my reflections about the book "The stranger" by Albert Camus.
The book is full of fallacy, full of absurd and ridiculous things. Because of the fallacy, the book is full of intension.
The book is full of fallacy, full of absurd and ridiculous things. Because of the fallacy, the book is full of intension.
The hero, Meursault, is faithful to his feeling. Maybe due to the generation gap, he didn't feel sad and didn't cry for his mother's death. At that night before his mother's funeral, his mother's friends came to keep vigil beside the coffin; they felt he wasn't kind to his mother for not seeing his crying. But on the ceremony of keeping vigil besides the coffin, some of them weaved the wool, some of them nodded. At the midnight, all of them had fallen asleep.
Meursault didn't cry for his mother's death, and on the very next day after his mother's funeral, he met a good friend of girl, and after playing close touch, he made love with her in that night.
Meursault lived with his true feelings but violated the rules of common thoughts, sometimes he couldn't realize others' feelings and thoughts, sometimes others couldn't realize his feelings. Thus, he couldn't behave as others did, and people thought him wrong to be a bad guy.
As the book describing, due to company with and helped his friend, Meursault wasn't on purpose but to kill a person. Eventually, the judge sentenced him the death penalty because that he didn't cry on his mother's funeral, and thought him was a cruel person. It is ridiculous and absurd.
In my opinions, it is not few who couldn't get well along with his parents. Many people pretended to cry on the funeral. Even rent a group of people to cry on the funeral (it is called "Five Children Crying for the Grave" in Chinese society.) Those who crying badly are without any relation of the dead. Usually, they have never met the dead before the funeral. This funeral feels sad badly, but sometimes indeed with nothing of sadness for the dead. It is really ridiculous in the real society. Furthermore, the judges sentenced him death penalty because of his silence on his mother's funeral.
Meursault didn't have good feeling for his mother's love and didn't know what his mother really need. But it didn't mean he didn't love his mother. In my opinions, on the contrany, he still loved his mother but just wasn't good at expressing it. I think he didn't think his feelings for his mother is enough to express "I love you, Mom", but to say "I love you, but not very much" is embarrassed. When Marie expresses her love for him, he tells her he will marry her if it will make her happy but that he cannot say he really loves her. He is such faithful to his feeling. Whenever he couldn't feel it, he never said that.
Indeed, to totally understand another person is really difficult. I think that many tragedies are due to people's misunderstanding. Therefore, to realize others' thoughts and feelings is so important. Maybe it can save many tragedies.
On this book, Albert Camus use absurd things to reflect the ridiculous society, that is the intension of the book. Reading this book may remind us some sincerely feelings that we easily ignore.
