Throughout his play, collective devastation is met with personal suffering. It is only when this becomes a shared suffering that it can become a collective way to redemption. The divides of a war now over would give way to this shared experience for all peoples of France, charged with the responsibility of rebuilding. Indeed, this speaks much to the futility of war itself, as spoke by Camus when he resolves that "all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories" (Camus, 262). The viewpoint expressed here is in informed by the severity of World War II and the unprecedented global experience of attempting to be removed from this trauma. In the resolution instigative of this discussion, we can see that Camus holds on to some sense that man is inherently more a good creature than a bad one, and that he is to be recognized for his virtues....
This is an optimism which is perhaps confided in desire and necessity more than anything else.
It is key to understanding the author's view of love and even her own status as a woman and as a thinker. Of course, the book can simply be read as a love story of infidelity and sexual liberty gone wrong in the face of an ever-changing political society in a state of national and European chaos. But the Mandarins de Beauvoir referred to were also the elite, the
Life in a Godless World For as long as mankind has contemplated its own creation philosophers have pondered the meaning of life largely within the context of humanity's relationship to the divine, from Aristotle's metaphysical conception of God as all actuality to Descartes' systematic attempt to develop a proof of God's existence. The dominance of Christianity throughout much the civilized world invariably constrained the ability of great thinkers to challenge
Camus's novel revolves around the idea of love- love for the humanity. Tarrou was a person who had felt that kind of love at a very young age when he went to a court to see his father, an attorney, in action. He recalls: 'the only picture I carried away with me of that day's proceedings was a picture of the criminal. I have little doubt he was guilty
Yet, even Tarrou must fall to the plague inevitably. Camus as much as says that while Tarrou's ideals may be beautiful, they are not ultimately the truth: there is no moksha for Tarrou -- only death. Does absurdism expect that one's best course of action is to interact with life at a slight remove -- as Rieux does? No definite answer can be given. Cottard, however, is definitely not the
(It will be recalled that Wright's then unpublished Lawd Today served as a working model for The Outsider.) Cross, in his daily dealings with the three women and his fellow postal workers feel something akin to nausea. His social and legal obligations have enslaved him. He has inherited from his mother a sense of guilt and foreboding regarding his relationship to women and his general awareness of amoral physical
Existentialism is one of the most talked about -- and least understood -- theories today. Broadly, existentialism is the philosophy of existence or experience. More specifically, existentialism is the philosophical cult of nihilism. In other words, existentialism represents the theory that is that each man exists as an individual in a purposeless universe, and that he must oppose this hostile environment through the exercise of his free will. Camus stresses the
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