Two Truths and a Lie: Albert Camus

 Albert Camus began his writing career as a journalist, and moved on to writing essays, novels, and plays. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, and is know for his philosophical ideas as well as his writing. Throughout the years, Camus has been given many labels, but not all of them are evident in his writing. His novel, The Stranger, tells the story of an insouciant man who shows no emotions and has no cares. His name is Mersault. He loses his mother, shoots a man five times, and is sentenced to death, but his mindset never changes. He remains a carefree absurdist and adherent nihilist. Camus reveals his own philosophical ideas of absurdism and nihilism, and reproaches existentialism through Mersault.

Between his lack of response to his mother’s death, and his insouciant attitude towards life and his relationship, Mersault’s character reveals Camus’s absurdist views. After returning from his mother’s funeral, at which he sat like an emotionless statue, and resuming his boring daily routine, Mersault remarked “Really, nothing in my life had changed” (Camus 22). Life is chaotic, and death is inevitable. Maman’s death does not change anything in Mersault’s life because her life was purposeless in his mind. Just like his life is purposeless, and the universe is purposeless. A short time after Maman’s death, Marie, Mersault’s girlfriend, asks him to marry her. Mersault consents , and when Marie questions his answer, he answers thusly:  “I explained that it had no importance really, but, if it would give her pleasure, we could get married right away” (Camus 55). Like his mother’s death, marriage holds no significance in Mersault’s mind. Mersault views his agreement to marry Marie without loving her as a simple solution that will please his girlfriend, not as a decision that will have any impact on his life. Perhaps he thinks that a happy wife means a happy life or perhaps he just doesn’t give a damn about what happens to him because life is absurd. This “I don’t give a damn” attitude is what Camus uses to acknowledge his absurdist views.

           Mersault’s out of character outburst towards the Chaplain’s suggestions of religious salvation explains another philosophical idea of Camus’s-- Nihilism. As the chaplain tries to convince Mersault of a need for religion in a time of execution, Mersault shows emotion for the first time. He describes his passionate outburst as so: “Then, I don’t know how it was, but something seemed to break inside me, and I started yelling at the top of my voice. I hurled insults at him, I told him not to waste his rotten prayers on me; it was better to burn than to disappear” (Camus 103). Mersault is insulted by the chaplain’s persistent demands of conversion because he believes in the meaninglessness of life and rejects all religious principals. As his rant continues, Mersault explains: “Nothing, nothing had the least importance and I knew quite well why. He, too, knew why. From the dark horizon of my future a sort of slow, persistent breeze had been blowing toward me, all my life, from the years that were to come” (Camus 104). As well as denouncing the idea of a God and purpose in life, Mersault concludes that his fate was sealed long before his mother died, or he shot the Arab. His belief in his predetermined path makes him the opposite of an existentialist. Camus’s anti-existentialist views are made clear in Mersault’s final moments.       

           Of course, Camus is not the only absurdist, nihilist author in the world. The poet James Tate also explores the concepts of absurdism and nihilism through the beliefs and actions of a character. In one of Tate’s poems, “The Cowboy,” the narrator comes in contact with an extraterrestrial with extreme absurdist qualities. The extraterrestrial arrives, a bond is formed, plans are made, and suddenly he says, “I Just received word. I’m going to die tonight. It’s really a joyous occasion, and I hope you’ll help me celebrate by watching The Magnificent Seven” (Tate). One minute he is set on seeing a cowboy, and the next minute he is content with dying without seeing one. He’s content with giving up the thing that would make him the happiest and  delighted to die. His acceptance of his death, determined by an unknown source, is a true example of the acceptance of absurdism. In another of Tate’s poems a vagabond, a symbol of nihilism, attacks a minister, a symbol of religion. As the vagabond attacks him, “The minister reels under the weight of his thumbs, the vagabond seems to have jutted into his kernel, disturbed his terminal core. Slowly, and with trifling dignity, the minister removes from his lapel his last campaign button: Don’t Mess with Raymond, New Hampshire” (Tate). The vagabond’s creation of chaos and assault of a religious leader displays Tate’s nihilistic views as the extraterrestrial displays his absurdist views. 

Absurdism, nihilism and existentialism are not solely ideas of Camus or Tate, or even writers and poets as a whole. These ideas are found in countless songs, movies, TV shows, and in the minds of many. Seinfeld, Office Space, and Catch-22 are three examples of Absurdism in TV, movies, and in literature. Absurdist and nihilist and existentialist perspectives are found in people everywhere and are manifested in all forms of art. As far as I'm concerned Camus is not an existentialist but is both an absurdist and nihilist; and his work is like a complex and meaningful game of two truths and a lie.