Tuesday, August 28, 2012

no future...no past..just present


Even though Camus refused to be called an existentialist, his book portrayed other wise. Since the first sentence of the book, remarks of this philosophy are present:
            “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don´t know. I got a telegram from the home: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.” That doesn´t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.” Pg1
The death of some one, more importantly a mother, is a very shocking experience for most human beings. After reading the sentence, we can infer that the meaning of the death of the mother was just that. A woman stopped existing and so did the importance of her. This has no relevance or importance in the present because it is something that happened in the past. It has no importance in the future because only the present matter. Existentialists live in the now, the past is in the past, and the future, when it becomes present, it will be important.  Another example of the book that backs up this philosophy is the following:
            “As I was waking up, it came to me why my boss had seemed annoyed when I asked him for two days off: today is Saturday.” Pg 19
Monsieur Meursault asked for two days off because his present situation demanded it. He did not know that it would to a 4 day weekend because even if he knew that in two days it would be Saturday, since it was in the future, it did not have any relevance to what was happening.

All through out the book, there are descriptions of what is happening. The past is rarely spoken of, and the future is rarely mentioned. The present is the only thing that matter, end of story. 

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