Camus' The Stranger: Absurdity and the Creating of Meaning

Recently I re-read Albert Camus' The Stranger (L'Etranger). Most of us were forced to read the book in high school, though I don't think I ever got through it (Sorry Mr. Clancy). Reading it now, and understanding the philosophy behind Camus' story of Monsieur Meursault, I began to question connections between Camus' Absurdity and Foucault's Knowledge and Power. Camus' philosophy of absurdity, influenced by Soren Kirkegaard, is highly debated and critiqued. Both thinkers struggled with the understanding of the absurd, arbitrariness of the world around them and the attempt to give oneself meaning in this aburd world. What is the point of living, when there is no meaning to life?

In The Stranger, Meursault lives his life day to day, not searching for deeper meaning in his everyday actions or emotions. His neighbors and the reader are able to describe him as out of touch, or insensitive to life (i.e. his reaction ot his mother's death and his indifference toward his lover Marie). Through the altercation and murder of 'the Arab' and the subsequent trial, Meursault finds himself a stranger in his own story. His interrogation, the court room spectacle, and his encounter with the chaplain reveal the arbitrariness of life. He accepts his public death because he sees that the world around him is meaningless.

It is man that gives meaning to the absurd and arbitrary 'nature'. Jean-Paul Sartre addresses the idea of absurdity in existentialism in his book The Nausea. In one specific scene, Roquentin observes the root of a chestnut tree. He is no longer able to understand the root as a root because the complete significance of the word is now in question. He is troubled by the way that something can only exist when man can define it in certain terms.

This is where I start to see Foucault. If we look at the absurdity of the world, that 'nature' only makes sense when we define it in terms that we create, then power is held by those who create those definitions. Power is knowledge, and it is a power over language. Language defines and creates meaning in the world. Those who hold power, create what we know, how we are able to define and understand the world, our relationship to one another, and how we are able to exsist. This is the root of discursive power.

Edward Said digs deeper into this argument. In Orientalism, Said argues that the Western hegemonic power is what creates and gives meaning to the Orient, which does not exist in material reality. It is a constituted idea that has been created in order to define the West as the hegemonic power by creating an Other, that is subordinate to the Self. The Other is unable to define its own essence because it is defined by the hegemon.

It may be a stretch, attempting to make connections between these different philosophers. Those who have studied more in-depth, the relationship between these thinkers may be able to dismiss my assumptions. What I hope to understand is if the world is absurd and lacks meaning in its 'natural' state, then who and what gives the world its meaning? Sartre argues that man gives meaning to the world around him, and himself. Foucault argues that it is a discursive structure that gives meaning to the world around us and it gives value and positions individuals within the structure. Said then argues that it is a hegemonic Western structure that positions the Orient as the Other that is opposite to the Self.

*These authors lack a gendered analysis of the Other and the absurd. I hope to look at a gendered critique in a later post.

Sources:

Camus, Albert. 1989. The Stranger. New York: Vintage Books.

Dawkins, Sabrina. 2010. "The Absurd - Redeeming Soren Kirkegaard and Albert Camus" Suite101. http://western-philosophy.suite101.com/article.cfm/the-absurd---redeeming-soren-kierkegaard-and-albert-camus (Accessed 21-Aug-2010).

Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. 2007. The Nausea. New York: Vintage Books.