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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