Saturday, March 15, 2014

Provide examples and evidence of Marxism, existentialism, feminism, and Freudian psychoanalysis in The Stranger.

In The Stranger, Meursault is Camus'
absurdist (similar to existentialism) hero: he loves life,
hates death, and scorns the gods.  Instead of crying at his mother's funeral, he refuses
to participate in the morbid culture of death.  Instead, he loves his freedom, weekends
frolicking in the ocean with Marie.  In Part II, Meursalt scorns the chaplain and the
court, both forces of determinism.  He refuses to feel their imposed
guilt.


Meursault is no friend of the
feminists.  He helps Raymond write a letter to get
Raymond's Arab girlfriend back so that he can take revenge on her (physical abuse).
 Meursault, however, does treat Marie as a modern woman: he spurns talk of marriage,
instead favoring an open relationship.


Meursault suffers
from the Oedipal complex.  He loves his mother so much that
he is in denial of it.  This is why he refuses to even see her face before she is
buried.  Because he suffers from Oedipal guilt, he takes out his rage on threatening
male-figures (not his father, but the Arab).


In
Marxist theory, Meursault is a hero to the proles.  He is a
working class hero.  First, he hates menial labor, and he refuses a promotion to France
that his boss offers.  Instead, Meursault refuses to be corrupted by greed and false
dreams.

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