PART TWOThe Outsider

What values does Camus extoll in Part II of the novel, The Outsider?

Concepts

■ Heightened consciousness and self-actualisation Meursault: The wonderous peace of this sleeping summer flooded into me…I looked up at the mass sign of stars in the night sky and laid myself pent for the first time to the benign indifferene of the world...I realised that I was happy.

■ When one refuses to lie (conform) he attains the ‘truth’ (rebellion) ■ Society/Law/ the Justice System is unjust, corrupt and violent

Camus: “It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”■ Moral relativism in opposition to moral absolutism

Camus: "I know of only one duty, and that is to love."■ Individual autonomy (absurd hero) determines one’s actions, not a supernatural

power (God) Camus: I rebel therefore I exist

■ ATHENTICITY Sartre maintained that the concepts of authenticity and individuality have to be earned but not learned. We need to experience "death consciousness" so as to wake up ourselves as to what is really important; the authentic in our lives which is life experience, not knowledge.

Sartre and Bad Faith (3:28 min)

Who (or what) is on trial?

Part 1, Chapter 3 p. 66

■ Meursault’s lawyer: Here we have the epitome of this trial. ■ Everything is true and yet nothing is true.

Part 2, Chapter 3 p. 88

■ But it was all really a bit pointless and I couldn’t be bothered.

Part 2, Chapter 4 p. 98

■ My fate was being decided without anyone asking my opinion■ “I’ve got something to say!”

■ A chasm which threatens to engulf society

Part 2, Chapter 4 p. 95

Part 2, Chapter 5 p.104-117■ Meursault learns introspection and the importance of individual choice

and responsibility. Sartre: Man is condemned to be free■ The mechanism…the implacable machinery...I was caught in the

mechanism again

Rage against the machine■ P. 106 - embraces the

ultimate absurdity, death, to rebel against the absurd

■ P. 107 - The machine = guillotine metaphor for unconscious death

■ P. 109 - Inevitability of death

Sacrifice of Isaac (Caravaggio)

p. 111- 112■ I don’t believe in God.■ The Chaplain knew the game too

well. Cf. P.64■ Chaplain: Have you really no

hope at all and do you live in the belief that you are to die outright? ‘Yes,’ I said.

Camus: Integrity has no need of rules.

p. 113

■ Chaplain: Human justice was nothing and divine justice was everything.

■ Something exploded inside me. ■ He seemed so certain of everything, didn’t he?■ I was surer than he was, sure of my life, sure of my death. Yes that

was all I had. Note the tone of the language is one of assessment rather than sensuality/ physicality

p. 115

There are no answers…no matter where you choose to look

Death of the absurd hero

Therefore, the only option is to become an absurd hero:

p. 116- 117

■ What does Meursault connect with?■ Memories, physical world, sensual world, people...life = death■ Meursault finds soalce in being socially outcast and marginalised■ Lucidity is achieved (Camus: the absurd hero lucid reason noting its

limits) ■ References to time are replaced by symbols of eternal return and

permanance ■ Day/ Night, Sky/ Stars, Happiness/ Death■ I rebel, therefore, I exist

Sartre: The stranger who at certain moments confronts us in the mirror

What do you see when you look into the mirror?