Written by | RLZ
Cover | Outsider
Looking at " Outsider ", we can find some objective events from the novel: Mercersau had no emotional fluctuations when he lost his mother, and could not see any sad emotions; he dated a woman on the second day after attending the funeral and watched the film of the Fernandale comedian; then indirectly helped his friend Lemon humiliated a woman; shot Lemon's enemy on the beach, and finally shot four shots.
From these events we seem to see an image of a evil person with moral corruption, human nature is destroyed, cold and cruel - he does not cry for losing his mother, but on the next day he dates a woman, helps others humiliate another woman, and finally shoots and kills people.
In Meurso's monologue, facing the prosecutor who accused him of his opposition and wanted to sentence him to death, Meurso seemed to affirm the prosecutor's "the way of observing things is clear and correct" and "the words are still acceptable."
Merceau's attitude of generously acknowledging the prosecutor's statements is indeed unexpected. Rather than saying that he is a person who confesses his own actions and is willing to be prepared to accept legal sanctions, he should borrow the name of the novel to say that he is an "outsider" who has become extremely cold and far away from the familiar and intimate ethical world we are familiar with.
In the novel, crying for the loss of his mother and repentance for the murder is a relationship or relationship that binds everyone in this "frame", which contrasts with the situation where Meurso and this relationship or relationship are close and distant. The former forms the world of the insider, and the latter forms the world of the outsider. In the world of insiders, all human psychology and behaviors are easy to understand and a reasonable basis can be found. When a person should be sad, when he should be sad, when he should be repented, everything runs in an orderly state. The state presented by Meurso is obviously far from such an insider's world.
We can roughly see a life trajectory of Meurso from the novel: he went to college, dropped out of school, and then became an office employee; similarly, we can also summarize the daily activities of Meurso after he joined the work: company, residence, neighborhoods near residence, and beach leisure places. Therefore, we can see that Meurso actually lives in this world of people, and most of his activities form an interactive relationship with this world. But it is undeniable that Meurso is indeed indifferent to many things in this world as an outsider. He seems to be physically involved, mentally indifferent and numb, wandering outside, and finally forming a state of withdrawal from this insider world. Any characteristic performance of
people will not be formed for no reason. There must be specific reasons to promote its formation. We can try to discuss the reasons why Mercersole withdrew from the insider world.
As a worker, Meurso needs to work in the company every Monday to Friday to bring benefits to the company, and the operation of the company will create value for society and drive the development of society. Obviously, this is a requirement for everyone to develop society, requiring them to have a position in society, to hold certain social functions, and to work daily, so that society can gather from top to bottom and move towards civilization.
When Mersau entered society and formally joined work, this characteristic became obvious. He could no longer fully utilize his nature in his happy childhood like he did when he was a child. Such a social function that takes up most of the time often invades Meurso's subconscious, squeezes out other important things, and finally unilaterally controls Meurso, especially for Meurso, who lives alone - his mother is in a nursing home and is not married.To some extent, this will lead to the fact that the emotions between the adult Meurso and the mother will inevitably no longer be the emotions between the childhood Meurso and the mother, and the intimacy of the past will gradually stretch into a far distance.
As mentioned in "The Irrational Man", "In a society that only requires a man to comply with his own special social functions, man becomes equivalent to this function; and the rest of his existence is at best left to nature - usually abandoned under the surface of consciousness and forgotten." When Meurso was watching for his mother until the morning of the next day, Meurso saw "a red light over the mountains between Marango and the sea. From the mountain, he saw "a red light." The wind blowing up brought a smell of salt. It seemed like a good day. "Faced with this long-lost natural scenery, Meurso sighed, "I haven't been to the countryside for a long time. If it weren't for my mother, it would be great to go for a walk now."
Therefore, we can see that Meurso has an aesthetic intuition about natural beauty in his body. This is one of the important signs of outsiders except for people who serve certain social functions in society, and an intuition that people cannot erase. But because Meursault had long held certain social functions in that integrated society, this aesthetic intuition, which was regarded as one of the symbols of human beings, was gradually suppressed. Even the beach that Mersau likes to go to is difficult to mobilize his aesthetic intuition, because in Mersau's eyes it is more of a leisure place provided by society.
Therefore, Meurso has become accustomed to his identity as a person with a position. From the time Meurso entered society and joined work, he meant that he would encounter this change in an ignorant way, and other attributes outside this would inevitably be suppressed. However, attributes outside of social functions cannot truly disappear as part of human beings themselves, but are forgotten in the subconscious layer. They will be ready to move at some moments and collide with what the integrated society gives at the level of consciousness. And Meurso could not really grasp them, and often only felt a force in the chaos that disturbed him.
At this time, Mersault's disgust towards the strong sunshine and lights seemed to be understandable because they all represent a strong and clear existence. The undefined urge to move in chaos will be captured by Meurso, forming an intervention that will prevent him from participating in the world of the insider.
At the same time, as a person who performs certain social functions, Mersault works in a company every Monday to Friday. This will naturally mean a mechanical repetition. When Meurso himself detects this mechanical repetition, this can also alienate Meurso and exit the insider's world. We can actually see the trajectory of Meurso's life. When the boss gave Meursault the opportunity to go to Paris to develop his career, Meursault refused. The boss of
believes that Mersau had no ambitions, while Mersau believes that "When I went to college, I had many such ambitions. But when I had to drop out of school, I quickly realized that all this was not important." From this we can see that Mersau once went to college and was a young man with dreams, but dropped out of school halfway through. Later, as described in the novel, Mersau went to work in a company and became an office employee. Because I had no time to take care of my mother, I sent my mother to a nursing home and lived a life of living alone.
On the Sunday after Meurso attended her mother, Meurso just lived in a snail time at home. Smoking, sleeping, simply cope with your hungry stomach, and then watching the streets with interest on the balcony, all Mersau's activities on Sunday. Objectively speaking, Meurso is really just killing time and spending this Sunday without doing anything, and from Meurso's monologue, we can see that he is actually used to this method and enjoys himself.
"I also turned the chair upside down and kept it like a cigarette seller, which I felt more comfortable." "One of them even shouted to me, 'We beat them.' I nodded and said loudly, 'Yes.'" Whether it was Meurso's casual adjustment of his sitting position or his interactions with athletes on the street, we could see that Meurso was satisfied with his lifestyle. But when Meurso came back from the balcony at night, we could see that Meurso's attitude changed. "I think Sunday is always busy. My mother has been buried. It's time for me to go to work again. In short, there is no change."
From these two places we feel a certain mental state of Meurso: for him, the work from Monday to Friday has become the primary thing in Meurso's heart. The end of the weekend means that he "gets to work again", which in turn shows that the above-mentioned people in a position have some control over Meurso.
At the same time, "In short, there is no change." It shows a value of Mersault, and we can see the foothold of Mersault's thought, that is, life is unchanging. In " Sisyph Myth ", Camus once discussed "get up, take the tram, work for four hours in the office or factory, lunch, and take the tram, work for four hours, eat and sleep; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are always the same rhythm: this road is easy to follow most of the time.
Once a certain day, the question of "why" is raised Come, everything starts with this boredom with a little bit of surprise. "It is Meurso who lived and worked at a constant rhythm for most of the time. Meurso deeply realized this, and thus a state of boredom was created. Although he still lived and worked like before, the order of the past must no longer make him friendly, but a strong sense of strangeness replaced the familiarity. At this time, Meurso retreated from the world of the past and had to face a mechanical repetition again.
It should be said that the mechanical repetition of life transcends society and the times, and no matter what historical stage a person is in, it will be inevitable. At the same time, unlike the personal depression brought to people by an integrated society, Meurso has a clear awareness of the mechanical repetition of life and has entered the level of consciousness. Once Meurso notices this mechanical repetition, he discovers a ridiculousness that the order of his life will fail. Meurso will fall into nothingness, all meanings will no longer exist, and every effort of man cannot find meaning to support it. At this time, Meurso will become indifferent and numb, and will only consider his physical habits and desires, living like a walking corpse.
At the end of the novel, Mersau was furious because of the repeated calling himself Mersau's father by , which allows readers to finally see the emotional outflow of Mersau, which has never appeared in the novel, that is, anger. Meurso spoke in her anger and expressed her views as an outsider. After venting her whole life, Meurso's reaction was "I was so tired and threw myself on the bed."
At the same time, Meurso had an epiphany, "For the first time in a long time, I remembered my mother. I think I understood why she had found another 'fiance' in her later years, and why she played the 'return' game again', "Meurso, I feel ready to go through everything again." From here we can see that Meurso was exhausted after anger and finally got a different state from what the novel showed before - he got a new beginning and was ready to go through everything again.
However, Mersau is about to meet his death penalty, and the novel ends here, but this ending is worth our consideration. When a person breaks with the angry object in anger, a new peace will be regained after the break.The anger that Mersau finally showed can actually help him to obtain a state of breaking with his former life, and after the break, he will get something new so that he can start a new life.
mentioned earlier that the society in which Mersau lives is an integrated society that requires both stable order and self-development. People often participate in it with an affirmative thinking and give full play to their social functions in order to promote the development of society. Therefore, an integrated society often causes the entire society to gather from top to bottom, thus having a one-dimensional nature. The term "one-dimensionality" comes from Marcuse. He feels that "the society before the developed Capitalism was a two-dimensional society, and people can consider their needs reasonably and critically. Modern civilization is one-dimensional in science, art, philosophy, daily thinking, political system, economy and technology."
In a developed capitalist society, various perfect systems of society provide various guarantees for people's lives. People's life worries will disappear and they will reach an active cooperative relationship with society, and people will gradually lose their dimensions in different directions. When a one-dimensional society makes people move forward in a bright direction, it also brings people to the danger of falling into darkness. People will be too close to society without doubt. Once some kind of crack appears between them, such as when Meurso detects the mechanical repetition of life, they will easily fall into a dilemma of trying to withdraw but unable to move due to the lack of blessing and traction of different directions.
One-way alienation makes people go further and further, becoming inhuman, and they go further and further along the road of alienation. A person's personality will gradually be suppressed, and will only be ready to move as the true nature of human life at some point, but because he has no time to take care of it for a long time, he cannot truly grasp it. Finally, he returns to his past state in various one-dimensional affairs. Only after understanding can a person make the right choice and adjust his direction. Therefore, the struggle between two directions can keep people behind and protect their personality.
For the reason that people will perform mechanical repetitive lives every day, Camus portrays Sisyphus's heroic image for us in the last article of "Sisyphus Myth" - Sisyphus was punished by Zeus and pushed a huge rock to the top of the mountain. The stone rolled down the mountain due to its own weight, repeating this action day after day. From here we see a metaphorical thing, Sisyph's repeated pushing of the boulders every day and Meursault's life with almost no changes every day are monotonous and mechanical. In fact, this is true for everyone except Meurso.
Camus wrote in "The Myth of Sisyphus", "Today's workers work all their lives and complete the same work all day long. Such a fate is as ridiculous as Sisyphus's fate. However, this fate is tragic only in very few moments, and only in the moment when workers become conscious." Therefore, when they truly realize this monotonous machine, there will inevitably be a kind of pain, and the life that they once accustomed to will become a kind of suffering they are facing in this discovery. In the end, Meurso fell into nothingness, became alienated, retreated from the former world, and became an outsider wandering around the periphery. But as Camus said, what he is interested in is "not taking absurdity as the end of man, but using it as the starting point to explore how people live in absurdity."
Camus's opinion on Sisyph's punishment of repeated pushing the boulders every day is that "if there is a personal destiny, there will be no higher destiny, or, to say, there is only one destiny that is seen as inevitable and despised." From this we can see two key factors, "being seen as inevitable" and "despised".
The former tells us that people should take the initiative to bear their daily mechanical repetition life, while the latter is people's contempt for the fate of mechanical repetition.Everyone cannot avoid mechanically repeated labor every day, because the net of life will pull people into it, and people start a mechanically repeated labor from life. Man's rejection of mechanical repetition is a kind of escape rather than resistance, because he denies the fact that people need to live. People's contempt for mechanical repetition comes from human passion.
In the novel, we are not unable to see the passion in Mersau. When Mersault and Mary met the Masson and his wife under the introduction of Lemon, they greeted each other, expressed their politeness and kindness, and the whole process was filled with laughter. In this atmosphere, Meurso looked at "his wife has already talked and laughed to Mary", "Maybe it's the first time, I really thought I was going to get married." It was this friendly acquaintance and beauty of getting along with people that touched Meurso, which made Meurso feel the beauty of life, and it can be seen that Meurso has the passion for life, but because he became a person in his position, he was suppressed.
Therefore, contempt for mechanically repeated life is not to treat it as a punishment for people to encounter, nor to produce pessimistic and desperate emotions, falling into nothingness, and people's active responsibility shows that this is what life must experience and is needed for people's life. People obtain order through life, and their negation and escape of it is a negation and escape of people's lives, and the final result is a kind of chaos.
Merceau, as a person who performs certain social functions in an integrated society, engages in a mechanical and repetitive life every day. Life seems calm and gentle, without any turbulence, but in fact, he always faces unreasonable places and the dangers that may be brought about. Only by maintaining a sufficiently sober consciousness and maintaining passion for life can one ensure that he will not be swallowed up and strive for happiness. As Camus said, "I always have the impression that I live on the sea and are threatened, but there is great happiness in my heart."
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