The Stranger

Facts Original title: L’Étranger= the stranger/the foreigner/the outsider Psychologists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of British Columbia published a report in 2009 showing that reading absurdist tales improved test subjects' ability to find patterns. Their findings summarized that when people have to work to find consistency and meaning in a fragmented story, it increases “the cognitive mechanisms responsible for implicitly learning statistical regularities.” Jacobs, Tom. “This Is Your Brain on Kafka.” Pacific Standard. 16 September 2009.

Time: early 1940s Place: Algiers, Algeria

Characters Meursault: the protagonist and narrator; a French citizen living in Algeria; lacks emotion, empathy, and remorse; always brutally honest Meursault’s mother: lives in a nursing home; shared Meursault’s indifference toward life Raymond Sintès: Meursault’s neighbor and friend, abusive towards his mistress, a character foil for Meursault Marie Cardona: Meursault’s coworker, very pretty and full of life

Absurdist fiction The study of human behavior under circumstances (whether realistic or fantastical) that appear to be purposeless and philosophically absurd Focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value Often includes satire, dark humor, or a lack of faith in reason Characters and their actions are not judged, and the moral of the story is not explicit. A traditional plot structure is often lacking.

Philosophy Absurdism: The efforts of humanity to find inherent meaning will ultimately fail (and hence are absurd) because the sheer amount of information as well as the vast realm of the unknown make total certainty impossible. Three possible solutions: Suicide: Attempting to escape one’s own existence is even more absurd than existence. Religion: a solution in which one believes in the existence of a reality that is beyond the Absurd, and, as such, has meaning. This is pointless, since it is unreal. Acceptance of the Absurd: a solution in which one accepts the Absurd and continues to live in spite of it. Existentialism: One achieves happiness by creating one’s own meaning in life. Nihilism: There never is and never can be any meaning in life.

Albert Camus 1913: born in Algeria to French parents 1914: His father was killed in World War I. Worked as a journalist writing anti-colonialist and anti-German articles in Paris during World War II A major contributor to the theories of absurdism and existentialism. His theories were inspired by the horrors he and others witnessed in Paris and Europe during World War II. 1942: published The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger

1957: received the Nobel Prize for Literature for his generally "important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.“ 1960: died in an automobile accident

"I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: 'In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.' I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.” 1955

Degrees of Murder First degree murder: premeditated, intent to kill, with malice Plotting to kill someone and then successfully killing him or her (Claudius—King Hamlet) Second degree murder: unpremeditated, intent to kill, with malice In the heat of the moment, you become angry and try to kill your opponent (Hamlet— Claudius) Voluntary manslaughter: unpremeditated, no intent to kill, with malice OR without malice while doing something illegal OR mistakenly thinking that you have to kill to defend yourself You hit someone too hard during a fight, drive under the influence, or shoot someone who has broken into your house or is trying to hurt you (Hamlet—Polonius) Involuntary manslaughter: unpremeditated, no intent to kill, no malice, due to negligence You do something accidentally that causes someone to be killed (Claudius—Gertrude)