By: Yusra Hashmi, Britney Laber, Shelby Nelson, Kirsten Ronning, and Julie Thamby

Transcription

1 Albert Camus: Bio, Sartre, and the Death Penalty By: Yusra Hashmi, Britney Laber, Shelby Nelson, Kirsten Ronning, and Julie Thamby

2 Childhood Born on November 7, 1913, in Mondavi, French Algeria Setting in novel, The Home For Aged Persons is at Marengo, some fifty miles from Algiers (1). His family had little money Mother was partially deaf Lived in a low-income section of Algiers Attended the University of Algiers: studied philosophy and played soccer He quit because of tuberculosis in 1930 Obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees in philosophy in 1936

3 Political Engagement Camus became political during his student years Joined the Communist Party and then the Algerian People s Party Champion of individual rights: opposed French colonization and argued for the empowerment of Algerians in politics and labor Later associated with the French Anarchist Movement At the beginning of WWII, Camus joined the French Resistance in order to help liberate Paris from the Nazi occupation Met Jean-Paul Sartre during his period of military service 1945: one of the few Allied journalists to condemn the American use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima Outspoken critic of Communist Theory: leading to a rift with Sartre

4 Relationship with Sartre Sartre: bourgeois Camus: raised by illiterate mother in Algeria First met at the beginning of Sartre s play The Flies--Camus had been marooned in France due to war (Allied conquest of French N. Africa, Germans invaded France) Involvement in plays/theater Already knew each other before they met In Algeria--Camus wrote reviews of Sartre s work in newspaper column aspects of Sartre s work he liked Sartre wrote 6,000 word essay on The Stranger/The Myth of Sisyphus Camus negative response

5 Relationship with Sartre Views on nature and human reality: Sartre more negative, Camus more positive Camus: focused on physical elements Sartre: physical elements are not important/necessary Nausea vs. The Stranger Sartre was more a philosopher, while Camus was more a novelist Communism, Camus 1952 The Rebel Sartre approved war violence, Camus did not

6 Literary Career Camus work: dominated by absurdism Rejected label of existentialism: surprised that he d be viewed as an ally of Sartre The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) elucidates his theory of the absurd most directly. The protagonists of The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947) must also confront the absurdity of social and cultural orthodoxies, with dire results

7 Literary Career No, I am not an existentialist.sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked...sartre and I published our books without exception before we had ever met. When we did get to know each other, it was to realize how much we differed. Sartre is an existentialist, and the only book of ideas that I have published, The Myth of Sisyphus, was directed against the so-called existentialist philosophers (From an interview with Jeanine Delpech, in Les Nouvelles Littéraires, (1945)) This word Absurd has had an unhappy history and I confess that now it rather annoys me. When I analyzed the feeling of the Absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus, I was looking for a method and not a doctrine. I was practicing methodical doubt...if we assume that nothing has any meaning, then we must conclude that the world is absurd. But does nothing have any meaning? I have never believed we could remain at this point (From an interview with Gabriel d Aubarède, in Les Nouvelles Littéraires, (1951))

8 Personal Life Camus married and divorced twice Disapproved the institution of marriage Feels the notion is meaningless From the day when I got her letter telling me they wouldn t let her come see me any more, because she wasn t my wife--it was from that day that I realized that this cell was my last home, a dead end, so to speak (Part 2, Chapter 2). Marriage/committing oneself to love is too abstract and encompassing to ponder--the unity has no meaning

9 Views on Death Penalty Began: father s story about his nausea at witnessing a public execution Meursault s long confinement during his trial and his eventual execution: elaborate and ceremonial, involving both public and religious authorities Rational process of legalized murder contrasts with sudden, irrational, almost accidental nature of his crime And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again... for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe... I d been happy, and that I was happy still... all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators (Part 2, Chapter 5).

10 Views on Death Penalty Opposition is humanitarian Like Victor Hugo: views death penalty as an egregious barbarism Vengeance with law a civility to make it acceptable An act of vengeance aimed primarily at the poor and oppressed It is given religious sanction=even more hideous and indefensible Essay: Reflections on the Guillotine Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal s deed, however calculate, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date on which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not to be encountered in private life. To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

11 Nobel Prize and Death Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 He died on January 4, 1960, in Burgundy, France

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13 Game Rules Read the question on the board All players write down their answer on their own piece of paper. One player will be randomly chosen. They can then do one of two things: If they feel confident that they know the answer, they tell everyone their answer. The correct answer will then be revealed If they are unsure of the answer, they may choose to peek or copy another player s answer. By doing this, they give up their ability of obtaining candy Peek: choose the player with the answer you want to peek at. If they have the same answer, that answer will be submitted. If they have different answers, the player may make the choice between which answers to submit Copy: choose the player with the answer you want to peek at. Whatever answer that the chosen player has decided on will be submitted If the player s answer is correct, they get a piece of candy. If the player s answer is

14 Question 1 Why did Albert Camus quit the University of Algiers?

15 Question 2 When did Camus meet Sartre in person and what were they doing?

16 Question 3 What are three major differences between Camus and Sartre s personal beliefs and literary styles?

17 Socratic Question 1 How is Camus personal life and his personal opinions apparent in The Stranger? Provide evidence.

18 Socratic Question 2 Based on The Stranger, do you believe that Camus viewpoints mirror those of an existentialist? Provide evidence.