Extistentialism

In class this past week we learned about existentialism while at the same time reading The Stranger by Albert Camus outside of class.  One of the basic elements of existentialism is that you are created by the actions that you take or that the human essence is determined by your life choices.  This is shown in many ways in The Stranger as Meursalt's being and personality are essentially created by the ways that he acts.  How he acts is also very extistentialist.  He does things not because they are morally acceptable or expected by society but because they are something that he wants to do or something that he believes is right or honorable.  When he is attending his mothers funeral he goes against all of the common or expected social responses by not showing external grief and large amounts of respect for his deceased parent.  He smokes at her dead bodies side, drinks coffee with the caretaker, and doesn't cry or show any typical external signs of grief.

In class we also read The Guest which is by Camu as well and is an exceptional example of the existentialist values.  At the end of the story when he gives the prisoner a choice it may seem as if he is dodging the main belief of the existentialists and in their eyes becoming a coward by not making a decisive choice and just passing it along to the prisoner so that he can make the choice, but I believe that he did in fact make a choice.  By Giving the prisoner the option of either walking by himself all the way to prison or going free with money and supplies he did make a decision.  Anyone would believe that if given the choice of going free or going to prison one would choose going free.  This is a reasonable assumption that i believe the teacher made, he gave him the choice simply to make it so he partially followed his part of the bargain and to make it right in his mind which, to an an existentialist, is all that matters.  The fact that The prisoner decided to go to prison instead of taking the easy way out and going to freedom is a very existentialist idea as well.  The believe that as you are defined by your actions you should also take responsibility for them as well.  This man killed another man and in an existentialists mind the only thing that can be done is for him to take full responsibility for his actions.