Denial_and_Behavior_in_the_Works_of_Camus_and_Jean-Paul_Satre

\ Denial and Criminal and Social Behavior in the Works of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. The attitude of people towards crimes they are guilty of is often a main topic of philosophical works. Many writers and philosophers, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, use human response to a violation of the rules of society as proof of their opinion on human nature. For example in No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre, the first instinct of the characters is to deny their wrongdoings although they have all been condemned to hell. The characters’ initial denial of having murdered and driven others to suicide shows their desire for separation from their past misdeeds. In The Stranger, by Albert Camus, the narrator hides his emotions both from the other characters and from the reader, only describing himself in terms of his immediate environment. The fact that Meursault’s indifference is more outrageous to society than his murder of another human being shows not only the society’s indifference towards human life but also its desire for proper thought and behavior. The writings of Sartre and Camus highlight the detachment of characters both from indifferent societies and major events. Also, many characters have a blasé attitude towards life, and feel that it is completely meaningless and that death is inevitable. While characters in the writings of Sartre and Camus go to great lengths to avoid thinking about their impending demises, they are happier when they accept their fates and take their lives into their own hands. Characters often clash with societal norms in works by Camus and Sartre. All the characters in No Exit and many of the characters in The Stranger have broken rules of society. This is apparent in the scene with the magistrate in The Stranger, when the magistrate waves a silver crucifix in Meursault’s face upon learning that Meursault is an atheist. In the eyes of the magistrate, Meursault is rejecting society by rejecting religion, and because of this he is treated as an enemy. As well, the character of Raymond is a pimp, and Meursault’s trial becomes even more hopeless after the jury learns of their friendship. In No Exit, Estelle has an affair with a man of a lower class, which is why she says it is doomed to fail. Garcin deserts the army because he is a coward, which shows that he is unfit to participate in the pro-war society. Inez is a lesbian in a society intolerant of homosexuals, and implies that she does not have much money. While the characters in No Exit are not rebelling against social codes, they are unable to be complete members of the society, despite their best efforts. Still, they make excuses for why they cannot live like everyone else. By having their characters make excuses for going against the behavior accepted by society, Sartre and Camus show what happens when people are unable to follow the moral values placed upon them by peer pressure. The characters of Estelle from No Exit and Meursault from The Stranger have the same attitude towards their actions. Estelle is an upper-class socialite who is (at first) more concerned with the decoration of the room and applying makeup than with the fact that she is in hell. Her choice to pay attention to little details rather than the larger situation parallels Meursault’s description of his murder of an Arab. Shortly after a fight in which Meursault's friend gets stabbed, Meursault shoots and kills one of their adversaries. He avoids mentioning his reasoning for killing the man, because it does not exist- he describes the feeling of the hot sun on his face instead. Both characters choose to avoid focusing on their actions, instead distracting themselves with other, trivial things. The emotions of other people play a major part in the lives of the characters in No Exit and The Stranger. They trivialize the harm they cause during their lives, just as Meursault trivializes writing a breakup letter for his “pal” Raymond, saying that “he had no reason not to.” By claiming that there would be no downside, Meursault makes writing a breakup letter into a one-dimensional activity with no effect, showing how little he cares about other peoples’ emotions. His oversimplification of an action foreshadows his unthinking act of murder later in the story. Also, Garcin’s reasoning for writing the letter reminds one of Garcin’s reasoning behind why he tormented his wife. According to Garcin, he only humiliated her because “it was so easy,” and he enjoyed watching her flinch “like a sensitive plant.” Garcin tormented his wife just because he could, while Meursault does things because he cannot see why he should not. Neither character reflects on their actions, which is why neither one really knows why they perform certain actions for anything other than personal enjoyment. All the characters from No Exit cause the deaths of others, which they do not feel particularly bad about. As they are in hell, their excuses for destroying peoples’ lives are portrayed as flimsy self-justifications. Estelle was sent to hell for throwing her illegitimate daughter off a balcony, which caused her lover to kill himself. When confronted with this act, she justifies having killed the baby by saying “it didn’t please me,” and refers to her lover killing himself as “absurd.” Garcin is completely uncaring about his wife’s emotions, having affairs with other women and forcing his wife to bring them coffee in bed. According to him, he only acted like this because “it was so easy.” Inez caused her cousin to commit suicide, and refers to him as “pathetic.” This callous indifference towards others’ lives and feelings is also found in The Stranger, when Meursault doesn’t care that much that his mother died, and is not sorry at all that he kills the Arab. Shortly before he kills the Arab he says that “one might fire, or not fire- and it would come to absolutely the same thing” (Camus 37). Here, Meursault is ignoring the people who would be emotionally affected by his committing murder. The choice to focus on little details is shown in The Stranger not only to apply to Meursault, but also to the society at large. During the trial, the prosecution’s case is based more on the fact that Meursault did not cry at his mother’s funeral than the actual murder, and the jury seems more concerned on Meursault’s lack of emotion than the crime itself. Even his court-appointed lawyer is “vexed” by his blasé attitude towards death (41). The prosecutor takes pains to remind the jury that “on the next day after his mother’s funeral [Meursault] was visiting the swimming pool, starting a liaison with a girl, and going to see a comic film.” This angers the jury so much that they “hardly seem… to listen” to the next witnesses (Camus 59). Just as Meursault focuses more on the heat of the sun than the murder he is committing, the jury and lawyers focus more on the breach of the accepted codes of society, such as acting sad at a funeral, than on the act of murder. A similar focus on seemingly small details is a main theme in the short story The Wall, by Jean-Paul Sartre. In The Wall, the narrator, Pablo Ibbieta, is a Spanish revolutionary sentenced to death by the Fascists. Instead of writing one last letter to his girlfriend, confessing to a priest, or comforting his fellow prisoners, he analyzes his surroundings and his mental condition. Out of desire to “die cleanly,” Ibbieta detaches himself from his plight (13). Clinical descriptions of his physical reactions to his impending death make up most of the story. In addition, he tries not to think seriously about his life, saying that he has “no more desire” to see his girlfriend, and tries not to reflect on his memories. The fact that Ibbieta chooses to focus on small details to avoid thinking about his past life and impending death parallels one of the themes of The Stranger. In both The Stranger and The Wall, the members of society choose to avoid thinking about their lives. Unless they take their lives into their own hands, either by being a rebel like Ibbieta or by devoting themselves to personal enjoyment like Meursault, they completely reflect society. Critiques of socially acceptable behavior are much more apparent in the works of Sartre than those of Camus. In The Wall, people whose political views differ from those of the Fascists are executed without trials. Even people who have nothing to do with politics, like a baker, are put to death. The new society is forcing people, under pain of death, to fit the new mold of the citizen. This theme of people being forced to act a certain way also comes up in The Flies, also by Jean-Paul Sartre. The townspeople of Argos exclude the protagonist from their activities, refusing to even talk to him because he is not dressed correctly. Both the Fascists and the townspeople exclude outsiders and come into conflict with the protagonists; this conflict is used to demonstrate how meaningless and random lives can be, in part because of the nature of social rules. Characters in the works of Sartre and Camus dissociate themselves with the world at large, partially because they find it to be random and without meaning. However, when they finally take control of their own lives they can finally take action without being influenced by the social system. For example, Ibbieta chooses to defy the fascists one last time before his execution, which makes him happy, and Orestes takes the collective guilt of the townspeople upon himself, allowing them to live for themselves. Once characters start taking their lives into their own hands and break free of the constraints imposed by society, they can finally be satisfied. The idea of life being completely random, with no higher purpose, is also expressed in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. In The Gay Science, he says that “God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him” and that “mystical explanations are considered deep; the truth is, they are not even shallow” (Sec. 125-126). Here, Nietzsche is trying to make the point that looking for a supernatural purpose in life is fundamentally flawed, and that living this life should be our focus as people. This parallels Meursault in The Stranger, who does not follow any moral code (including those with divine backing), instead devoting his life to swimming, sex, and cigarettes. At the end of the story, shortly before his execution, Meursault realizes the “benign indifference of the universe” (76). In realizing that there is no higher purpose in life, Meursault feels happiness for the first time in the story, and accepts his impending death. Camus and Nietzsche both thought that false hope is a burden on life, a theory that shows up in their writing. Meursault’s attitude towards life has similarities to the concept of the Übermensch, which is one of Nietzsche’s most famous theories. Nietzsche described the Übermensch as a person completely grounded in reality, who finds satisfaction in himself rather than in society. Meursault does not believe in any religion, and will not have anything to do with the values of the society, instead seeking pleasure and worldly pursuits. By ignoring the social rules he is breaking free of the mold of what he is supposed to be. However, unlike the Übermensch, Meursault is not trying to live as an example for others. While the Übermensch would teach by being an example of how to improve the human race, Meursault practices hedonism instead of inspiring change in people. In The Flies, the protagonist must convince a town of mourners to let go of their past sins. The fact that Zeus must use the citizens’ collective guilt to manipulate them into worshipping him shows his lack of any actual power. By freeing the citizens from their past sins and refusing to admit to Zeus that his murder of the king and queen was the wrong thing to do, the protagonist becomes completely separate from both the gods and society. In making a completely new moral code that does not derive its value from the gods, Orestes parallels Nietzsche’s Übermensch even more than Meursault does. While Meursault only rejects the arbitrary moral codes of the society and does not create new ones or inspire action in anybody, Orestes actually saves the townspeople from the effects of their beliefs. To make his point clearer, Sartre had the town of Argos in The Flies infested with swarms of black flies, which leave once Orestes takes the sins of the people upon himself. The act of completely changing a moral system is not only reminiscent of Nietzsche’s Übermensch, but also draws parallels to Jesus Christ. Like Jesus, Orestes takes the burden of the town’s “sin,” the physical manifestations of which follow him when he leaves. Jesus, unlike the Übermensch, relies on a belief in universal truth, which the Übermensch eschews in favor of an individual one- being true to oneself. Orestes, as the Übermensch, rejects the stagnant values of Argos, making life better for the townspeople by allowing them to live for themselves. Meursault does not actually know why he kills the Arab, which is one of the fundamental points in the trial scene. This lack of knowledge is similar to beliefs expressed by Plato, who theorized that sense-objects distract from the universal truth. Because Meursault focuses on his own sensory perception instead of contemplating his thoughts and actions, he is distracted from the truth about society-- that society is benignly indifferent, and that there is no pattern to the world-- until the very end of the story. Also, his lack of contemplation is completely alien to the society at large. For example, the jurors and lawyers must fabricate events to make the murder fit in with their beliefs about human nature. This fits in with Plato’s main arguments, in that the lawyers and jurors must create false sensory objects to make sense of something they do not understand. Plato’s theories are also expressed in No Exit. When Estelle is watching her friend at her own funeral, she tries to distract herself from the fact that her friend is hardly crying by commenting on the physical appearances of the people there. Her use of visual objects to deceive herself is similar to Plato’s idea that knowledge is completely separate from sensory perception. As in the Parable of the Cave, the shadows of false sensory perception distract the viewer from what is actually happening. However, Sartre and Camus did not express the theory that truth transcends everything, but rather that being true to yourself and not being what society tries to make you is what is important. Ironically, Sartre’s portrayal of hell is one without rest from sensory perception. The damned characters have no eyelids so they cannot close their eyes, and all the characters try to use the little bit of their past lives that they can see to distract themselves from their surroundings. Once they are cut off from the world, they cannot know anything that is happening. In fact, this has similarities to the Biblical portrayal of hell, in which condemned souls have no knowledge of Earth after their judgment. Despite having no rest from sensory input, the characters in No Exit have no actual knowledge, as they refuse to reflect upon themselves or really think about their actions. This echoes the philosophy found in the writings of Plato and the Book of Revelation. The distinction between thought and sensory perception also comes up in the writings of John Locke, an English Enlightenment philosopher. Locke’s theory of knowledge was that knowledge was derived completely from what people see and feel. This definition of knowledge is highlighted in The Stranger by Meursault’s devotion to physical sensations, rather than to thinking. Because Meursault does not analyze anyone’s behavior (especially not his own) or think about social graces, he does not know anything beyond what he physically feels. For example, he is able to describe things such as the feeling of the sun on his face, or the feeling of his feet in the water, but not why he killed the Arab. Locke’s theory of knowledge is also touched upon in No Exit, when the characters need a mirror to remember what they look like. As all their mirrors have been taken away, they have no knowledge of what they look like, which torments them. They can only try to understand themselves in the eyes of other people. This parallels the theory of John Locke in that they are forced to go to great lengths to gain precious knowledge. In the works of both Sartre and Camus, the characters’ lack of self-knowledge serves to make their situations worse. The works of Sartre and Camus have many parallels and contrasts between themselves and with other philosophers. The act of separating from society is a major theme in their writing, and their characters find themselves at odds with the arbitrarily constructed social rules. Many different philosophical theories and worldviews are present in The Stranger, No Exit, and The Wall. Meursault has elements of the Übermensch, but also exhibits tendencies that are in line with the theories of knowledge expressed by Greek philosophers. The condemned people in No Exit and The Wall have no hope, and try to distract themselves with trivial things, which is similar to Plato’s teaching that sense-perception serves only to distract. By examining so many different philosophical theories in their work, Sartre and Camus make their own opinions on society much more logically sound, which is probably why their works are so widely known today. Works Cited Camus, Albert. The Stranger. London: Penguin Classics, 1943. Sartre, Jean-Paul. No Exit. Trans. S. Gilbert. Web. May 14, 2010 . Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Wall (Intimacy) and Other Stories. Trans. Lloyd Alexander. New York: New Directions, 1948.