The Stranger Lesson Plan

The Stranger is among the greatest novels to arise in Europe after World War I. The Great War, as it is sometimes called, killed off nearly an entire generation of young European men for reasons considered obscure and essentially meaningless. The unimaginable bloodshed and suffering endured during that war led those who survived it to question the very essence and meaning of their lives. World War I is generally agreed to have been the final nail in the coffin of the old European way of life. The post-war period engendered a way of life and a state of mind in which Europeans questioned everything, took little on faith, lost trust in their leaders (often both religious and political) and...