As you read this, you’re dying. Life is a slow march towards the inevitable: meaning that you, me, Mr. Arcand’s son, and everyone else are gradually proceeding towards the grave. It’s a truth we simultaneously know and ignore--that is, unless you’re Albert Camus or Philip Larkin, two writers who embrace death in their fictional works. Camus’s The Stranger and Larkin’s “Aubade” both find meaning from life in the face of death.
When confronted with death, both authors present characters with resilience and courage. In The Stranger, this resilience is seen when Meursault's mother dies. Unlike traditional reactions to death, Meursault refuses to fall into grief or despair. Instead, he takes a progressive approach to the news: he continues his routine as usual, stating that “really, nothing had changed” after his mother’s funeral. This dedication to progress speaks to the weakness of death in Meursault’s life--even though he calls death “a dark wind… rising toward me” it does little to prevent Meursault from moving forward in his endeavors. Likewise, “Aubade” features the thoughts of a man realizing that his demise is imminent. However, it ends with the narrator staring out the window, thoughts dismissed in favor of the calmness surrounding him: “All the uncaring / Intricate rented world begins to rouse. / The sky is white as clay, with no sun.” This calmness attests to the power of life over its inevitable end; although both characters realize death, they realize life more.
In addition to their resilience towards death, both texts feature an acceptance towards it. Although Meursault first views his fate as hopeless, he later accepts the absurdism of the universe as liberating: “In that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again.” In other words, nothing in the universe cares about us, and that’s okay. We’re all united in our unimportance, and although that might seem depressing, Meursault sees our meaninglessness as a source of meaning. The fact that death exists--that everything we do is going to be forgotten, without any indication that it was ever there--means that we can do anything. Think about it. If we’re all trapped in this “general indifference” of life, then the consequences to our actions don’t matter. Want to scream during English class? Here’s a secret: nothing matters and no one cares. Meursault’s realization means that we have an essentially infinite capacity for free will that we haven’t been using.
Although the narrator of “Aubade” doesn’t feel the same liberation, he finds a similar acceptance with death. Though he finds the idea terrifying, the narrator hesitantly admits that there is “nothing more true” than our impending nonexistence. If there’s one comfort to death, the narrator discovers, it’s that it doesn’t lie. It can’t. Death is the one quality that we’re all going to face--regardless of status, regardless of privilege, regardless of the life we’ve lived.
The fact that The Stranger and “Aubade” exist also speaks to the meaning within meaninglessness. Although both texts describe the futility of the universe, the texts have meaning because they are. They exist, which means that people will always find significance in them--regardless of if the author meant for that significance to be there. And that’s something Camus and Larkin knew far before they started writing. When you put something on paper, people will find meaning in it. That’s why English essays are so common: it’s easy--even obligatory--for humans to find value in the stories around us.
If Camus and Larkin truly wanted to express meaninglessness, they could’ve just as easily written nothing. As “Aubade” states, silence is its own type of nonexistence: “That [death] is what we fear—no sight, no sound, / No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with.” The fact that Camus and Larkin chose to write--to spread thoughts, by their own definition, that will mean nothing--speaks to their texts not as sources of nihilism, but of existentialism. We’re going to die, both of them seem to say, so let’s find meaning in the present moment rather than what comes after.
Death exists. The universe is indifferent. Both The Stranger and “Aubade” will eventually be forgotten, their authors will fade into obscurity, and the students who studied them will all die. But that doesn’t mean they’re meaningless. Instead, through their expressions of futility, their cries of death, their snapshots of a universe that doesn’t care about anyone, The Stranger and “Aubade” reveal the purpose of existence: to be resilient, find meaning, and face the end on our own terms.
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