Absurdity in Albert Camus’ The Stranger Essay -- The Outsider Essays

The word "absurd" or "absurdity" is very peculiar in that there is no clear definition for the term. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary gave its definition of "absurd" as "having no rational or orderly relationship to human life: meaningless, also: lacking order or value." Many existential philosophers have defined it in their own manner. Soren Kierkegarrd, a pre-World War II German philosopher, defined absurd as "that quality of Christian faith which runs counter to all reasonable human expectation" (Woelfel 40). Jean-Paul Sartre a post-WW II French philosopher, felt that absurd was "the sheer contingency or ‘thereness’ or gratuitousness of the world" (Woelfel 41). Both of these definitions are hard to interpret and for the most part are not how Camus viewed the word absurd. Camus gives his interpretation of absurd in his book The Myth of Sisyphus, which is the point at which man realizes that all the struggles that we put forth in a repeated daily cycle are in all actuality completely meaningless (Woelfel 44). In James W. Woelfel’s book, Camus: A Theological Perspective, he gives us Camus point of absurdity in detail, I have said that the world is not absurd. Neither is man the strange animal absurd. What is then? The absurd, Camus says, is precisely the relationship between man, who demands ultimate rationality, and his irrational world: the "confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world" (Camus, Myth 21). †¦ man experiences himself as other than his natural environment and as wanting more than it can yield†¦nature has produced a being with needs it cannot fulfill. The juxtaposition of the human need for ultimate meaning with the ultimate lack of meaning yielded by the universe is the a... ...tranger.’† Storybites.com. Storybites, 2011. Web. 26 August 2015. "Absurd."   Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary.   http://www.merriam-webster.com/ Web. 26 August 2015. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/absurd Braun, Lev.   Albert Camus:   Moralist of the Absurd.   Cranbury: Associated UP, 1974. Camus, Albert.   The Myth of Sisyphus.   Trans. Justin O'Brien.   New York: Vintage, 1955. ---.   The Stranger.   Trans. Matthew Ward.   New York: Vintage, 1988. Ellison, David R.   Understanding Albert Camus.   Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1990. Masters, Brian.   Camus: A Study.   London: Heinemann, 1974. McCarthy, Patrick.   Camus: The Stranger.   Cambridge UP, 1988. Todd, Oliver.   Albert Camus: A Life.   Trans. Benjamin Ivry.   New York: Knopf, 1997. Woelfel, James W.   Camus: A Theological Perspective.   New York: Abingdon, 1975.