Albert Camus The Outsider- Values and beliefs
The way some one reads and interprets a text is a reflection of their understanding of the themes of the text and the philosophical viewpoint of the author and of their own philosophical beliefs and values. The novel The Outsider by Camus reflects many of the key ideas of existentialism, although Camus never used this term himself. By researching and understanding the main lines of thought in existentialism, one can see the apparent irony and absurdity in the way the main character Meursault lives and behaves in a new light. Nonetheless from my personal philosophical viewpoint, derived from my Catholic beliefs, Meursault's behaviour is objectively immoral and the lack of meaning in his life is truly sad.Meursault has no morals or ideas on what is right or wrong. To him one moment of pleasure and enjoyment is more important than whatever consequences may come as a result of this or what society would say to this. For example, the day after his mother's funeral he meets a girl, spends the day with her and watches a comedy. Later at his trial these events have serious repercussions. The oddness of this behaviour, as viewed by the jury, contributes to him being sentenced to death. But at the time, conforming to soc
Another striking thing about Meursault's character is that unlike the majority of people he seems to have no table of values. Everything is given generally the same value. Meursault's reaction to his mother's death was "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know." but his reaction to being offered a cup of coffee at the wake was "He then offered me a cup of white coffee. I'm very fond of white coffee, so I accepted and he came back a few minutes later with a tray. I drank." More interest seems to be shown in the cup of coffee than the death of his mother. In looking at several other incidents such as this it can be assumed that Meursault places things that are sensual and that can bring him immediate pleasure of higher value than issues concerned with his emotions or that may change his future. Because Meursault sees no right or wrong he does not pass judgement on people. He never judges the man who beats his dog as being bad or crazy and he never judges Raymond as being a bad person. When Raymond asks him whether he thinks about his story he says it was "interesting" and when asked if he agreed the girl should be punished Meursault says he "understood why he should want to punish her" but didn't know what he, himself would have done. I do support the belief that you cannot judge others but only yourself. Jesus said "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." (Matthew 7:1). However, given a set of moral beliefs it is impossible not to judge people in any sense at all. In fact it is important that you judge whether what that person is doing is right or wrong so you can choose whether to support them or not. What Jesus was saying was that it is not up to us to pass sentence because only God knows what is in a person's heart. Although existentialists believe death is inevitable, and therefore there is no point running from it, they also believe that there is not only a fear of particular bad experiences but a general apprehension intrinsic to our existence. Kierkegaard (a 19th century philosopher) called this feeling 'dread'; Heidegger called it 'angst'. iety's conve
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Approximate Word count = 1412
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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