Search

Emotional detachment is positive when it is done intentionally for the sake of achieving happiness. Meursault, the protagonist in Albert Camus’ The Stranger, is fully aware that his emotional detachment brings him happiness and peace of mind, that is why it is considered a positive type of detachment, but he loses that peace of mind the day this detachment turns into emotional involvement. He holds the belief that emotions are no source of pleasure, but rather a source of trouble. He also regards all emotional expressions as absurd and meaningless. He chooses to be emotionally detached of his own free will, but he is unconsciously enforced to get emotionally involved with people. His emotional aloofness has made him tend to satisfy his physical needs. Thus, he sharpens his physical senses through focusing on their satisfaction. The article discusses how Meursault deliberately detaches himself emotionally from people to gain happiness, but this happiness turns into utter misery when, unaware, he is drawn into emotional involvement with others.

Sam Shuster Department of Dermatology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UKAbstract: The continued discussion about the meaning of Camus’s famous novel, L’étranger, provoked a re-reading, and this, in turn, led to its clinical analysis and further investigation. The book rests entirely on the thoughts, words and actions of its central character, Meursault, and these were found to show impairment of social relationships, communication and interaction, with other traits diagnostic of the Asperger’s subgroup of the autism spectrum disorder. It was then found that Camus had based Meursault on his close friend Galindo, and a search was therefore made for evidence of Galindo’s character; this revealed him to be an intelligent but odd person, who exhibited the characteristic impairment of social and personal behavior of Asperger’s syndrome. Thus, Camus had recognized and understood his friend’s strange behavior before Asperger’s syndrome had been defined; his use of it for the creation of Meursault is therefore the first published account of a man with this disorder. Many of the interpretations and ideas developed from Meursault’s words, thoughts and actions must now be reconsidered, as they are a misreading of the words and behavior of a man with Asperger’s syndrome. The outcome of this clinical examination of L’étranger is unique; it shows that a precise account of a person with a neurobehavioral disorder was made by a novelist before the disorder had been clinically defined.Keywords: Asperger’s syndrome, Camus, Meursault, L’étranger

Emotional detachment is positive when it is done intentionally for the sake of achieving happiness. Meursault, the protagonist in Albert Camus' The Stranger, is fully aware that his emotional detachment brings him happiness and peace of mind, that is why it is considered a positive type of detachment, but he loses that peace of mind the day this detachment turns into emotional involvement. He holds the belief that emotions are no source of pleasure, but rather a source of trouble. He also regards all emotional expressions as absurd and meaningless. He chooses to be emotionally detached of his own free will, but he is unconsciously enforced to get emotionally involved with people. His emotional aloofness has made him tend to satisfy his physical needs. Thus, he sharpens his physical senses through focusing on their satisfaction. The article discusses how Meursault deliberately detaches himself emotionally from people to gain happiness, but this happiness turns into utter misery when, unaware, he is drawn into emotional involvement with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kamel Daoud's The Meursault Investigation (2015) is a recent addition to the category of postcolonial rewriting, a field enriched with seminal texts like Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and J. M. Coetzee's Foe. Ostensibly a counter-text to Albert Camus's classic novel The Stranger (1942), Daoud's debut novel is an equallyfierce indictment of post-Independence Algerian society, particularly the Islamist sweep over Algeria and its authoritarian interpretation of religion. Narrated from the perspective of Harun, the brother of the nameless Arab Meursault kills in Camus 's novel, The Meursault Investigation is for the major part an attempt at the restitution of the dignity, honour and identity of the colonized Algerian subject. However, being a staunch individualist, Daoud does not mouth the patriotic rhetoric of most fellow Algerians, nor does he capitulate to the diktats of the religious fanatics, thus inviting criticism from both the nationalists and the Muslim conservatives. The paper examines this ambivalent self-positioning of Daoud's novel between Camus and Algeria, imperialism and Islamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Methodical Perspectives / Metodički Vidici is the property of Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Yusuf Atılgan’s novel called Aylak Adam deeply influenced many young Turkish intellectuals at the time it was published. The researchers generally focused on the main character of the novel as the determinative factor of the mentioned influence and they tried to identify him with such concepts as loiterer (flaneur) and Frankish (alafranga). In this article, the accuracy of epithets attributed to C. of Aylak Adam will be questioned and it will be claimed that both epithets are far from presenting the real quality of C. In order to reveal the original character of C., this article will make a comparison between C. and Meursault, who is the main character of Albert Camus’ L’Étranger and it will be argued that C. is an absurd character. Secondly, it will be shown that Istanbul where C. lives in is a metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meursault não acredita em Deus. O posicionamento do protagonista do romance L’Étranger (1942), O Estrangeiro em português (2011), obra do francês nascido na Argélia Albert Camus, a respeito da deidade judaico-cristã causa indignação às personagens da narrativa e provoca um estranhamento relevante para uma reflexão sobre o (não) sentido da existência humana nos seus leitores. O presente artigo propõe um estudo da obra a partir das noções de engagement literário com base nas discussões de Jean-Paul Sartre e Theodor Adorno, bem como evidencia uma leitura na perspectiva da Dialética Negativa adorniana. Apresenta, ainda, uma análise crítica de Meursault fundamentada nos elementos formais do romance moderno, que oportunizam um diálogo desestabilizador entre a visão do narrador-personagem e as reflexões filosóficas sobre os dogmas existenciais com ênfase no texto O Anticristo, de Friedrich Nietzsche.

Il va sans dire que tout lecteur averti connaît l'anti-héros, Meursault, de L'Étranger de Camus, qui a été condamné à mort, non pas d'avoir tué un Arabe mais de ne pas connaitre les règles de la société. Or, personne n'aurait prétendu que quelque soixante-onze ans après, un écrivain algérien, Kamel Daoud, écrirait la suite de ce fameux roman qui a pour titre Meursault, contre-enquête où le narrateur, Haroun, le frère de « l'Arabe », tué par un « certain Meursault », donne d'abord à cet Arabe un nom, Moussa, qui lui manque et qui le fait ressortir de l'anonymat. Daoud lui crée aussi une histoire et mène, cette fois, l'enquête du côté de la victime pour compléter l'oeuvre de Camus qui, selon lui, était incomplète. Contrairement à Meursault, Haroun, conscient de l'influence des mamans sur les enfants, ne néglige pas de parler de sa M'ma ainsi que de celle de Meursault. Il est à rappeler que l'histoire de l'un commençait par « Aujourd'hui, maman est morte... » alors que celle de l'autre débute par « Aujourd'hui, maman est encore vivante... » et se termine de la même manière, ce qui laisse entendre que, bien que ce soit son fils cadet, Haroun, qui tue un Français, c'est bien sa M'ma si imposante qui venge son fils, « l'Arabe ». [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

À l'occasion du colloque « La francophonie dans tous ses états! », nous proposons une brève étude comparative du premier roman de Kamel Daoud, Meursault, contre-enquête (2013) et de L'Étranger (1942) d'Albert Camus. Comprenant une certaine contestation sociale, politique et morale, le roman de Daoud rend un hommage ambigu à l'auteur français: Camus y est confondu avec Meursault, de même qu'il y est considéré comme responsable des prétendues méprises de l'intrigue, ponctuellement démenties. Calqué sur L'Étranger afin d'y ajouter le volet « manquant » sur l'identité et l'histoire familiale de l'« Arabe » tué, le roman Meursault, contre-enquête s'éloigne pourtant de son modèle au travers d'une vengeance encore plus criminelle que le meurtre initial, à savoir, l'assassinat d'une victime expiatoire, un Français en fuite le jour de l'Indépendance de l'Algérie. Donc, même si le narrateur de Daoud - Haroun, le frère de l'« Arabe » - se rapproche de l'univers camusien par son athéisme, ou par le sentiment de l'absurde, la loi du talion démontre le fossé qui le sépare de Meursault et de la philosophie de L'Étranger. Sans mettre en cause, évidemment, le bien-fondé des sentiments anticolonialistes du roman de Daoud, son indignation légitime, nous examinons et souvent réfutons ses griefs contre L'Étranger, qui mythifie en creux la cause des indigènes musulmans - ce qui est rarement compris par le lecteur camusien. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]