On the first day of kindergarten, you are taught cutesy, little sayings about the meaning of life: “Be yourself! Treat others the way you want to be treated! Stand out! Use your imagination! Dream your biggest! Reach for the stars!” These sappy sayings seem trivial yet as we mature and look back on our elementary days we can’t help but to reminisce and realize that these sayings are nearly impossible to live in our conformed society. On the first day of middle school, these cutesy little sayings go out the window and we begin “fitting in.” We lose ourselves because if we stand out we are immediately ridiculed for not fitting in. We blame society for robbing us of our individuality and creativity and ironically we are doing it to ourselves. We are society. Society is us. We judge others just as much as they judge us. But can we help it? That is the way we are trained. We are trained to outcast others who are different than us. We are afraid of standing out because if we do we won’t “fit in” with the “in crowd.” This is evident in “The Stranger” by Albert Camus. Mersault in this novel represents a threat to society. This threat is someone who truly stands out because he does not conform, lie, cheat or go out of his way to please others. These features scare society and he is condemned to death solely for being different from society. He is deemed as abnormal, not human-like and hollow. In reality he is none of these adjectives. He is simply a man who defies the norm. He is a man who truly is courageous for standing out in the crowd. He doesn’t fear isolation, judgment and resentment. He is living his life in the manner which pleases him and doesn’t compare it to society’s definition of life. Mersault is the most courageous nonfiction character I have encountered simply because he conformed to society. He believes in those sappy kindergarten sayings even if they result in isolation and judgment from society. He is living a true life because he is an authentic version of himself, not a manufactured version of society.
Hi, Ashley.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you take us back to your kindergarten. I say "your" because I think I must have gone to Camus' kindergarten, in which the teachers were pretty much indifferent, as long as we conformed. You are so right, that we are the society that judges, yet we complain when it is us being judged. Can we help it? Good question. I think you're right also in the fact that we are socialized to do this; it may even be a survival instinct, but whatever it is, it is only through careful attention that we can overcome it. I'm not sure that Merseault believes in those sappy sayings from kindergarten, as much as he is simply more like a child than an adult. One thing that confused me about your blog was your third sentence from the end, which seems to contradict your main points. Is there a negation that's missing? Anyhow, it's interesting that Merseault's indifference seems to give him the courage that you describe, yet I wonder, is it courage to be willing to give up what you don't value, even it it's your life? Isn't courage defined by having something at stake, putting something on the line? I like your big question, and look forward to hearing what you have to say about our next books.