war yesterday maybe, I don’t know’ is enough to consider the years as away to reassert the importance of human novel as an existentialist text. The unattached response to individuality and freedom. It was during this time that the death of his mother shows Mersault’s existentialism; he existentialism sprtad all over the world and especially in accepts life or death without looking for a deeper Europe. The chief term of existentialism is “Existence significance. When he get to Marengo for mother’s funeral, precedes essence”. But the existence is more important than he does not even want to see the body, instead of mourning essence, for in essence; we are not able find out he sits back and relaxes drinking coffee and smoking. individuality the id, ‘ man is the centre of the universe’ in Mersault seems more concerned about taking time off work the man doctrine of the existential philosophy. Existence, to go to his mother’s funeral. That he has nothing to do with, thus is the first principle from which all else flows. It is only the actual death of his mother. Another aspect of the later , by living, thinking and acting that man defines he existentialism portrayed in the outsider is that Mersault nature and forms what is called his essence-that which he in focuses mainly on physical sensation with his relationship and will be. Sartre believes that human existence is the with Marie. He believes that life has no meaning other than result of chance or accident. There is no meaning or purpose existence itself. The way Mersault handles his mother’s of his life other than what his freedom creates, therefore he death also emphasize the ‘ accept everything’ viewpoint that must rely an his own resources. Among the most famous existentialists seems to have. Similarly, the killing of the ideas associated with existentialism is that of ‘absurdity’ Arab seemed meaningless to him.