Libraire Gallimard Essay

With people nowadays trying find the meaning of their existence and the true way to live, one can understand why there would be confusion among the members of society since there will, inevitably, exist differences and approaches on how to find the answers one is looking for. Yet we tend to forget the basics and focus on the outside, on the world and let other people dictate how we are supposed to live our lives and who we are supposed to be. I, on the other hand, believe that existentialism is the only way to truly live one’s life. To live is to ‘hold the reigns’ and refuse to let other people define how you must act. Quoting one of the passages from the book by Albert Camus entitled The Stranger: â€Å"With death so near, Mother must have felt like someone on the brink of freedom, ready to start life all over again. No one, no one in the world had any right to weep for her. And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. † The protagonist in the novel clearly demonstrates the basic idea of existentialism—where man is free and is the author of his life and his decisions help shape his destiny, personality and where his life will lead him; a man who is free also asserts himself and does not conform and is â€Å"against totality or the collectivity or any tendency to depersonalization. † (Copleston 22). The protagonist, in the end, realized the indifference of the cosmos and accepted the fact that in the end, there is no meaning and letting one’s care (for how other people see him) control him entraps him in the label that is ‘unhappy’ when in fact he was happy all along. With these tendencies, it is not surprising that individuals themselves forget how to live and concentrate on pleasing others by living by the terms that are imposed by other people. In the novel, The Stranger, the protagonist was on trial for the murder of a man—what condemned him in the end was not the murder itself but for the fact that he refused to show remorse at his mother’s wake, which is absurd. Yet, if we think about it, in principle, those situations tend to happen, from simple gossip of ordinary people to the accusations hurled by powerful figures in the government. People tend to set a definition of good or evil, what is socially acceptable and what is not; the tendency is that people are trapped by these set definitions whereas in the total schema of things, life and the world itself is meaningless. There is no real definition since definition itself is manmade. In the end, the protagonist realized that he was happy and he was free despite the fact that other people have ‘defined’ him as a heartless murderer and an indifferent son. Most of us tend to take into consideration how other people see us; how we ‘fit in’ our society and refuse to be ostracized and be different; example is the wake of the protagonist’s mother in the novel. In a wake of a loved one, one is expected to show remorse. If one fails to do so, one is automatically branded negatively. If one would let go of these ‘cares’ and live life according to their definition, one can be happier and can truly live. What is ‘happiness’ or ‘being alive’ for us will and must be defined by none other than ourselves; for if we let other people set the standards for ‘happiness’ and ‘living’, it is not our ‘happiness’ and ‘life’ but theirs. Of course, one must never see existentialism as an excuse to murder a man or commit a wrong—one should always remember that even if ‘existentialists’ would live life by their own definitions, these people are still principled people and answer to themselves. Works Cited: Camus, Albert. The Stranger. France: Libraire Gallimard, 1943. Copleston, F. C. â€Å"Existentialism. † Philosophy Vol. 23, (1948): 19-37.