"Today, Mom died. Maybe it was yesterday, I don't know. "My fate is decided by them, without consulting me at all. ”
This thin "Outsider", as the translator Mr. Liu Mingjiu said, is just a story about a small clerk who committed a ** in a mediocre life and was sentenced to death by the court.
Reading it, I feel very heavy, until my back is numb, and I feel a kind of outsider's situation throughout the text, as if walking into a gentle and quiet but bizarre world, thinking about it, I can't help but be afraid, at a certain moment, who will become an outsider?
Author: Albert. Camus, who lived in twentieth-century France, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 for his "passionate and sober articulation of contemporary questions to the human conscience." It can be said that Camus became a classic writer in the world, and it was with "The Outsider" that he began.
It has been 82 years since The Outsider was published, and once it was published, it received unstinting praise from all walks of life, critic Henry. Haier calls it "standing at the forefront of contemporary **"; Sartre, the literary authority of the time, claimed that it was "the most brilliant book of the last few years, a classic, a work of reason." "Theoretical Grandmaster Luo Lang. Barthes affirmed that "'The Outsider' is undoubtedly the first post-war classic**.
So, why did this work, which is only 50,000 or 60,000 words, stir up such a big wave? What exactly does "outsider" mean in **? What kind of inspiration will this work from more than 80 years ago have for you and me today?
And at the beginning of **, in addition to the gloomy description of the telegram of Meursault's mother's death, what was then mentioned was his psychological construction in the face of leave, the reluctant boss, forced himself, because of his mother's death and leave, he even said to the boss "It's not my fault". I believe that this description can also quickly arouse people's empathy in modern society.
The curtain on outsiders was quietly lifted.
One. Does the protagonist Meursault love his mother?
Why are there such doubts?
Because Meursault was not guillotined entirely because he killed the other party when he was attacked. It's those people who think he doesn't love his mother.
The prosecutor pronounced the verdict in a loud voice: "I accuse this man of burying a mother with the heart of a murderer. So, in the end, in the name of the French people, they beheaded Meursault in a square.
And these are two things that are not related, unrelated, and unrelated.
Although he couldn't remember exactly what day his mother died, he only had a vague impression of his mother's age, and even gave a negative answer when the concierge of the nursing home asked him to take another look at his mother.
However, no one can judge that he does not love his mother.
When he received the bad news and took the bus to the nursing home, the director had a long conversation with him, and at that time, he thought to himself, "I want to see my mother right away." ”
As he walked with the funeral procession in the fields around the nursing home, he looked around at the cypress trees that stretched to the sky, the red and green land, and the scattered houses, which made him understand his mother's feelings and understand his mother's state of mind walking hand in hand with a man in the nursing home.
When he returned to his home in the city, he thought of his mother's absence and felt the emptiness of the house.
When his neighbor old man cries late at night over his lost dog, which has been with him for eight years, he suddenly thinks of his mother.
When he meets ill-intentioned Arabs on the beach, he thinks of the same sun as the day he buried his mother.
These are the small details of Meursault's missing mother, even though he behaved as calm as an outsider, he didn't cry, he didn't think about tea and dinner, he even went on a date with his girlfriend the day after his mother was buried.
But this does not prevent him from having the little thought of missing his mother in countless inconspicuous moments.
This expression of longing is consistent with the overall expression style of **, which is forbearing, subtle, and imperceptible.
However, after he accidentally killed someone, the prosecutor started from this, accusing him of indifference to his mother's feelings.
At the trial of Meursault, when the lawyer asked him if he loved his mother, he calmly replied, "There is no doubt that I love my mother." ”
In view of the fact that the pre-trial magistrates learned that Meursault had "behaved indifferent" at the time of his mother's burial, which would be detrimental to his trial, the lawyer considered that such a brief expression of love for his mother was not enough to justify his own situation, and asked him if he could say that he controlled his grief on the day of his mother's burial.
Meursault did not want to tell a lie and therefore rejected the lawyer's proposal.
When the examining magistrate asked him again if he loved his mother, Meursault gave his own answer: "Love, just like ordinary people." ”
However, even though Meursault gave a positive answer at each interrogation, he was still convicted for his calm at his mother's funeral.
He loved his mother, and at first no one cared about him, because he didn't cry like most people; In the end, no one believed it, or because he didn't express the pain like most people.
And this turned out to be evidence of his guilt.
People only want to believe the facts that they are willing to accept.
In the final analysis, his relationship with his mother has nothing to do with his later killing of others. Moreover, in the proposition of their mother-son relationship, everyone else is an outsider. But on the contrary, in the judgment of everyone, in the question of whether he loves his mother or not, he becomes a complete outsider.
2. What brought Meursault to prison?
To put it simply, Meursault attended his mother's funeral, went home and dated his girlfriend Mary, became friends with his neighbor Raymond, and was followed by Raymond's enemies when he went on a beach vacation with Marie and Raymond, and the two sides had a total of three fights on the beach, and the last time caused Meursault's tragedy.
How did Raymond get into a vendetta?
* uses a lot of pen and ink to portray Raymond as a small man, who is said to live on women and a storekeeper himself.
Raymond originally had a **, and found that the woman was unfaithful to him, so he beat the woman. Later, when Meursault went to Raymond's house to drink, Raymond asked Meursault to help him write a letter to the woman, the content of the letter was nothing more than scolding and retention, making the woman feel ashamed and remorseful, this was a little trick, if the woman came back to him, Raymond would humiliate her again.
Sure enough, the woman came again, and Raymond really succeeded. So, the woman's brother will come to Raymond for revenge.
Raymond later invited Meursault to vacation to his friend Masson's seaside cabin. On the way they found the woman's brother - the Arab. Unexpectedly, he was followed all the way to the beach.
While Meursault's girlfriend Marie and Masson's wife were cleaning up the dishes in the wooden house, the three men were strolling along the beach, but they met two Arabs who were following them halfway, Raymond and Masson got into a fight with the Arabs, and Meursault reminded them that the other had a knife in his hand, and this time, Meursault was not involved.
During the first conflict, Raymond was wounded, and he was irritable and wanted to go for a walk on the beach, followed by an uneasy Meursault.
As a result, they met the two Arabs again, and as they whispered their countermeasures, Raymond handed the pistol to Meursault and told him to shoot him if the other man took out his knife. Fortunately, both sides silently backed away and there was no dispute.
Meursault and Raymond returned to the cabin again, and Raymond entered, but Meursault, who was drowsy, chose to walk along the beach alone at the thought of talking and talking when he entered the house. This time, he met the Arab again on the beach, and this time there was only one Arab.
For Meursault, the fight was over, and he wasn't the object of their revenge. So, when he saw a spring in front of him, he walked over. That's also where the Arabs are going.
As a result, as Meursault approached step by step, the man showed the knife in his hand and aimed it at Meursault. The beads of sweat on Meursault's brow blurred his vision, and he felt a great threat, and when the tip of the knife pierced Meursault's eyelashes, he pulled the trigger and slammed, ending it all.
Later, he fired four more shots. The book says, "It was like me knocking four times at the door of suffering. ”
In this way, Meursault went to prison.
However, he had nothing to do with this revenge in the first place, he was not a bad guy who hurt Arab women, and even Raymond, the real party, had just become friends. Moreover, in the first two conflicts, he did not make a move, at best he was a **. But in the last encounter, the Arab pointed a knife at him, at the outsider who had been completely involved in the conflict.
3. What kind of person was Meursault?
There are often Meursaults in life, but there are few pure Meursaults.
People often despair, but they don't really care.
Let's take a look at Meursault's work life
At work, the boss wanted to send him to Paris for work, not only to live in the big city of Paris, but also to travel every year. But Meursault felt that the job was dispensable. "People can never change their lives, it's pretty much the same, and my life here doesn't bore me," he said. ”
Facing the beautiful Mary, when Mary asked him if he wanted to marry her, he said, "It doesn't matter if you want to marry or not, if you want, we will get married." ”
When Mary asked him if he loved herself, he said, "That's a pointless question, but I'm sure I don't love you." ”
When Raymond asked him if he would like to be his friend, he said he could do it or not.
Meursault has always been such an attitude of indifference, not caring about everything, and doing anything, this indifferent, detached, and indifferent attitude to life, the more it is difficult to be indifferent to Meursault's experience.
Meursault's meaningless attitude towards life expresses his despair and abandonment of life's nothingness, hopelessness, but that's it. Faced with many choices, he chose not to make a choice, because it had no impact on the final outcome.
His friends, those who knew him and knew him, said that he was an honest man, and Celeste, who owned a restaurant, said that he was a man, a man who did not talk nonsense; His girlfriend, Mary, said he was a good person and hadn't done anything bad; Masson said he was a man of integrity; Raymond says he is innocent in the accident.
In the courtroom, however, everyone chose to believe the people in the nursing home with whom he had only met once, and Meursault was cold and heartless in their eyes. Refuse to let his friends explain what Meursault saw in his eyes, even if that was the real Meursault.
The author, Camus, in the preface to the English translation of The Outsider, gave a series of praises to Meursault: "He does not play tricks, in this sense he is an outsider in the society in which he lives."
He refuses to lie, and whatever it is, he says.
He refuses to pretend about his feelings, and society feels threatened.
He was poor, an honest man, and loved to be above board.
A man who voluntarily died for the truth without any heroic acts. ”
So many people have commented on Meursault, so do you already have a portrait of Meursault in your heart?
It was such a man who was full of tolerance and kindness, but at the last moment he was forced to accept the faith of the priest, and he finally broke out and had a final confrontation with the priest. As the translator Liu Mingjiu put it, his desire to survive, his despair before his execution, his indignation at the injustice of justice, his devotion to death and his helplessness, his contempt for religious lies, his boredom with the priest in front of him, and the anxiety accumulated from his long prison life all mixed together, erupting like a volcano and bursting out of a stream of words as hot as lava.
His doubts in the courtroom, this final accusation, are the soul question: who is the defendant? The defendant is the one who matters, and I have something to say!
About his sentence, it was about his life and death, and he didn't say a word, as if he were the one who had nothing to do with the whole thing. In his own life, it was as if he were a pure outsider.
If Meursault initially chose to be an outsider, then he passively became an outsider during the whole incident of his entry into prison and trial. In this process, the trial of the case of him killing a person has become the trial of him as a person, and his former maverick and observance of his inner expression, his unpretentious feelings, and his frankness in saying anything have become unforgivable sins.
Initially, he was ready to abandon the world, but in the end, he found that the world had abandoned him as well.
At this point, he really became a complete and complete outsider.
Finally, Meursault heard a whistle that sounded, and he knew that it was someone else who was about to embark on a new journey, and that it had nothing to do with him.
He suddenly understood why his mother was looking for a "fiancé" in her old age, and why she played the game of "starting over". Because "around a nursing home where life is dying, the night is like a sad gap." With such a close proximity to death, Mom must have felt relieved and was ready to live it all over again. ”
It's as if everything has come to an end, and it doesn't matter if you start again. Just be a crisp outsider.
And that night, Meursault faced the night sky full of stars and inspiration, and in order to make himself feel that he was not different, he only hoped that many people would come to see the excitement on the day of his execution.
On the road to being an outsider, he has gone too hard.
I am Matsuma Mingyue, follow me @Mingyue to read together, read good books together, and enrich your life.
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