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Albert Camus's The Stranger

Albert Camus's The Stranger:

Critical Essays

Edited by

Peter Francev

Albert Camus's The Stranger: Critical Essays,

Edited by Peter Francev

This book first published 2014

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by Peter Francev and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5391-7, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5391-0 This collection of essays is dedicated to professors emeriti Dick Richards and Judy Miles. Their courses in the history of philosophy, Existentialism, and various independent studies enabled me to germinate, cultivate, and harvest my love for Albert Camus's literature and philosophy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix

Preface ......................................................................................................... x

Contributor Bios ......................................................................................... xi

"J'ai compris que j'étais coupable" ("I understood that I was guilty"): A Hermeneutical Approach to Sexism, Racism, and Colonialism in Albert Camus' L'Étranger/The Stranger ................................................. 1

George Heffernan

Meursault: Mad Bad Messiah? .................................................................. 26

Simon Lea

Dualisms in Albert Camus's The Stranger ................................................. 47

Peter Francev

Rien, rien n'avait d'importance et je savais bien pourquoi" ("Nothing, nothing mattered, and I well knew why"): The World According to Meursault - or A Critical Attempt to Understand the Absurdist Philosophy of the Protagonist of Albert Camus's

The Stranger .............................................................................................. 57

George Heffernan

L'Etranger and the Messianic Myth, or Meursault Unmasked .................. 97

Ben O'Donohoe

''It Was There that It All Started": Meursault's Ascent in Albert Camus'

The Stranger .............................................................................................112

Ron Srigley

Of Dogs and Men: Empathy and Emotion in Camus' The Stranger ........ 145

Ingrid Fernandez

Meursault and the Indifference of Death: A Logotherapeutic

Perspective ............................................................................................... 158

Peter Francev

Table of Contents viii

Reading Camus in an Age of Absurdity: Toward a Constructive

Reading of The Stranger .......................................................................... 170

Brent Sleasman

A Stranger of Words ................................................................................ 185

Svenja Schrahe

Albert Camus' Poetics of Strangeness in Translation: A Comparative

Analysis of Text in Context ..................................................................... 193

Roosje Dejonghe

Meursault and Moral Freedom: The Stranger's Unique Challenge

to an Enlightenment Idea ......................................................................... 204

Matthew Bowker

Don Juanism and The Stranger ................................................................ 224

Jasmine Samra

Does Meursault Lie? ................................................................................ 235

Mary Gennuso

Camus's Literary Criminal and the Law: Loathing the Outsider ............. 259

Stephan Lancy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would sincerely like to thank everyone who contributed to this volume of critical essays. It has been a long-time in the making, and could not have come to fruition with the help of several people: the editorial and typesetting teams at CSP have been absolutely wonderful with their assistance in the project. They never grew tired of the countless questions that arose from a first-time book editor, and that was something that helped ease my anxiety. Also, each contributor must be thanked for his or her patience with me and my numerous inquiries as well as their input and involvement in both the book as well as their respective Albert Camus societies. Many of the scholars have presented at the annual Camus Society Conference, each autumn, in London, so there was a mutual and vested interest in the book. And finally, thanks must be given to my family for the long hours of editing and emails that divided my attention from my wife Jennifer and our children Katherine and Michael. My love and appreciation (even at times when I may not display it) goes beyond any spoken understanding and truly transcends the absurd.

PREFACE

These essays before you are written by some of the world's leading authorities on the works and philosophy of Albert Camus. As you can tell, they focus on Camus's first published novel, The Stranger, and make a significant contribution to Camus studies in the English-speaking world. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each of the contributors for their patience and willingness to see this book to fruition, knowing that their contributions would help make it a successful influence in academic circles. In addition to the contributors, several people deserve to be singled-out for their support during this process: Carol Koulikourdi at CSP, who had faith in the book to agree to its publication; my four anonymous reviews editors at the Journal of Camus Studies, whose understanding in a project of this magnitude helped when I needed someone to lean on. Helen and Simon Lea provided inexplicable amounts of morale support at times when I felt wavering in the endeavor; and a heartfelt thanks goes to my student assistant, Samantha Fairfield. Without Samantha's formatting expertise, the project would have been lost. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, my parents-in-law, my wife Jennifer, and my children Katherine and Michael who cannot fathom the amount of love and respect I hold for them, especially when there are tears at the airport.

CONTRIBUTORS

Matthew H. Bowker is Visiting Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Medaille College in Buffalo, NY. Educated at Columbia University (B.A., Political Science) and the University of Maryland, College Park (M.A., Ph.D., Political Science), he is the author of Rethinking the Politics of Absurdity: Albert Camus, Postmodernity, and the Survival of Innocence (Routledge), Albert Camus and the Political Philosophy of the Absurd: Ambivalence, Resistance, and Creativity (Lexington), and numerous scholarly articles, monographs, and chapters that combine political philosophy, literary theory, and psychoanalysis to examine the psychopolitical dynamics of modern and postmodern life. Ingrid Fernandez completed her PhD in the Program of Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University. Her interests include bio-politics and bio-ethics; photography and art history; representation of cadavers in literature, art, film and television; and forensic sciences. Peter Francev is a lecturer at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, California, where he teaches courses in English and Philosophy. Currently, he is a PhD candidate at the University of Leicester in Leicester, England where he is writing a thesis on Lord Byron and the question of hermeneutics and religion. He is President of the Albert Camus Society USA and, in his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his children

Katherine and Michael.

Mary J. Gennuso is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Social Science Department at New York City College of Technology. She is the author of a forthcoming book: John Hick's Philosophy of Religious Pluralism: A Critical Analysis and Defense. Other publications have appeared in International Studies in Philosophy, the Journal of the Albert Camus Society, and in Calipso (Conference Addresses of the Long island Philosophical Society). She has served as a CASIN delegate to the UN for meetings of the Assembly of State Parties and the Human Rights Committee, and is a peer reviewer for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law. Her research interests intersect the fields of philosophy, religion, literature, political theory, and women's issues. She

Contributors xii

holds a PHD from the Claremont Graduate University and another PHD from the CUNY Graduate School. In addition, she holds technical degrees, an MS from the University of Southern California and a BS from the Polytechnic Institute of New York. Dr. George Heffernan, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Merrimack College, N. Andover, MA, B.A., M.A., The Catholic University of

America (1975/1976)

Ph.D., University of Cologne (1981). State-Certified Translator and Interpreter for the German Language, Bonn (1983). Grosses Deutsches Sprachdiplom, Goethe Institute, Munich (1984). Concentrating on contemporary European philosophy, George Heffernan specializes in phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism, focusing on evidence, understanding, and meaning. He has presented numerous papers at scholarly conferences, including the World Congress of Philosophy, the International Husserl Circle, and the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. He has published (Phaenomenologica 107), as well as numerous monographs in journals, including Husserl Studies, The New Yearbook for Phenomenology, and Analecta Husserliana. He has received grants from the Basselin Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Presently Professor Heffernan is completing an edition of Augustine's Against the Academicians that addresses the perennial issues raised by Hellenistic skepticism, recast by Cartesian rationalism, and revised by contemporary epistemology. Stefan RM Lancy graduated in 2011 with a combined BA/LLB(Hons) degree from the University of Melbourne. He is commencing his degree in English Literature at Harris Manchester College, Oxford this year. His principle interests are in early twentieth century and comparative literature. Simon Lea has a BA and MPhil in Philosophy from University of Wales, Trinity Saint David. He is the founder of The Albert Camus Society and the President of the Albert Camus Society UK. Simon has worked as consultant advising theatre companies staging Camus plays and is currently working on series of projects staging Camus to coincide with the centenary of his birth in 2013.

Albert Camus's The Stranger: Critical Essays xiii

Benedict O'Donohoe read for a first degree in French and also took his doctorate at Magdalen College, Oxford. He has taught at Merchant Taylors, Charterhouse, and Bedford schools, and at colleges in Southampton (LSU/New College) and Bristol (University of the West of England). Since

2007, he has been Head of Modern Languages at the University of Sussex.

He has spoken and published widely on Sartre and Camus in the UK, the US, Canada, Japan, Ireland, France and Switzerland. In addition to thirty essays, he is the author of Sartre's Theatre: Acts for Life (Peter Lang

2005), editor of J.-P. Sartre, Les Jeux sont faits (Routledge 1990), and co-

editor of Sartre's Second Century (CSP 2009) and Jean-Paul Sartre: Mind and Body, Word and Deed (CSP 2011). He is currently editing a third volume of essays, Severally Seeking Sartre (CSP 2013). He is UK Reviews Editor of Sartre Studies International, and a former Secretary and

President of the UK Sartre Society.

Jasmine Samra is a cognitive science student and aspiring Camus scholar. She first briefly encountered the philosophy of the Absurd during high school, and then once again during a semester long course on the topic [during her undergraduate years]. Her interests in Camus include the place of women and of interpersonal relationships in his work. Svenja Schrahé is a writer and editor with a B.A. in Literature and Myth from the University of Essex. She previously worked as a ghostwriter and freelance journalist, with works published in other countries such as Denmark and Austria. Her passion for absurdist and existential literature gave birth to several articles and essays, which have been published in the Journal of the Albert Camus Society and on the Albert Camus Society's website. Svenja is currently living in Germany, pursuing a career in writing. Brent C. Sleasman is Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre, Communication and Fine Arts at Gannon University. He is the author of Albert Camus's Philosophy of Communication: Making Sense in an Age of Absurdity as well as a contributor to Critical Insights: Albert Camus and the Sage Encyclopedia of Identity. Other publications have appeared in Communication Annual (the journal of the Pennsylvania Communication Association) and the Journal of the Albert Camus Society. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Communication and Religion and holds a PhD in Rhetoric from Duquesne University, an MDiv from Winebrenner Theological Seminary, and a BA from the University of Findlay.

Contributors xiv

Ron Srigley is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies at The University of Prince Edward Island. He is the translator of Albert Camus, Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism and the author of Eric Voegelin's Platonic Theology and Albert Camus' Critique of Modernity. He is currently at work on a manuscript entitled "Albert

Camus' Sense of the Sacred."

"J'AI COMPRIS QUE J'ÉTAIS COUPABLE" ("I

UNDERSTOOD THAT I WAS GUILTY"):

A

HERMENEUTICAL APPROACH TO SEXISM,

RACISM, AND COLONIALISM IN ALBERT

CAMUS'S L'ÉTRANGER/THE STRANGER

G

EORGE HEFFERNAN

Abstract

Meursault, the protagonist in Albert Camus's The Stranger, denies that the established religion is true, affirms that the unexamined life is worth living, and asserts that life is absurd. Apparently unjustly condemned for murder, he seems to die a happy death after having lived a meaningless life, and, in doing so, to emerge as an existentialist hero worthy of respect. Yet Meursault also displays misogynistic attitudes toward women, perpetrates prejudicial acts against native people, and commits a callous crime against an indigenous person. Thus he appears to be guilty of sexism, racism, and colonialism. Hence there is a paradox here, since Meursault is an atheist, existentialist, and nihilist hero for some readers, but a sexist, racist, and colonialist villain for others. There is another problem here as well, since Camus with Meursault seems to suggest not only that atheism, existentialism, and nihilism are philosophically defensible, but also that sexism, racism, and colonialism are morally acceptable. I challenge this interpretation by proposing that there is a sustainable reading of The Stranger according to which, far from condoning Meursault's sexism, racism, and colonialism, Camus inspires the readers to rise to a level of understanding higher than that of Meursault, from which his bigotry can be critically regarded, judiciously examined, and forcefully rejected. Thus I suggest that there is a tenable explication of The Stranger according to which Camus is not endorsing but exposing Meursault's prejudices. Yet, in proposing that it is possible to understand Meursault better than he does himself and others, I am not speculating that understanding The Stranger depends on understanding Camus better than he did himself. I do concede, Sexism, Racism, and Colonialism in L'Étranger/The Stranger 2 however, that my reading represents an attempt to understand Meursault differently from how Camus did. I approach this task by focusing on the novel's defining hermeneutical moments of understanding and misunderstanding. Introduction: Precolonial and postcolonial understandings of Camus's The Stranger Broadly speaking, one may distinguish three distinct phases in the Wirkungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte of Albert Camus's The Stranger. 1 The first, from around 1942 to around 1960, was dominated by Sartre's seminal explication of the text (1943) and its rigorous philosophical focus on classic existentialist themes. 2

The second, from around 1960 to around

2000, has been inspired by the emerging field of postcolonial studies, for

example, by the work of Memmi (1957), 3 and driven by the postcolonial response to the Algerian War (1954-62) and other global developments on the part of the international intellectual community, as well as by the critical preoccupation with Camus's alleged colonialism on the part of postcolonial interpreters, for example, Nora (1961), 4

O'Brien (1970),

5 and

Said (1993).

6 The third, from around 2000 to the present, seems to be motivated by a genuine interest in arriving at a balanced judgment on the 1 The French text of L'Étranger may be found in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition of Camus's works, vol. I: Théâtre, Récits, Nouvelles, ed. Roger Quilliot (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1962), pp. 1127-1212. I refer to the text in parts (1 or

2), chapters (6 in 1 and 5 in 2), and paragraphs (from 1 to 27), which is a much

more precise way of citing and quoting it than by mere pages. Readers should note that the usual English translations may contain a few paragraph shifts vis-à- vis the French original. A good English translation of L'Étranger is: The Stranger, tr. Matthew Ward (New York: Vintage, 1989). It is worth noting that a new four-volume edition of the complete works of Camus has recently been published in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade: Oeuvres complètes, ed. Raymond Gay-Crosier (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2006-2008). 2 Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre, "Explication de L'Étranger" (1943), in: Situations I (Paris:

Éditions Gallimard, 1947), pp. 92-112.

3 Cf. Albert Memmi, Portrait du colonisé, précédé par portrait du colonisateur (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1957). 4 Cf. Pierre Nora, Les Français d'Algérie (Paris: René Julliard, 1961). 5 Cf. Conor Cruise O'Brien, Albert Camus: Of Europe and Africa (New York:

Viking Press, 1970).

6 Cf. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1993), the chapter entitled "Camus and the French Imperial Experience".

George Heffernan

3 literary legacy of Camus, and is exemplified in the works of Judt (1998) 7 and Walzer (2002). 8 This last phase, which has recently gained strong new impulses from the latest, most nuanced contribution to Camus studies, the crucial work of Carroll (2007), 9 would then be badly misunderstood if it were taken for merely a reactionary apologetic against the anti-colonialist stream of Camus research. For Carroll's effort, for example, is a sincere and serious attempt to resolve the conflicts generated by the previous phase. In an earlier study, I suggested that there is a tenable explication of The Stranger according to which Camus is not defending but cross-examining

Meursault's absurdist worldview.

10

The question of Camus's connection to

existentialism is, of course, vexed. 11

I think that I have shown, however,

that the philosophical strength of The Stranger is not that it exhorts the readers to embrace Meursault's celebration of the alleged absurdity of life, but rather that it challenges them to dig to a deeper level of reflection than that of which Meursault is capable. For hermeneutical investigations demonstrate that existentialism entails neither atheism nor nihilism. Bracketing author's intent, a hermeneutically cultivated reader gathers that 7 Cf. Tony Judt, The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). 8 Cf. Michael Walzer, The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 2002), the chapter entitled "Albert Camus' Algerian War". 9 Cf. David Carroll, Albert Camus the Algerian: Colonialism, Terrorism, Justice (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). 10 See my recent article "'Mais personne ne paraissait comprendre' ('But no one seemed to understand'): Atheism, Nihilism, and Hermeneutics in Albert Camus' L'Étranger/The Stranger", Analecta Husserliana, vol. 109 (2011), pp. 133-152. There is a certain inevitable amount of overlapping between some formulations in that article and others in this one. Yet all formulations have been revised and adapted to the present purposes. I therefore urge the readers to consult the earlier paper as well, which retains its unique position as my original hermeneutical investigation of Camus's The Stranger. In any case, the topical focus of the earlier paper was on atheism, nihilism, and existentialism in the novel, whereas the operative themes of the present paper are sexism, racism, and colonialism. 11 Although Camus is commonly thought of as an existentialist, he is critical of Kierkegaard and other existentialists, arguing, for example, that their notion of a "leap of faith" misses the point of the ineluctability of the absurd. Cf. the section on "Philosophical Suicide" in Le Mythe de Sisyphe. The French text may be found in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade edition of Camus's works, vol. 2: Essais, ed. Roger Quilliot and Louis Faucon (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1965), pp. 119-35. A good English translation of Le Mythe de Sisyphe may be found in The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, tr. Justin O'Brien (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1955). Sexism, Racism, and Colonialism in L'Étranger/The Stranger 4 Camus is reducing Meursault's absurdist worldview to the absurd and inviting the readers to explore what might come next. In the present paper, I propose once again to apply hermeneutics to Camus's The Stranger, this time to move beyond the binary postcolonial opposition between colonialist and anti-colonialist readings that threatens to obstruct a constructive interpretation of the novel. For, on the "Camus- as-colonialist" side, one has (1) Nora's psychological interpretation of the novel as a stark revelation of the repressed attitudes of the pieds noirs in general and of the petits colons in particular toward the indigenous people of Algeria, (2) O'Brien's employment of essentially the same evidence to indict Camus as a colonialist writer who supports the mythology of and rationale for colonialism, namely, the superiority of the colonizers over the colonized, and (3) Said's depiction of Camus's work as a resolute apology for French colonialism in Algeria. On the "Camus-as-anti-colonialist" side, one has (4) Judt's argument that Camus's political position did not constitute an apology for colonialism, (5) Walzer's judgment that Camus was a courageous dissenter who in an untimely fashion opposed both sides in the Algerian War, and (6) Carroll's plea for a restoration of the Algerian in Camus and thus for a rehabilitation of "Camus the Algerian". As simply posed as possible, the question is whether there is not an acceptable means between the one extreme of "Camus-as-colonialist" and the other extreme of "Camus-as-anti-colonialist". For reasons that will gradually become evident, my own philosophical and postcolonial sympathies lie mainly and mostly on the side of those readers who understand Camus not as a colonialist but as an anti- colonialist author. A self-imposed restriction on my study is that, for reasons of brevity, I concentrate almost exclusively on The Stranger. I also do so because, as I have shown in my earlier study, the hermeneutical distinction between understanding and lack of understanding is the key to understanding the novel. Another limitation is that, although I focus on sexism, racism, and colonialism in the novel, I put colonialism and racism in the foreground and set sexism in the background. This should not pose an insuperable methodological obstacle, since these three themes are distinct but inseparable in the work. Finally, my explication of the text of The Stranger is perhaps best understood as a commentary on Camus's telling observation in his posthumously published autobiographical novel

The First Man:

12 "What they did not like in him was the Algerian" ("Ce qu'ils n'aimaient pas en lui, c'était l'Algérien"). Bearing in mind that a character is never identical to the creator, that intent and effect can be two 12 Cf. Camus, Le premier homme (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1994), p. 318. Cf. also The First Man, tr. David Hapgood (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 317.

George Heffernan

5 different things, and that genuine understanding does not presuppose any retrieval of original intent, the question is: To what extent is it possible and plausible to read The Stranger as Camus's essay not in commending sexism, racism, and colonialism as "legitimate prejudices" (préjugés légitimes), but in condemning them as illegitimate prejudices (préjugés illégitimes), precisely by attributing them to the acutely unsympathetic figure of Meursault? Hermeneutics I: Understanding Meursault without any colonial consciousness The plot of The Stranger is plain: The mother of Meursault, an office clerk from Algiers, has died, and he attends her wake and funeral in what seems to some observers to be a state of emotional insensitivity and intellectual indifference. The next day, Meursault goes to the beach and bumps into Marie, a former coworker, with whom he begins what is for him nothing more than a casual affair. The next week, Meursault helps Raymond, a neighbor who is rumored to be a pimp, by writing a letter to entice Raymond's allegedly unfaithful mistress, an Arab, into a situation in which Raymond will abuse her. A few days later, Raymond beats the woman, the police detain him, and Meursault testifies for him. A few days after that, Marie asks Meursault to marry her, but he responds with what she perceives as insensitivity and indifference. The next weekend, when Meursault, Marie, and Raymond go to the beach to visit Masson and his wife, friends of Raymond, the abused woman's brother and another Arab man follow them, and Meursault eventually kills her brother, "the Arab", by shooting him five times. Arrested, Meursault encounters an examining magistrate who urges him to acknowledge Christ's sacrifice and to beg God's forgiveness for his crime, as well as a defense lawyer who is more interested in his attitudes at his mother's funeral than in his actions at his crime. In prison, Meursault regrets the loss of his sexual freedom and reflects inchoately on crime and punishment. At the trial, the prosecutorquotesdbs_dbs48.pdfusesText_48

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