From Neanderthal ceremonial burials 50,000 years ago to today's race for the vaccine, humanity's relationship with death is a matter as old as the first human to become conscient of their undeniable fate. In Albert Camus's 1947 book "The Plague,"...

Amid the feverish horror of rampant sickness and death, The Plague is a parable of human remoteness and the struggle to share existence. In studying the relationships which Camus sets forth, the relationship between man and lover, mother and son,...

The last two paragraphs of The Plague emphasize Camus’ belief that even during a crisis, humans must always fight against death even if that battle will be a constant struggle without victory.

Rieux deems the stubborn and communal fight of man...

The Plague is an exploration of caricatures and how they respond in desperate situations. Albert Camus does this by putting multiple characters in the same situation, the controlled variable, but changing the philosophies each represent, the...

When one questions the existence of God, one often reverts to a specific, troubling question: “if God exists, why are there moral tragedies that cause such great suffering?” In other words, humans find it very difficult when there is an event or...

In The Plague, Albert Camus writes about a plague that strikes the Algerian town of Oran around 1940 and devastates the residents who did not expect a plague. This work of fiction takes on meaning beyond the plague itself by looking at how the...

In The Plague itself, Albert Camus uses the concept of a plague to allegorically represent the wartime occupation of France during World War II and symbolize the absurdity of nature. The coastal town of Oran, located in Northern Africa, is...

It is common for people in society to feel ill at ease with those who think or act differently than what is expected. The protagonists in both Albert Camus’ ‘The Stranger’ and Ron Butlin’s ‘The Sound of My Voice’ are men who are undoubtably viewed...

The Sun reveals itself as a symbol and a motif in the book as early as Maman’s funeral, it continues to be a sort of mood setter for Meursault, it sometimes makes him feel calm and peaceful, while sometimes it annoys and torments him, it presents...

The intrinsic human ability to recognize order has often been a foundation of proof that a higher purpose exists. Many people believe that sequences and patterns in the universe are evidence that human life was intended to have meaning. However,...

A key tenet of existentialism is that as humans, we are all surrounded by absurdity. The very world we live in is absurd, and our actions are the only thing that we have complete control over. In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov...

"Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it in hiding." ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

A society constrained to specific social standards reprimands those who do not conform to such principles. In the process, a...

"Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it in hiding."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

A society constrained to specific social standards reprimands those who do not conform to such principles. In the process, a supreme...

The death of a loved one is typically one of the most emotionally distressing events people face, particularly when that person is a parent. In most societies, it would be considered taboo for a son to respond to his parent's demise with...

Albert Camus's novel The Stranger is an extremely explicit work describing violent acts witnessed by a narrator who seems to be wholly unaffected by their brutality. The novel begins with death - "Mamman died today" (3) - and ends with the...

Truth Dawning:

The Sun as a Symbol for Meursault's Awareness in Albert Camus' The Stranger

In his novel "The Stranger," Albert Camus uses the relentless Algerian sun as a metaphor for the awareness of reality that pursues his main character,...

In Camus’ The Stranger and Kafka’s Metamorphosis, the protagonist finds himself in an extraordinary situation that challenges his will. In both novels, this initially unsympathetic character struggles to redeem himself. In so doing, his identity...

The main female characters of Sonia and Marie in Crime and Punishment and The Stranger, respectively, do more than faithfully support Raskolnikov and Meursault in their times of need. Their roles structure the men’s characters and ultimately help...

In Albert Camus’s The Stranger and Montserrat Fontes’s First Confession, symbols and characterization play a major role in outlining each novel’s primary message. Both authors’ use of these literary elements contribute to the reader’s...

In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, the main character, Mersault, is confronted with life’s absurdity after killing a man at a beach in Algiers. Mersault spends his days absorbed in living for the moment, granting little import to the past or future,...

Both Gregor Samsa from Franz Kafka’s novel The Metamorphosis and Meursault from Albert Camus’ The Stranger struggle to communicate with the people around them. Although Samsa suffers from physical abnormalities while Meursault possesses...

When Albert Camus’ novel, The Stranger, was first published in 1942, many readers did not know what to think of Meursault, the emotionally disconnected protagonist of Camus’ story. His absurdist views confused the masses that yearned for meanings...

In Naguib Mahfouz’s The Thief and the Dogs Albert Camus’ The Stranger, we are exposed to two very different characters, Said Mahran and Meursault. Both these characters are alienated from their societies, and change drastically as a result of this...

In some novels, even the most minuscule ordinary objects are subjects of great importance and symbolism; after all, symbolism which adds meaning to the text that cannot be overlooked. In the work The Stranger by Albert Camus, outerwear holds a...