Foolish, Unreasonable Existence

“The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Is existence absurd? Albert Camus’ novel, “The Stranger”, delivers an interesting approach to this and many other existentialist verdicts through the life and upcoming death of his character, Monsieur Meursault. Notwithstanding the fact that reading a phrase like “Existence is essentially absurd” may cause readers to giggle, reflect, or cry in despair, we can all agree that there is a reason for the statement. We all live, we all die; what is the point of being in a world where you will soon be forgotten and where your 70-year lifespan will have no effect on the infinite prevalence of the universe?

Several incidents throughout “The Stranger” attempt to touch on this existentialist conviction. The very beginning of the book, describing, or rather simply stating, Maman’s death is the base to realizing there is no difference whatsoever in her dying yesterday, today, or tomorrow. Camus expresses this sort of indifference towards existence by opening his novel with the ever-controversial declaration, “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know” (Page 3). He again strengthens this point in page 24, where Meursault is pictured wondering to himself, “It occurred to me that another Sunday was over… Maman was buried now, I had to go back to work tomorrow, and that really, nothing had changed.” Nothing had changed except that his mother had died, which many might consider the most painful day in the life of a reasonable human being. However, what Camus is trying to say is that life goes on, another Sunday goes by, some work is to be done the next day, and so on. The world did not stop because Maman died, so why dwell helplessly over it?

In order to move on, I must include what the definition of absurd is according to the Oxford dictionary: “Absurd – unreasonable, illogical, inappropriate, foolish.” But why may men believe their existence is illogical or foolish? Camus once again approaches this ideology when Meursault decides to kill an Arab man for no apparent reason. Apparently,  the sun was hitting him too hard. What Camus is trying to deliver through this is how one’s life is meaningless; one moment you are in the sand, the next a random French existentialist decides to shoot you four times. Existence is illogical; we are all doomed at the end and, additionally, we have to live with the fear and incapability of doing anything to prevent it. I believe existentialists hold on to this philosophy as a way to let go of their human instinct against the inevitability of death. They claim existence is absurd, so why give any importance to it?

Nevertheless, Camus makes an interesting and rather differing point on this ideal at the end of his novel, when Meursault is condemned to being beheaded. Camus offers the reader a powerful image of the ever-existentialist adult who now faces a scheduled death and finds himself unable to ignore it. Camus’ message goes from being extremely existentialist to showing that men will still be men, and that as absurd as existence may be (demonstrated by the implied fact that Meursault still dies), men are naturally incapable of accepting this. What men should do though, is reach a personal point at which they feel satisfied with what they have done in life and open up to the fact that life does have an end. That is what Meursault ends up concluding while holding to a minute hope of being saved; that same hope we all have and which convinces us we are immortal.