Characteristics of the characters based on the work of Albert Camus “The Outsider”.
THE CONCEPT OF ALIENATION OF THE PERSON AND SOCIETY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALBERT CAMUS
(using the example of the story “The Outsider”)
Scientific essay by 3rd year student of the Faculty of Foreign Philology, group 341 Moldovan Elena
Kherson State Pedagogical University
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF UKRAINE
Kherson -1998
INTRODUCTION
Albert Camus is one of the moralists in modern French literature of the twentieth century
1.0. For a long time, the culture of France was generous with “moralists,” that is, edifiers, moral teachers, and preachers of virtue. First of all, these are masters of the pen and thinkers who discuss mysteries in their books human nature with witty directness, like Montaigne in the 16th century, Pascal and La Rochefoucauld in the 17th century, Walter, Diderot, Rousseau in the 18th century. France of the 20th century put forward another constellation of such moralists: Saint-Exupéry, Malraux, Satre... Albert Camus should rightfully be named among the first among these big names. In his work, he examined the concept of alienation of the individual and society. He is the herald of many disparate little chips, which, in a world split into camps, are frantically searching for their own middle path. In his works, he adhered to the conclusions of the “philosophy of existence”, existentialism. To understand life means, according to Camus, to discern the face of Fate itself behind its changing, unreliable faces and interpret it in the light of the final evidence of our earthly destiny. All Camus's books purport to be tragedies metaphysical insight: in them the mind strives to break through the thickness of the transient, through the everyday-historical layer to the rectangular existential truth of the existence of the individual on earth.
1.1. One of these books includes Camus’s work “The Stranger,” about which thousands of pages have already been written. It aroused keen interest both in France and far beyond its borders. But even today, more than forty years after its publication, the book continues to be read, it remains a bestseller in France. “The Outsider” has become firmly established in lyceum and university courses, where it is interpreted as a “major date” in history French literature. This book by Camus is called " best novel generation of Camus", and "one of the great philosophical myths in the art of this century" and even one of the most exciting, convincing and the best way constructed novels in world literature.
1.2. The literature about the “Stranger” is so diverse that familiarization with it gives a fairly complete picture of the possibilities various directions in the methodology of modern Western literary criticism. The story has been subject to different kinds of reading - metaphysical, existentialistic, biographical, political and sociological. Representatives of many fields of knowledge addressed her.
CHAPTER I. General provisions
2.1. Creative history“The Outsider” can be traced quite easily through Camus’s Notebooks. He notes that main character the story is a person who does not want to make excuses. He prefers the idea that people have of him. He dies, content with his own consciousness of being right. It is noteworthy that already in this first entry the word “truth” sounds like a key word, in June 1937. a sketch of a topic appeared about a man sentenced to death. The prisoner is paralyzed with fear, but does not seek any consolation. He dies with his eyes full of tears. In July 1937 a record appears again about a man who defends a certain faith all his life. His mother dies. He gives up everything. In August 1937 an entry appears in his diaries: “a man who was looking for his life where it usually goes (marriage, position in society). One day he realized how alien he was to own life. He is characterized by a refusal to compromise and a belief in the truth of nature.” (4, 135)
2.2. According to Camus's notes, the hero is the keeper of the truth, but which one? After all, this man is strange, as the title of the novel, “The Outsider,” somehow hinted at.
When The Outsider was published, a whole generation eagerly read this book - a generation whose life was not based on traditional foundations, was closed, devoid of a future, just like the life of The Outsider. The youth made Meursault their hero.
2.3. As Camus wrote, the main problem was absurdity. The main thing that determines Meursault’s behavior, the writer believed, is the refusal to lie.
Meursault's psychology, his behavior, his truth are the result of Camus's long reflections on the aesthetics of the absurd, which in its own way reflected his own life observations.
2.3.1. “The Outsider” is a complex work, its hero “eludes” from an unambiguous interpretation; the greatest difficulty in the story lies in its two-dimensionality. The story is divided into two equal, overlapping parts.
The second is a mirror of the first, but the mirror is crooked. Once experienced during a trial, the “copy” distorts the nature beyond recognition. On the one hand, Camus strives to show the collision " ordinary person“face to face with fate, from which there is no protection - and this is the metaphysical plane of the novel. On the other hand, with his negativism, Meursault trusts generally accepted values in order to condemn external lies with his inner truth.
2.3.2. The genre of the novel is close to a moralistic novel, therefore the author’s philosophical and aesthetic system is inseparable from his personality. The completeness of The Stranger is given by its philosophical overtones. In The Stranger, Camus strives to give history the universal character of a myth, where life is initially marked by the stamp of the absurd. The reality here is rather a metaphor necessary to reveal the image of Meursault.
2.3.3. The life of a young hero on the city outskirts of Alsher flows mechanically and measuredly. The service of a petty clerk in an office, empty and monotonous, is interrupted by the joy of Meursault’s return to the beaches “drenched in the sun, to the colors of the evening southern sky.” Life here, under the pen of Camus, appears with its “wrong side” and its “face”. The very name of the hero contains for the author the opposite of the essence: “death” and “sun”. The tragedy of the human lot, woven from joy and pain, and here, with the inaccessibility of the law, covers all circles of the hero’s life.” (1, 140)
Meursault does not demand much from life and in his own way he is happy. It should be noted that among the possible titles of the novel, Camus noted in his drafts " Happy man», « Ordinary person", "Indifferent". Meursault is a modest, compliant and benevolent, albeit without much cordiality, person. Nothing distinguishes him from among the inhabitants of the poor suburbs of Algeria, except for one oddity - he is surprisingly simple-minded and indifferent to everything that is usually of interest to people.
2.3.4. The life of an Algerian is reduced by Camus to the level of immediate sensory sensations.
He sees no reason to change his life when the owner of the office invites him to think about a career where he found interesting job. Meursault has already been to Paris, he does not have the slightest ambition or hopes. After all, he believes that life cannot be changed; this or that life is ultimately equivalent.
But, once at the beginning of his life, Meursault studied, was a student and, like everyone else, made plans for the future. But he had to give up his studies, and then he very soon realized that all his dreams essentially had no meaning. Meursault turned away from what had previously seemed full of meaning. He plunged into the abyss of indifference.
2.3.5. Probably, it is here that we must look for the reason for Meursault’s astonishing insensibility, the secret of his strangeness. But Camus remains silent about this until last pages, until that key scene in the novel when, enraged by the harassment of the priest, Meursault feverishly shouts the words of his faith in the face of the church minister: “I was right, I am still right, I am always right. I lived like this, but I lived differently. I did this and didn't do that. So what? I lived gloriously in anticipation of that moment of pale dawn when my truth would be revealed. From the abyss of my future, throughout my absurd torment, a breath of darkness rose in me through the years that had not yet come, it leveled everything in its path, everything that was accessible to my life - such an unreal, such a ghostly life. (2, 356). The curtain has been lifted on Meursault's mystery: death is an irresistible and meaningless fact that lies at the core of truth.
2.3.6. The secret of the hero’s “individual” lies in the conclusions he left, realizing the finitude and absurdity of life. He wants to simply be, live and feel today, here on earth, to live in the “eternal present.” However, everything else that connects a person with others - morality, ideas, creativity - is devalued and meaningless for Meursault. Salvation for the hero may be to extinguish consciousness, not to be aware of himself, to break the formal connection with others. Meursault chooses detachment, separates from society, becomes a “stranger.” His mind seems to be shrouded in a slight fog, and even when reading the initial chapters of the novel, one gets the impression that the hero is in a state of half-asleep.
Although, the word “absurd” appears in the novel only once at the end last chapter, already the first pages of “The Outsider” introduce the reader into an atmosphere of absurdity that does not cease to thicken until the last scene.
2.4. The story is told in the first person, and at the same time it is paradoxically indifferent. The conversational mediocrity and naked directness of this defiantly poor vocabulary, emphatically monotonous in structure, seemingly artless stringing together of the simplest phrases is aptly designated by one of the interpreters of “The Outsider” as “zero degree of writing.” The narratives here are divided into countless sentences, syntactically extremely simplified, barely correlated with each other, closed in on themselves and self-sufficient - a kind of linguistic “islands”. (Sartre) (1, 390)
2.5. “The Stranger” Camus serves as an example for everyone who is inclined to judge a work, a writer based on the narrative, the style, the form; if it is complicated, “broken,” then it is a modernist, and if it is simple, if it has a certain integrity, then it is a realist. Moreover, if everything is written so simply in such transparent language.
What is the main idea of the story? Serenely indifferent, inert Meursault - a man who was not brought out of his sleepy balance even by the murder he committed, one day he nevertheless fell into a frenzy. This happened exactly in key scene novel, when the prison priest tried to return the hero to the bosom of the church, to introduce him to the belief that everything turns according to the will of God. And Meursault pushed the priest out the door of his cell. But why was it the priest who caused this paroxysm of rage in him, and not the cruel one who drove him into a dead end to follow, not the bored judge who sentenced him to death, not the unceremonious public staring at him like a lonely animal? Yes, because they all only affirmed Meursault in his idea of the essence of life, and only the priest, who called for trust in divine mercy, to trust in divine providence, unfolded before them a picture of harmonious, logical, predetermined existence. And this picture threatened to shake the idea of the world - the kingdom of the absurd, the world - primordial chaos.
The view of life as something meaningless is a modernist view. Therefore, “The Stranger” is a classic work for modernism.
CHAPTER II . Direct analysis of the work
3.1. It is noteworthy that there is almost no development of action in the novel. The life of Meursault - a modest inhabitant from a dusty suburb of Algeria - does not stand out much from hundreds of others like her, since it is an everyday life, nondescript, and boring. And the shot was an impetus in this half-asleep vegetation, it was a kind of flash that transported Meursault to another plane, space, to another dimension, destroying his meaningless plant existence.
3.2. It should be noted main feature Meursault is a complete absence of hypocrisy, a reluctance to lie and pretend, even if this goes against his own benefit. This trait manifests itself primarily when he receives a telegram about the death of his mother in the almshouse. The formal text of the telegram from the orphanage puzzles him; he does not quite understand and accept that his mother has died. For Meursault, his mother died much earlier, namely: when he placed her in an almshouse, leaving the care of her to the employees of the institution. Therefore, the sad event and the detachment and indifference with which it is perceived by the main character enhances the sense of absurdity.
3.3. In the nursing home, Meursault again does not understand the need to follow the established principle and create at least the appearance, the illusion of compassion. Meursault vaguely feels that he is being condemned for placing his mother in an almshouse. He tried to justify himself in the eyes of the director, but he beat him to it: “You couldn’t take her as a dependent. She needed a nurse, and you receive a modest salary. And in the end she lived better here.” (1, 142). However, in a shelter for the elderly, they do not act in accordance with the desires, requests, habits of the elderly - only with the old routine and rules. A step aside was unacceptable; exceptions were made only in rare cases, and even then with preliminary excuses. As happened in the case of Perez, when he was allowed to participate in the funeral procession, since in the shelter he was considered the groom of the deceased.
For Meursault, the voices of old people entering the shelter morgue sound like “the muffled chatter of parrots,” the nurses have “a white gauze bandage” instead of a face, and on the elderly faces instead of eyes, among a thick network of wrinkles, there is “only a dim light.” Perez faints like a “broken finger.” The participants in the funeral procession look like mechanical dolls, rapidly replacing each other in an absurd game.
The mechanical coexists in “The Stranger” with the comic, which further emphasizes the hero’s alienation from his surroundings: the leader of the procession is “ small man in a white robe,” Perez is “an old man with an actor’s appearance,” Perez’s nose is “dotted with black dots,” he has “huge flabby and protruding ears, and also purple in color.” Perez scurries around, cutting corners to keep up with the coffin attendants. His tragicomic appearance contrasts with the dignified appearance of the director of the orphanage, who is equally ridiculous in his inhuman “officiality.” He doesn’t make a single unnecessary gesture, he doesn’t even wipe the sweat from his forehead and face.” (4, 172)
3.4. But Meursault is not involved, detached from the action taking place before his eyes, the funeral rite. This ritualism is alien to him, he simply fulfills his duty, showing with all his appearance that he is doing exactly this, without even trying to hide his detached, indifferent look. But Meursault’s detachment is selective. If the hero’s consciousness does not perceive social rituals, then it is very alive in relation to the natural world. The hero perceives his surroundings through the eyes of the poet, he subtly feels the colors, smells of nature, and hears subtle sounds. With a play of light, a picture of a landscape, a separate detail of the material world, Camus conveys the state of the hero. Here Meursault is a selfless admirer of the elements - earth, sea, sun. The landscape also mysteriously connects the son with the mother. Meursault understands his mother's attachment to the places where she loved to walk. (2, 356)
It is thanks to nature that the connection between people - the inhabitants of the shelter - is renewed, which is incomprehensibly broken in everyday life.
3.5. In the second part of the story, there is a rearrangement of the hero’s vital forces and the transformation of his ordinary, everyday life into the life of a villain and criminal. He is called a moral monster because he neglected his filial duty and sent his mother to an almshouse. The evening of the next day spent with a woman, at the cinema, in the courtroom is interpreted as sacrilege; the fact that he was on friendly terms with a neighbor who did not have a very clean past indicates that Meursault was involved in a criminal underworld. In the courtroom, defendants can escape the feeling that they are trying someone else who vaguely resembles a familiar face, but not himself. And Meursault is sent to the scaffold, in essence, not for the murder he committed, but for the fact that he neglected the hypocrisy from which “duty” is woven. (4, 360)
3.5.1. It seems that Meursault’s trial is not for a physical crime - the murder of an Arab, but for a moral crime over which the earthly court, the human court, has no power. In this, a person is his own judge; only Meursault himself should have felt a measure of responsibility for what he did. And the question of whether Meursault loved his mother should not have been openly discussed, debated in the courtroom, much less the most compelling argument for imposing a death sentence. But for Meursault there is no abstract feeling of love; he is extremely “grounded” and lives by the feeling of the present, fleeting time. The dominant influence on Meursault’s nature is his physical needs, it is they that determine his feelings.
Consequently, the word “love” for the “Stranger” has no meaning, since it belongs to the vocabulary of formal ethics; he knows about love only that it is a mixture of desire, tenderness and understanding, connecting it with someone.” (4, 180)
3.5.2. The only thing that is not alien to the “outsider” is the taste for bodily “vegetative” joys, needs, and desires. He is indifferent to almost everything that goes beyond the healthy need for sleep, food, intimacy with a woman. This is confirmed by the fact that the day after the funeral he went to swim in the port and met the typist Marie there. And they calmly swim and have fun and, in particular, Meursault does not experience any remorse that should naturally arise in him regarding the death of his mother. His indifferent attitude towards this turning point in the life of every person constitutes a gradually increasing sense of the absurdity of a seemingly real work.
3.5.3. So, thoughtlessly, without knowing the goal, the detached Meursault wanders through life, looking at it like a man of the absurd.
In Meursault’s crime, the decisive factors were the forces of nature, which Meursault so worshiped. This “unbearable” scorching sun, which made the landscape inhuman and oppressive. A symbol of peace and tranquility - the sky becomes hostile to man, representing an accomplice, an accomplice in crime.
The landscape here, that is, in the arena of crime, is a hot plain, and a closed space where Meursault is at the mercy of the cruel rays of the sun and from where there is no way out, so the main character feels trapped, trying to break through this veil and hopelessness. The hostile elements incinerate Meursault’s body and spirit, create an atmosphere of fatal violence, and drag the victim into its abyss, from where there is no way back. In an allegorical sense, the sun becomes Meursault’s executioner, raping his will. Meursault feels on the edge of madness ( this moment is a characteristic feature of man in the works of modernists). To break out of the circle of violence and evil, an explosion is needed, and it happens. And this explosion is the murder of an Arab.
The scene of the murder of the Arab is a turning point in the composition of The Stranger. This chapter divides the novel into two equal parts, facing one another. In the first part - Meursault's story about his life before meeting the Arabs on the beach, in the second - Meursault's story about his stay in prison, about the investigation and trial of him.
“The meaning of the book,” Camus wrote, “consists solely in the parallelism of the two parts.” The second part is a mirror, but one that distorts Meursault’s truth beyond recognition. There is a gap between the two parts of “The Stranger” that evokes a sense of absurdity in readers, the disproportion between how Meursault sees life and how the judges see it becomes the leading asymmetry in artistic system"Stranger." (1, 332)
3.5.4. In the courtroom, the investigator furiously imposes Christian repentance and humility on Meursault. He cannot admit the idea that Meursault does not believe in God, in Christian morality; the only morality for him that is effective and fair is ratio and the phenomena and processes surrounding it. He does not believe in what cannot be verified, seen, felt. Therefore, in the courtroom, Meursault will appear in the guise of the Antichrist. And here comes the verdict: “the chairman of the court announced in a rather strange form that in the name of the French people my head would be cut off in the city square.” (1, 359)
While awaiting execution, Meursault refuses to meet with the prison priest: the confessor is in the camp of his opponents. The lack of hope for salvation causes irresistible horror, the fear of death relentlessly haunts Meursault in his prison cell: he thinks about the guillotine, about the everyday nature of the execution. All night, without closing his eyes, the prisoner waits for dawn, which may be his last. Meursault is infinitely lonely and infinitely free, like a man who has no tomorrow.
Hopes and consolations from beyond the grave are not understood and are not acceptable to Meursault. He is far from despair and is faithful to the land, beyond which nothing exists. The painful conversation with the priest ends with a sudden outburst of Meursault’s anger. Meaninglessness reigns in life, no one is to blame for anything, or everyone is to blame for everything.
Meursault’s feverish speech, the only one throughout the novel where he reveals his soul, seems to have cleansed the hero of pain, banishing all hope. Meursault felt detachment from the world of people and his kinship with the spiritless and precisely because of this beautiful world nature. For Meursault there is no longer a future, there is only a momentary present.
The circle of bitterness is closed at the end of the novel. Hunted down by the all-powerful mechanics of lies, “The Outsider” remained with his truth. Camus apparently wanted everyone to believe that Meursault was innocent, even though he killed stranger, and if society sent him to the guillotine, it means it committed an even more terrible crime. Life in society is not organized righteously and inhumanely. And Camus the artist does a lot to inspire confidence in the negative truth of his hero. (4, 200)
3.5.5. The existing inert world order pushes Meursault to the desire to die, since he does not see a way out of the current order of things. Therefore, the last word of the novel still remains “hatred.”
There is an sense of absurdity in Meursault’s fate: young and in love with “earthly delicacies,” the hero could find nothing but meaningless work in some office; deprived of funds, the son is forced to place his mother in an almshouse; after the funeral he must hide the joy of intimacy with Marie; he is being judged not for what he killed (there is essentially no talk about the murdered Arab), but because he did not cry at his mother’s funeral; on the verge of death, he is forced to turn to the god in whom he believes.
CONCLUSION. Camus’s contribution to world literature, the revelation of the “existentialist” personality when creating “The Stranger”
4.0. Going beyond the concepts that Camus needed to create the existentialist type of “innocent hero,” we are faced with the question: can murder be justified only on the basis that it happened by accident? The concept of the absurd not only accommodated the writer’s artistic vision, but also did not free the hero from his inherent vice of moral indifference. In the treatise “The Wandering Man,” Camus strictly evaluates what he will have to overcome over time. The feeling of the absurd, if one tries to derive a rule of action from it, makes murder at least indifferent and, therefore, possible. If there is nothing to believe in, if nothing makes sense and it is impossible to assert the value of anything, then everything is permissible and everything is unimportant. There are no pros and cons, the murderer is neither right nor wrong. Villainy or virtue is pure chance or whim.”
In The Stranger, Camus made an attempt to stand up for man. He freed the hero from falsehood, if we remember that freedom for Camus is the “right not to lie.” To express the feeling of the absurd, he himself achieved the highest clarity, Camus created a typical image of the era of anxiety and disappointment. The image of Meursault is still alive in the consciousness of modern French reader, for the youth, this book serves as an expression of their rebellion.
And at the same time, Meursault is the freedom of a rebel who has closed the universe on himself. The final authority and judge remains certain person, for whom the highest good is life “without tomorrow.” Struggling with formal morality, Camus placed the Algerian clerk “beyond good and evil.” He deprived his hero of human community and living morality. The love of life, presented from the perspective of the absurd, too obviously causes death. In “The Stranger,” one cannot help but feel Camus’s movement forward: this is a life-affirming rejection of despair and a persistent craving for justice.
While working on the novel, Camus had already solved the problem of freedom in its connection with the problem of truth.
Bibliography
1. Camus Albert. Favorites. Introductory article by Velikovsky S., Moscow. Pravda Publishing House, 1990.
2. Camus Albert. Favorites. Collection. Preface by S. Velikovsky, Moscow. Publishing house "Rainbow", 1989.
3. Camus Albert. Selected works. Afterword by Velikovsky S., “Cursed Questions” by Camus. Moscow. Publishing house "Panorama", 1993.
4. Kushkin E.P., Albert Camus. early years. Leningrad. Leningrad University Publishing House, 1982.
5. Zatonsky D. In our time. The book about foreign literature XX century Moscow. Publishing house "Prosveshcheniye", 1979.
Albert Camus's story "The Stranger" - clean water existence, walking directly in the wake of the philosophical movement of the mid-twentieth century. Here, like pebbles at the bottom, all the characteristic distinctive features of existentialism are visible: the uniqueness and absurdity of human existence without any meaning of life and death.
Predecessors and fellow travelers
The main features of existentialism were outlined back in the nineteenth century by the Danish philosopher. The development of this philosophical trend began many years later, when humanity was tired of the benefits technical progress. And indeed: on the one hand - telephone, telegraph, jet planes and mini bikinis, and on the other - the most brutal world wars, totalitarian regimes and man is a wolf to man.
The principles of existentialism were observations of existence within existence itself, the study of the inner world in borderline situations, when even if there is a choice, it is always false, and the ability to adequately evaluate one’s actions is absent. However, if there is adequacy, this is no longer existentialism.
The foundations of the philosophy of existentialism were laid by Jean-Paul Sartre in his works of the thirties of the twentieth century: “Imagination”, “Sketch for a theory of emotions” and many others. At the same time as Sartre, Albert Camus also had a huge influence on the minds of European readers seeking true answers.
Concept
The writer's notebooks told about the origin of the idea and the determination of the theme of Camus' future story. “The Outsider” was conceived by the writer as a story about a person who does not want to justify himself, who does not care what other people think about him, and he will not try to convince them. Moreover, even dying, he knows that he is right, and understands that this is not a consolation. Since the spring of 1937, the author has been living, working, writing, editing for three years. In 1942 Camus' story"The Outsider" was published.
An Algerian of French origin living in the suburbs, a petty official named Meursault, learns of the death of his mother. Several years ago, he took her to an almshouse because her salary did not allow her to be supported. Meursault goes to the funeral.
In the almshouse, he behaves clearly inappropriately for a grieving son: after talking with the director, he goes to spend the night at his mother’s coffin, but does not even want to look at her body, talks about trifles with the watchman, calmly drinks coffee, smokes, sleeps, and then sees his mother’s friends at the coffin from the almshouse, who clearly condemn his insensitivity. He buries his mother just as indifferently and returns to the city.
He sleeps at home for a long time, then goes to the sea to swim and meets his former colleague Marie, who is very sympathetic to his loss. In the evening they become lovers. Meursault spends the next day at the window, leisurely reflecting on the fact that for some reason practically nothing has changed in his life.
The evening of the next day, Meursault returns from work and meets with his neighbors: the old man Salamano and the storekeeper Raymond, who is reputed to be a pimp. Raymond has an Arab lover whom he wants to teach a lesson: he asks Meursault to help write a letter with which he will invite her on a date in order to beat her there. Meursault sees their violent quarrel, which is stopped by the police, and agrees to be a witness in favor of Raymond.
Prospects and refusal
The boss at work offers Meursault a promotion with a transfer to Paris. Meursault doesn’t want to: life won’t change from this. Then Marie inquires from him about his intention to marry her, but Meursault is not interested in this either.
On Sunday, Marie, Meursault and Raymond go to the sea to visit Masson, a friend of Raymond. At the bus stop, they are alarmed by a meeting with Arabs, among whom is the brother of Raymond's mistress. After breakfast and swimming on a walk, noticing the Arabs again, the friends are already sure that they were tracked down. A fight ensues, in which Raymond is stabbed, after which the Arabs run away.
After some time, having treated Raymond’s wound, all three go to the beach again and again stumble upon the same Arabs. Raymond gives Meursault his revolver, but there is no quarrel with the Arabs. Meursault is left alone, intoxicated by the heat and alcohol. Seeing the Arab again who wounded Raymond, he kills him.
Meursault was arrested and summoned for questioning. He thinks that his case is quite simple, but the lawyer and the investigator disagree. The motives for the crime are not clear to anyone, and Meursault himself only feels annoyed by what happened.
The investigation lasts eleven months. The cell became a home, life stopped. The will ended even in thoughts after the meeting with Marie. Meursault is bored and remembers the past. He comes to understand that even one day of life can fill a hundred years of imprisonment, so many memories remain. Gradually the concept of time is lost.
Sentence
The case is being heard. There are a lot of people in a very stuffy room. Meursault does not distinguish faces. The impression is that he is superfluous here. Witnesses are questioned for a long time, and a sad picture emerges. The prosecutor accuses Meursault of callousness: he didn’t cry a single tear at his mother’s funeral, he didn’t even want to look at her, less than a day has passed since he entered into a relationship with a woman, he’s friends with a pimp, he kills for no reason, the defendant has no human feelings or moral principles . The prosecutor demands the death penalty. The lawyer states the opposite: Meursault is an honest worker and an exemplary son who supported his mother as long as he could, he was destroyed by a moment of blindness, and the most severe punishment for him is repentance and conscience.
The verdict, however, is that on behalf of the entire French people, Meursault will be publicly beheaded in the square. He does not understand the inevitability of what is happening, but still resigns himself. Life is not so good to cling to. And if you still have to die, then it makes no difference when and how. Before his execution, Meursault quarrels with the priest because he doesn’t want to spend the little time he has left on God knows what. Eternal life has no meaning, and Meursault does not believe in it. But on the very threshold of death, already feeling the breath of darkness, he sees his fate. And finally, in shock, he opens his soul to the world. The world is indifferently kind. Just like Meursault himself. This is exactly the kind of hero Albert Camus described: an outsider. Not identifying one's own existence with the realities of the world. They are alien to outsiders.
Brief Analysis
The story that Albert Camus wrote (“The Stranger”) was read greedily by a generation of readers deprived of a future and considered Meursault their own hero. The peculiarities of the existence of the author's contemporaries were the same: impersonality, rejection of lies even for their own benefit.
The story is clearly divided into two parts, which overlap with each other. The second part is a distorting mirror of the first. Reflected in the mirror, as Camus wanted, an outsider. A man without roots. A man who came from nowhere and goes to nowhere. The fact that the composition and plot are linear makes it clear even summary. Camus (“The Stranger” is a work that carries an idea, however, a very deep one) wrote his creation in such a way that it turned out to be understandable to many. The main character's reaction to what is happening is the absence of any reaction. That is, in terms of worldview, Camus’s hero is an outsider; there are no reviews of events in him. He is not emotionally involved in any of them as an alien.
In Camus's story "The Stranger", analysis of the text is possible at two semantic levels - social and metaphysical. The first reflects reality and the emerging reaction of others, while the second breaks away from reality and floats away into the inner world of the protagonist. Who is an outsider for Camus? A brief mention that Meursault loves to look at the sky already makes the hero close to the reader, who is not alien to romanticism. This means that the author understands and loves his hero.
About the author's language and style
The author's style is very bright, despite the fact that the entire text of the story is a narration in half with descriptions in the first person and in the past tense, that is, as simple and clear as possible. In this story, the author himself, Albert Camus, is an outsider to the same extent as his hero. Laconic, dispassionate. Especially in listing the hero’s actions: drank coffee, went to the cinema, killed a man. But what strength and what depth is in this simplicity! It's easy to just take notes. Camus is an outsider, perhaps in anything, but not in literature.
The method chosen is too precise. The characters are too lively, as if they just came from the street. And a very finely woven atmosphere of absurdity, where literally everything is absurd: the actions of the heroes, their inner world. Even the jury's arguments: the main argument for death penalty The reason was that Meursault did not cry at the funeral - this is the height of absurdity.
In literary terms, the 20th century became the century of spiritual search. Abundance literary movements, which arose at that time, is closely related to the abundance of new philosophical doctrines throughout the world. A striking example of this is French existentialism, whose representative is the outstanding thinker and writer, laureate Nobel Prize 1957 Albert Camus...
Existentialism (from the Latin existentia - existence) is one of the directions of the philosophy of subjective idealism. The main category in existentialism is the concept of existence, which is identified with the subjective experiences of a person and is declared primary in relation to being. Existentialism opposes society to a person as something alien, hostile, which destroys his individuality and limits personal freedom. According to existentialists, the main goal of scientific progress should not be the development of intelligence, but emotional education.
Existentialism, which arose after the First World War in Germany, and during the Second World War in France, draws its ideological origins from the teachings of the Danish scientist and irrationalist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. The main provisions of the existentialists are expressed in the works of J. P. Sartre, French writer, philosopher and publicist who is considered the head of French existentialism. The main themes of his work are loneliness, the search for absolute freedom and the absurdity of existence. Albert Camus is called his student and follower.
The philosophical works and artistic works of Albert Camus complement each other, and his theoretical works interpret the essence of existence and provide the key to understanding it works of art. In Camus's essays, prose and drama, there are invariably thoughts about the absurd (“absurdity reigns”), about the omnipotence of death (“knowing yourself is knowing death”), a feeling of loneliness and alienation from the “disgusting” outside world (“everything is alien to me”) . Camus called the entire first period of his work “the cycle of the absurd.” At this time, he wrote the story “The Stranger” (1942), the philosophical essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), and the dramas “Caligula” and “Misunderstanding” (1944). All of them reveal the absurdity of human existence and life in general.
The culture of the Mediterranean, which was perceived by him as the basis of the early pantheistic concept of personality, had a huge influence on the formation of Camus’s views and on all his work. It was based on an almost deified belief in the joy of being, the identification of God and nature, in which divine origin. The fascination with pagan cultures and pre-Christian covenants is reflected in the collection “Marriage.” Gradually, under the influence of historical events, Camus moves to the concept of the absurd man, which will predetermine the writer’s growing interest in existentialism. The concept of the absurd man was developed in detail by Camus in the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” and the story “The Stranger”. Through the prism of these two books, it is not difficult to imagine the range of issues and perspectives considered by the school of existentialist literature that developed in France in the 40s of the last century.
“The Myth of Sisyphus” is an “essay on the absurd”, in which Albert Camus, having collected his thoughts on death, alienation even from himself, the impossibility of defining, deciphering existence, about absurdity as a source of freedom, assigns the role of the hero of the absurd world to the legendary Sisyphus. The work of Sisyphus is absurd, aimless; he knows that the stone, which, at the behest of the gods, is being dragged up the mountain, will roll down and everything will start all over again. But the fact of the matter is that he knows - which means he rises above the gods, above his fate, which means the stone becomes his business. Knowledge is enough; it guarantees freedom. The protagonist's behavior is determined by an all-powerful absurdity that devalues the action.
The story “The Outsider” is a kind of confession of the main character. All the space in it is occupied by a single choice, which is made by the only hero of the novel. Meursault talks about himself all the time. This constant “I” emphasizes the lack of community of people, “collective history”, and the need for other people.
Camus's hero is “not of this world” because he belongs to a completely different world - the world of nature. It is no coincidence that at the moment of the murder he feels part of space landscape, suggests that his movements were directed by the sun itself. But even before this moment, Meursault appears as a natural person who can look at the sky for a long time and without any reason. Meursault is like an alien on our planet, an alien, and his home planet is the sea and the sun. Meursault is a romantic, but a “romantic existentialist.” The blinding sun of Algeria illuminates the actions of the hero, which cannot be reduced to social motivations for behavior, to a rebellion against formal morality. The murder in The Outsider is another "unmotivated crime". Meursault is on a par with Raskolnikov. The difference between them is that Meursault no longer asks about the boundaries of the possible - it goes without saying that for him everything is possible. He is absolutely free, “everything is permitted” to him. ““Everything is permitted” by Ivan Karamazov is the only expression of freedom,” Albert Camus himself believed (from his youth he was engrossed in Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Malraux).
The title of Camus' story is symbolic. It captures the protagonist’s attitude. And the narration, conducted in the first person, gives the author the opportunity to acquaint readers with his way of thinking, to understand the essence of his “outsiderness”. The fact is that Meursault is indifferent to life in its usual sense. He discards all its dimensions except the only one - his own existence. In this existence, the usual norms do not apply: telling a woman that you love her; cry at your mother's funeral; think about the consequences of your actions. Here you can not pretend and lie, but say and do what existence itself leads to, without thinking about tomorrow, because only psychological motivations are the only true motivations human behavior. Camus's hero does not solve any social issues; does not protest against anything. For him there are no socio-historical circumstances at all. The only thing Meursault is sure of is that death will soon come to him.
“Meursault does not recognize the most important commandments and therefore has no right to expect mercy.” But he is absolutely indifferent to this, because he knows that nothing matters, that life is not worth “clinging to”: “Well, I’ll die. Earlier than others, that's for sure. But everyone knows that life is not worth clinging to... In essence, it is not of great importance whether you die at thirty or at seventy, in both cases other people, men and women, will live, and so it's already underway many millennia."
Meursault does not live - he exists, without a “plan”, without an idea, from case to case, from one moment to another. In “The Stranger Explained” (1943), J. P. Sartre emphasized how the narrative is constructed: “Every phrase is a momentary moment... every phrase is like an island. And we move in leaps and bounds from phrase to phrase, from non-existence to non-existence.”
Death as a manifestation of the absurdity of existence is the basis for the liberation of Camus’s hero from responsibility to people. He is liberated, does not depend on anyone, and does not want to associate himself with anyone. He is an outsider in relation to life, which seems to him an absurd collection all kinds of rituals; he refuses to perform these rituals. Much more important than any principles and obligations, duty and conscience for Meursault is that at the time he committed the murder it was unbearably hot, and his head hurt terribly, that “the sun sparkled on the steel of the knife... and Meursault seemed to have been hit in the forehead with a long sharp blade, a ray I burned my eyelashes, dug into my pupils and it hurt my eyes.” Thus, the conflict in Camus’ story is located on the axis of the collision between human automatons performing rituals and a living being who does not want to perform them. A tragic outcome is inevitable here. It is difficult to reconcile one’s own egoistic existence and the movement of the human masses making history. Meursault resembles both a pagan liberated personality who fell out of the bosom of the church, and extra person, and an outsider, which took shape in literature in the second half of the 20th century.
Camus himself pointed out the double - metaphysical and social - meaning of the novel, explaining Meursault’s strange behavior primarily by his reluctance to submit to life “according to fashion catalogues.”
Camus saw the plot of “The Stranger” in “distrust of formal morality.” The clash of a “just a person” with a society that forcibly “catalogs” everyone, places everyone within the framework of rules, established norms, generally accepted views, becomes open and irreconcilable in the second part of the novel. Meursault went beyond this framework - he is tried and condemned.
The image of the “outsider”, created by Albert Camus, caused a lot of different interpretations. Was it accepted by wartime European intelligentsia circles? as a new “Ecclesiastes” (this was facilitated by the author’s statement about his hero: “The only Christ we deserve”). French criticism drew a parallel between the “outsider” and the youth of 1939 and 1969, since both were a kind of outsiders and in rebellion they were looking for a way out of loneliness.
Parallels can be drawn endlessly, because history contains many examples when a person acutely felt his loneliness and restlessness, suffering from the “irregularity”, “curvature” of the world around him. These feelings arise whenever there is general alienation in society, when human existence comes down to the indifferent execution of certain norms and rules, and anyone who refuses to follow the established order, not accepting selfishness, indifference and formalism, becomes a “stranger,” an outcast, an “outsider.”
Philosophy of A. Camus.
Albert Camus (1913 – 1960) made main problem his existential philosophy, the problem of the meaning of life.
The philosopher’s main thesis is that human life is essentially meaningless.
I was fascinated by “The Old One” and wrote a work that lies like dead weight. Let people read it like an article.
INTRODUCTION
This topic was not chosen by chance, the character of the story is a very extraordinary person and at the same time ordinary - this ambivalence of the human essence captivates the reader from the first page. Camus helps us get used to the image of the hero, using reduced, everyday vocabulary inherent in any man in the street, but the situation and behavior of Meursault gives us the opportunity to think about deeply philosophical questions that concern more than one generation of poets and writers: what is freedom, what is spirituality, is it possible for a person live only for yourself.
First, it is necessary to define existentialism, a literary and philosophical movement to which many critics attributed the work of A. Camus, with which the author of the story, “The Outsider,” it is worth noting, did not agree. The term "existentialism" (from the Latin "existentio") means "existence". The starting point of the philosophy of existentialism is that existence precedes essence.
The philosophy of existentialism asserts that there are no moral norms, that a person is free to make his own choice and constantly assert himself in this choice. Existentialism is a philosophy of freedom that comes from the human will as a fundamental principle. Man is condemned to be free, as a being whose existence precedes essence.
According to this philosophy, a person is what he makes of himself, what he affirms himself to be. From this follows the need for a person to “invade” (s’engager) into life, as a result of which the importance of being is realized, public life. Thus, there is no objective law in life, the existential person is “abandoned”, “abandoned, he is like a lonely singer in a boundless sea.”
Camus himself claimed that he did not strictly adhere to the conclusions of the philosophy of existence, but only for some time shared the mentality that fed it. In this regard, critics present the work of A. Camus in the form of a spiral consisting of three turns: “The Absurd.” At this stage the following works were written: “The Stranger”, “Caligula”, “The Myth of Sisyphus”, “Misunderstanding”.
"Riot." The works from this period include: “The Plague”, “The Righteous”, “The Rebel Man”. "Exile". It combines such works as “The Fall”, “Exile and the Kingdom”. It is A. Camus who should be called the singer of the absurd, where the absurdity of this world is revealed with maximum accuracy in the image of the main character of the story - Meursault.
The narration is told from an average person, a certain person, a person without a name, whose vocabulary is as impersonal as the telegraph letter that will be given below. “Mom died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I received a telegram from the nursing home: “Mother has died. The funeral is tomorrow. Our sincere condolences." You won’t understand, perhaps, yesterday (...)” R. Barthes spoke about “zero degree of writing” in the story. Indeed, Camus was convinced that life is simple, that people complicate everything, and therefore it is necessary to talk about it simply, without metaphors, allusions, complex cultural reminiscences, behind which there is a desire to escape from the awareness of the tragedy of the human lot. And his hero is the most ordinary, and at the beginning of the story he is just a nameless person. Already in a conversation with the director in the charity home, his name is revealed to the reader, which does not bring us one iota closer to his inner world because he is not in that social culture, he simply crossed himself out and all the rules and guidelines of bourgeois society are a cold record of everyday ups and downs.
In the first part, Meursault is an outsider even for the reader, a boring, ordinary person, the vocabulary is monosyllabic and ordinary, colorlessness in everything that concerns society: a cog in the power of the ritual machine, resigned to the order of life - as it should be - it is obligatory to attend his mother’s funeral, although for him she She had already died when she was sent to a nursing home. He lives by inner feelings, so he cannot even understand: why is the caretaker condemning him, why is Marie upset, why is he being sentenced to death? He is a law-abiding man living in the outskirts of Algeria, who is not looking for anything, does not dream of anything, disappointed in the fairness of this world order, following all its rules, he just allows himself the small luxury of being honest with himself and being able to enjoy every second of life for himself. Meursault does not demand much from life and is happy in his own way. It should be noted that among the possible titles of the novel, Camus noted in his drafts “The Happy Man,” “The Ordinary Man,” and “The Indifferent.”
Meursault is a modest, compliant and benevolent, albeit without much cordiality, person. Nothing distinguishes him from among the inhabitants of the poor suburbs of Algeria, except for one oddity - he is surprisingly simple-minded and indifferent to everything that is usually of interest to people. The life of an Algerian is reduced by Camus to the level of immediate sensory sensations. He sees no reason to change his life when the owner of the office invites him to think about a career where an interesting job has been found for him. Meursault has already been to Paris, he does not have the slightest ambition or hopes. After all, he believes that life cannot be changed; this or that life is ultimately equivalent.
Once upon a time at the beginning of his life, Meursault studied, was a student and, like everyone else, made plans for the future. But he had to leave his studies, and then he very soon realized that all his dreams, in essence, had no meaning. Meursault turned away from what had previously seemed full of meaning. He plunged into the abyss of indifference. The more we plunge into the surrounding absurdity and hypocrisy of justice, the more clearly and clearly we see not a mechanical doll, but a tired man caught in a deadly trap of circumstances. Looking into his “I”, into his fantastic world of sun, sea, wind and sensual pleasures, we see a poet, sensitive and vulnerable, simple-minded and unable to renounce his truth, for the sake of which he will be destroyed by a society that does not forgive dissimilarity.
S. Velikovsky in “The Facets of Unhappy Consciousness” very accurately notices in Meursault the discord of thoughts and feelings that is characteristic of the insane or feeble-minded. “The notes of the “outsider” are like a garland of light bulbs that light up alternately: the eye is blinded by each successive flash and does not detect the movement of current along the wire. (..) In this intermittent flickering there is, however, if not its own special orderliness, then selective one-sidedness. “Flashes” occur in the presence of visual, auditory, and more broadly, “natural-organic” stimuli. But everything that is behind the cortex of phenomena or between them, that is not given directly, but requires the comprehending work of the mind, is impenetrable for Meursault, and does not deserve to delve into it.(...) The stunning paradox of the entire narrative is precisely connected with the fact that the I leading the story, having lost analytical self-awareness, is unable to reveal itself from the inside.” Meursault, like a child who does not want to play his role in the disgustingly false world of adults and does not understand his place in this world, lives and dies in his own.
The scene of the murder of the Arab is a turning point in the composition of The Stranger. This chapter divides the novel into two equal parts, facing one another. In the first part - Meursault's story about his life before meeting the Arabs on the beach, in the second - Meursault's story about his stay in prison, about the investigation and trial of him. “The meaning of the book,” Camus wrote, “consists solely in the parallelism of the two parts.” The second part is a mirror, but one that distorts Meursault’s truth beyond recognition. Between the two parts of The Stranger there is a gap that evokes in readers a feeling of absurdity, a disproportion between how Meursault sees life and how the judges see it - becomes the leading asymmetry in the artistic system of The Stranger.
While awaiting execution, Meursault refuses to meet with the prison priest: the confessor is in the camp of his opponents. The priest acts not even in the role of an opponent, but in the role of an annoying fly that sits in the same place and interferes with sleep. The lack of hope for salvation causes irresistible horror, the fear of death relentlessly haunts Meursault in his prison cell: he thinks about the guillotine, about the everyday nature of the execution. All night, without closing his eyes, the prisoner waits for dawn, which may be his last. Meursault is infinitely lonely and infinitely free, like a man who has no tomorrow. Afterlife hopes and consolations are incomprehensible and unacceptable for Meursault. He is far from despair and is faithful to the land, beyond which nothing exists. The painful conversation with the priest ends with a sudden outburst of Meursault’s anger. Meaninglessness reigns in life, no one is to blame for anything, or everyone is to blame for everything. Meursault’s feverish speech, the only one throughout the novel where he reveals his soul, seems to have cleansed the hero of pain, banishing all hope. Meursault felt detachment from the human world and his kinship with the soulless and, therefore, beautiful world of nature.
For Meursault there is no longer a future, there is only a momentary present, rejecting the hypocrisy of bourgeois sanctimonious life, he accepts the death of his lost truth. “He is the Jesus that our humanity deserves,” says A. Camus about “The Stranger” - you can partly agree with this impartial attitude of the author, having calmed your spirit, stop striving to be kinder, more tolerant, more humane, which is already happening in modern world, but if humanity deserves such a Christ, then what kind of Antichrist will come. Camus did not ask such a question, but in his landmark work “The Plague” he managed to reveal the theme of spirituality without God, which gave rise to new questions and new searches for the philosopher’s stone of humanism.
Bibliography
1. Camus Albert. Favorites. Introductory article by Velikovsky S., Moscow. Pravda Publishing House, 1990.
2.S. Velikovsky “The Facets of Unhappy Consciousness”, “Art”, Moscow 1973
3. Camus Albert. Favorites. Collection. Preface by S. Velikovsky, Moscow. Publishing house "Rainbow", 1989.
4. A. Camus “The Outsider”, AST Moscow, 2007.
Meursault, a minor French official, a resident of an Algerian suburb, receives news of the death of his mother. Three years ago, unable to support her on his modest salary, he placed her in an almshouse. Having received two weeks' leave, Meursault goes to the funeral on the same day.
After a brief conversation with the director of the almshouse, Meursault plans to spend the night at his mother’s coffin. However, he refuses to look at the deceased in last time, talks for a long time with the watchman, calmly drinks coffee with milk and smokes, and then falls asleep. Waking up, he sees his mother’s friends from the almshouse nearby, and it seems to him that they have come to judge him. The next morning, under the scorching sun, Meursault indifferently buries his mother and returns to Algeria.
Having slept for at least twelve hours, Meursault decides to go to the sea to swim and accidentally meets a former typist from his office, Marie Cardona. That same evening she becomes his mistress. Having whiled away the entire next day at the window of his room overlooking the main street of the suburb, Meursault thinks that, in essence, nothing has changed in his life.
The next day, returning home after work, Meursault meets his neighbors: old man Salamano, as always, with his dog, and Raymond Sintes, a storekeeper reputed to be a pimp. Sintes wants to teach his mistress, an Arab woman who cheated on him, a lesson, and asks Meursault to compose a letter for her in order to lure her on a date and then beat her. Soon, Meursault witnesses a violent quarrel between Raymond and his mistress, in which the police intervene, and agrees to act as a witness in his favor.
The patron offers Meursault a new assignment in Paris, but he refuses: life still cannot be changed. That same evening, Marie asks Meursault if he is going to marry her. Like promotion, Meursault is not interested in this.
Meursault is going to spend Sunday on the seashore with Marie and Raymond visiting his friend Masson. Approaching the bus stop, Raymond and Meursault notice two Arabs, one of whom is the brother of Raymond's mistress. This meeting worries them.
After swimming and a hearty breakfast, Masson invites his friends to take a walk along the seashore. At the end of the beach they notice two Arabs in blue overalls. They think the Arabs have tracked them down. A fight begins, one of the Arabs wounds Raymond with a knife. They soon retreat and flee.
After some time, Meursault and his friends come to the beach again and see the same Arabs behind a high rock. Raymond gives Meursault the revolver, but there are no apparent reasons for the quarrel. It was as if the world had closed in and shackled them. Friends leave Meursault alone. The scorching heat presses on him, and he is overcome by a drunken stupor. At the stream behind the rock, he again notices the Arab who wounded Raymond. Unable to bear the unbearable heat, Meursault steps forward, takes out a revolver and shoots the Arab, “as if knocking on the door of misfortune with four short blows.”
Meursault is arrested and summoned for questioning several times. He considers his case to be very simple, but the investigator and lawyer have a different opinion. The investigator, who seemed to Meursault to be a smart and sympathetic person, cannot understand the motives for his crime. He starts a conversation with him about God, but Meursault admits his unbelief. His own crime only causes him annoyance.
The investigation has been ongoing for eleven months. Meursault understands that prison cell became his home and his life stopped. At first, he is still mentally free, but after a meeting with Marie, a change occurs in his soul. Languishing with boredom, he remembers the past and understands that a person who has lived at least one day can spend at least a hundred years in prison - he has enough memories. Gradually Meursault loses the concept of time.
Meursault's case is scheduled for trial at the final jury session. A lot of people are packed into the stuffy hall, but Meursault is unable to distinguish a single face. He gets the strange impression that he is superfluous, like an uninvited guest. After a long interrogation of witnesses: the director and caretaker of the almshouse, Raymond, Masson, Salamano and Marie, the prosecutor pronounces an angry conclusion: Meursault, having never cried at the funeral of his own mother, not wanting to look at the deceased, the next day enters into a relationship with a woman and, being a friend of a professional pimp, he commits murder for an insignificant reason, settling scores with his victim. According to the prosecutor, Meursault has no soul, human feelings are inaccessible to him, and no principles of morality are known to him. Horrified by the criminal's insensitivity, the prosecutor demands the death penalty for him.
In his defense speech, Meursault’s lawyer, on the contrary, calls him an honest worker and an exemplary son, who supported his mother as long as it was possible and killed himself in a moment of blindness. Meursault awaits the gravest punishment - inescapable repentance and reproaches of conscience.
After a break, the chairman of the court announces the verdict: “in the name of the French people,” Meursault will be beheaded publicly, in the square. Meursault begins to think about whether he will be able to avoid the mechanical course of events. He cannot accept the inevitability of what is happening. Soon, however, he comes to terms with the idea of death, since life is not worth clinging to, and since he has to die, it does not matter when or how it happens.
Before the execution, a priest comes to Meursault's cell. But in vain he tries to turn him to God. For Meursault immortal life does not make any sense, he does not want to spend the time he has left on God, so he pours out all the accumulated indignation on the priest.
On the verge of death, Meursault feels a breath of darkness rising towards him from the abyss of the future, that he has been chosen by one and only fate. He is ready to relive everything again and opens his soul to the gentle indifference of the world.
