Absurdity in Albert Camus’ The Stranger Essay -- The Outsider Essays

The word imbecilic or giddiness is very unusual in that there is no clear definition for the term. Merriam-Websters Online lexicon gave its definition of absurd as having no rational or corking relationship to human life meaningless, also lacking order or value. Many existential philosophers have defined it in their own manner. Soren Kierkegarrd, a pre-World War II German philosopher, defined absurd as that case of Christian faith which runs counter to tout ensemble reasonable human foretaste (Woelfel 40). Jean-Paul Sartre a post-WW II French philosopher, felt that absurd was the sheer fortuity or thereness or gratuitousness of the world (Woelfel 41). Both of these definitions are hard to determine and for the most part are not how Camus viewed the word absurd. Camus gives his interpretation of absurd in his book The Myth of Sisyphus, which is the point at which man realizes that all the struggles that we put forth in a repeated daily wheel are in all actuality completely meaningless (Woelfel 44). In throng W. Woelfels book, Camus A Theological Perspective, he gives us Camus point of absurdity in detail, I have said that the world is not absurd. uncomplete is man the strange animal absurd. What is then? The absurd, Camus says, is precisely the relationship in the midst of man, who demands ultimate rationality, and his irrational world the confrontation between the human choose and the unreasonable silence of the world (Camus, Myth 21). man experiences himself as new(prenominal) than his natural environment and as wanting more than it can reelectnature has produced a being with penurys it cannot fulfill. The juxtaposition of the human need for ultimate meaning with the ultimate lack of meaning yielded by the initiation is the a... ...tranger. Storybites.com. Storybites, 2011. Web. 26 August 2015.Absurd. Merriam-Websters Online Dictionary. http//www.merriam-webster.com/ Web. 26 August 2015.http//www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/absurd Br aun, Lev. Albert Camus moralist of the Absurd. Cranbury Associated UP, 1974. Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Trans. Justin OBrien. New York Vintage, 1955. ---. The Stranger. Trans. Matthew Ward. New York Vintage, 1988. Ellison, David R. Understanding Albert Camus. Columbia U of southwestern Carolina P, 1990. Masters, Brian. Camus A Study. London Heinemann, 1974. McCarthy, Patrick. Camus The Stranger. Cambridge UP, 1988. Todd, Oliver. Albert Camus A Life. Trans. Benjamin Ivry. New York Knopf, 1997. Woelfel, James W. Camus A Theological Perspective. New York Abingdon, 1975.