I. Biographical Insights
A. Albert Camus' cultures consist of being a novelist, literature and short story writer
of many books. He wrote an essay on the state of Muslims in Algeria, causing him to lose
his job and he moved to Paris. Albert Camus also joined the French resistance against
the Nazis and became an editor of "Combat", an underground newspaper. He was
dissatisfied with the editorial of the Board and left the underground newspaper.
B. Albert Camus, son of a working-class family, was born in Algeria in 1913, in an
extreme poverty area. He spent the early years of his life in North Africa, where he
worked at various jobs in the weather bureau, in an automobile-accessory firm, in a
shipping company to help pay for his courses at the University of Algiers. Albert Camus
then started journalism as a career. He finished early schooling, majoring in philosophy
with a goal to teach. He was married to Simone in 1934 and divorced in 1936.
C. The factor that influenced Albert Camus was his parents, who were a working class
family. He was determined to make a better life for himself by getting an education and
preparing himself to go to college. The fact that he lived in North Africa, he wrote
lots of fiction books, dealing with moral problems of universal importance.
1. I think Albert's prospective in life was to just be able to write books for people
that actually would deal with the reality and difficulty of people facing everyday
life. Also, the difficulty of people facing life without the comfort of believing in
God or just having moral standards.
2. He most likely to weave into his writing the ideal of setting moral standards and
placing the comfort that an individual would need to have in facing difficulty in his
life. He would also set a goal by facing any problems that may exist in every day living
and by placing God into your life, no matter what the situation might look like, bad or
good, you will always come through it.
II. Characters
A. The plot concerns a man, an apparently ordinary man, who, without any real compelling
reason, commits a murder, and his apparently insensitive reaction to it. This isn't
because he is without feelings, but because he is beginning to realize that life isn't
everything that he had previously thought it to be. This series of events starts with he
death of his mother, and although he loved her, he finds he does not experience much
genuine regret at her death, and refuses to pretend he does, just for the sake of
appearances. So one thing leads to another, and this man, Meursault, reaches the point
where he only seems truly content when he is close to nature. The irony is that the
actual act of murder was apparently brought on by the oppressive, irresistible force of
another of nature's forces and it caused him to be executed.
B. The changes that takes place in Meursault personality is when his mother dies and he
realizes that he has no one that is close to him that he could talk to, even though his
mother was in a senior citizen home. When his mother died, everyone asked him how did he
feel. He said that he felt the same way like the other day. Inside of him, he really
felt like crying, but he just didn't show it. I think that was one of the many things
he had to face in his life and the fact that he had other problems that made him
frustrated that he had to deal with.
C. The two characters that played a part in Meursault life are Marie and Raymond. Marie
played the role as being Meursault's girlfriend. She was a positive influenced in
Meursault's life. She comforted him when he was going through hard times when his mother
died. She was there for him and gave him support. Raymond was Meursault's best friend.
Raymond lived up the hall from Meursault's apartment. Raymond was a considerate person
and I believed the character he played was positive. Although, his downfall was that he
was always causing some type of trouble, which could have made in character to also be
negative in a way. He was nice to Meursault.
D. The conflicts that Meursault experience was he dislike Arabs and he was faced with
the problem. He expressed resentment and anger against the Arab. The problem was so
strong and forceful in him that the only way he felt that he could deal with it was by
taking this person life. He felt that this was the way he could resolved the situation
of hatred that he had for this person. Also, the fact that he was faced with a
murder charge and imprisonment.
III. Representative Passage on Imagery and Figurative Language
" When I went outside, the sun was up. Above the hills that separate Marengo from the
sea, the sky was streaked with red. And wind coming over the hills that brought the
smell of salt with it."
A. The sensory details that the author uses that makes us feel like we are actually at
the beach. The sensory is called the seance of smell because the author said the wind
coming over the hills that brought the smell of the salt with it.
B. The simile that the author use in this paragraph was when he is talking about the sky
was streaked with red, but I think the author is trying to say that the white clouds with
the blue sky looks like the sky is red like blood.
IV. Symbolism / Allusions
" That's all for today, Monsieur Antichrist."
" Specking very quickly and passionately, he told me that he believed in God, that it was
his conviction that no man was so guilty that God would not forgive him, but in order for
that to happened a man must repent and in so doing become like a child whose heart is
open and ready to embrace all".
A. The people in this short quote is Monsieur as the judge is talking to him. The judge
don't think Monsieur believe in Jesus because Monsieur is always talking about how he
does not care about anything and he rather just be in jail where he belongs.
B. The quote that I think the author is trying to carry out through the story is the
second quote I wrote down, because the author is saying that you need to repent and ask
for forgiveness to God. Monsieur lawyer keeps telling him about Jesus and telling
Monsieur that he needs to forget about the wrong things that he did in life and repent to
God, but Monsieur being big headed is not going to listen because he think what he did is
wrong and he should pay the price for what he did.
C. The allusion that Albert Camus is trying to get at, is that people believed in
antichrist and Albert is trying to say that if you do something wrong in life you can
always repent and ask God for forgiveness.
V. Representative Passage on Tone and Author's Philosophy
" After a short time silence, he stood up and told me that he wanted to help me, that I
interested him, and that, with God's help, he would do something for me."
A. I think this passage tell us about the author prospective because he is telling us
that if you ask for help and if you want the help it will happened. So what I am trying
to say is that I if you are not a Christian and you have a friend that believe in Jesus
and if you don't believe in Jesus you have to listen to your friend to understand what
is going on so you can accept Jesus.
B. The aspects of his philosophy that I can pick out is that Albert Camus had to believe
in Jesus because I don't think he would write a book talking about killing and Jesus at
the same time, getting some moral purpose from this book. The thing that I can infer
from this passage is that he is telling Meursault that he needs to listen to what every
God has planned for him in prison or out of prison.
VI. Evaluation
A. The influence this book had on my attitude and belief is that you should never feel
that you have to kill anyone because you do not like them for what ever reason it might
be. I feel that you should talk through things before coming up with a conclusion of
causing a fight or killing. This book really did not have a big impact on my belief
because I believe in Jesus as my Lord and Savor.
B. I think the author goals in this book was to try to seek through to the
non-believers and to seek the people that is having a hard time in life. The reason why
I say this is because the way he went to jail and got caught and by his lawyer telling
him he need to ask for forgiveness and repent to God. To me, it sounds like Albert is
trying to get people's attention.
C. Albert Camus did successfully achieve his goal because I know for a fact that I would
never do anything like killing somebody because what every you do wrong in the sight of
the law you are always going to get caught and also God knows everything you do. The
author achieve his goal in this book by reaching the readers and to overcome the evil
that society might cause a person to do and to face up the difficult situation no matter
what it is.
D. This book is very significant with it topics because it talks about every thing a
person would go through in life. Like one thing that is really important in life is
God and it talk about God in this book that I read. It make a person think that you
cannot do wrong and get away with it. It make you realize that you have to face up to the
situation that is wrong and deal with it. The book make you think that anger is not the
way that a person should hold in him. Although, a person might look all right on the
outside, it is what on the inside of that person that may cause him to have a difficult
time in life. This book is not much different what I feel people today experience in
society. There are a lot of violent in the world today and lots of people with
resentment and anger towards one another.
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