Albert Camus – L’Etranger – The outsider to be read with the Myth de Sysphus
The individual in the world. How should he/she behave? How far should he/she follow up social norms? How far should he/she be an individual. What is a normal behaviour? What is an odd behaviour? Who determines this?
Meursault lost his mother. He has a little comfortable life with no ambition, but small routines that he feels at ease with, and wants nothing more than very little comforts. He goes to the funeral and then later on he meets and makes love to a woman he likes. He befriends a gangster. He goes with the gangster and shoots an Arab man who is having quarrel with the gangster five times when the sun is too hot. He is sent to death, not so much for this act, as for his odd behaviour, towards his mother’s death and his girlfriend and life itself and its meanings and implications. He learns to accept his death and celebrate his life.
Life is those little things. A person is born and then dies and in between is something that he/she has to fill in. Suicide is pointless because we are going to die anyway, so all is left is to live it.
How do I live a meaningful life and do not fall into the trap of living for and pleasing social norms and expectations?
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