A philosophy student's analysis of 'The Stranger' by Camus

foreign or maybe yesterday I'm not sure a telegram from the home said your mother passed away funeral tomorrow deepest sympathy the home for the age it is about 50 miles from Algiers I took the two o'clock bus it was very hot I fell asleep [Music] hello and welcome back to Humanities with McGregor this video essay is going to be about the Stranger by Albert Camus I'm specifically going to be analyzing it as a philosophy student so I hope that you enjoy this and if you're interested in philosophy or the humanities in general please consider subscribing to my channel for more content like this Albert Camus The Stranger centers around the meaninglessness of life Camus arguing that death is the only certainty in life and that life is undoubtedly sad it almost feels silly to try and write an entire essay dissecting the meaning of the stranger because the whole point of this novel is that nothing matters and nothing has meaning so this feels like an optimist attempt at making nothingness into something nevertheless a simple and pointless as this novel may seem as a philosophy student it intrigues me and I do feel like it is worth dissecting particularly taking into account Camus philosophy the novel begins with the death of the narrator's mother already we begin to see the theme of meaninglessness in his reaction to his mother's death he doesn't react in the way many might expect he doesn't tragedize and over emphasize the sadness of this death to me he seems fairly stoic if not emotionless about his mother's death it's not necessarily that he doesn't care about her death it just seems to be that he's rationalizing the event instead of reacting emotionally to it to me it seems as if he just accepted death as a part of life and realized that no emotional display could ever change that this is not the only instance of death in the novel in fact it goes on to become even more dreary if that's possible the second case of death in the novel is when the narrator himself murders the unnamed Arab man [Music] once again this death is not treated with the gravity and importance that one might expect in fact the narrator hardly even feels guilt at the fact that he has just murdered someone he has just ended the life of a human with absolute ease and carelessness it seemed no harder to him than the act of breathing in this way the novel seems to be exploring the relationship between individual agency and societal expectations Rousseau is an outsider who doesn't conform to social norms and expectations his Detachment and lack of emotion are seen by many as abnormal and even threatening to those around him but he refuses to conform to these expectations and instead Embraces his own sense of individual freedom and agency from a psychological point of view there's probably a lot that could be said about myself he definitely displays traits of sociopathy with his complete lack of empathy and his overall inability to feel emotions however as kamu was a philosopher and not a psychologist I'm more interested in the novel from a philosophical angle the novel is exploring the relationship between morality and individual freedom muso's refusal to conform to societal Norms is seen as a threat to the established order but Camus suggesting that true morality can't be imposed from the outside it has to arise from within the individual miso's decision to reject societal expectations and embrace his own freedom is ultimately a moral choice even if it's not understood by those around him [Music] kamu is considered to be one of the pioneers of absurdism which centers around the absurdity of existence itself to put it simply Camus philosophy deals with the meaninglessness of life turn it may seem that any action we take is inherently meaningless since no matter what we do we'll always end up the same way dead I think this is the reason that myself feels no emotions towards the things that one would generally have very intense feelings about so while Society May rightfully judge him as an emotionless sociopath actions and emotions or lack thereof can be explained by the sad meaninglessness of life his mother's life had no meaning the life of the man he killed had no meaning and obviously his own life has no meaning the philosophy of absurdism can be summarized into a simple and Salient question if life has no meaning why do we continue to live it interestingly one of kumu's biggest criticisms of Christianity is the belief in heaven or an afterlife and that this renders our life on Earth void of meaning and ultimately useless if the afterlife is the only place where Christians believe they will experience true purpose and happiness what is the value in this life for non-religious people or people who don't believe in an afterlife the purpose of existence is even more morbid because there's no finish line that we're working towards [Music] in the case of the novel death seems to carry as much weight to more so as life which is none at all perhaps Musto sees something that Society refuses to see although nihilism and absurdism is not an excuse for murder The Stranger ends with the narrator coming to this conclusion [Music] if I may quote from SparkNotes just as he is indifferent to much of the universe so is the universe indifferent to him like all people he has been born will die and will have no further importance he accepts death as an inevitable fact and looks forward to it with peace so I think in a way this realization has freed him so although he ends the novel as a prisoner he is arguably far more free than anyone else [Music]

Channel: Humanities with McGregor

Views: 12,337

Keywords: camus, albert camus, the stranger camus, absurdism, absurdist philosophy, philosophy student, critical analysis, literary analysis, literature student, nihilism, humanities, dark academia

Id: _STD1D0REkc

Length: 7min 40sec (460 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2023