Existentialism and Camus
I. Existentialism
A. In the face of the horrors of WWI and WWII and the Holocaust ant the suffering of the Great Depressions, people were looking for ways to respond
1. What seem to you some possible responses to these crises?
[religion, despair, try to ignore the situation]
2. An important response in this period during and after WWII: existentialism
B. Definition of existentialism?
1. The world is a pretty bleak place—there is very real pain; rational attempts at organizing our understandings of events don’t work; religion doesn’t offer any answers: no inherent meaning
2. How do we respond?
3. Rather than give in to despair, existentialists find a different response: we create our own meaning
4. That is, we are not given a set of guidelines to follow; what we do have to do is to act in “good faith,” by which Sartre meant that we need to act on our own, not just following the crowd or deciding something based on guidelines handed down from an institution
5. What happens when we act on our own: create our own meaning through our action
6. Summary: no inherent meaning; I choose to act in because of my own ideas of what is right; in that action, I create meaning
C. “Myth of Sisyphus” (p. 1753)
1. Let’s make some sense of what’s happening here: what is the myth that Camus is using?
[Sisyphus condemned to roll rock up hill all of eternity; when gets to the top, it will roll down again]
2. Camus calls him the “absurd hero”; in this context, means existential hero; the term comes from the idea that existence is in itself absurd unless we make some meaning
3. In what way can you see Sisyphus as absurd hero?
[-he’s in absurd situation—no inherent meaning
-Camus sees him as choosing to act; in that choice, he has created meaning
-see last line of the essay: (p. 1755)—in the struggle that he finds meaning]
II. “The Guest” (p. 1744)
A. The situation? French colonial rule of Algeria; struggle for independence
1.
Footnote on p. 1745—why is this detail significant?
[shows way that colonial system in place; suggests that Daru in some ways a
part of that system]
B. We have a fortunate and very unusual situation here today: the three characters of this story happen to be here in Bluffton, in fact right here in this classroom
1. Three sections of the class to come up with questions for each of the characters; these can be questions of things that happened or you can ask them what they were thinking or what they wanted to happen
2. Work on questions; characters come down front
C. Possible questions:
1. Daru: why did you treat Arab kindly? What motivated you?
2. Daru: why did you let Arab go?
3. Daru: how do you feel? How many friends do you have? What do you think will happen after the story?
4. Arab: what did you make of this man?
5. Arab: why did you go to turn yourself in?
6. Balducci: what do you think of Daru?
7. Balducci: are you mad at him?
8. Balducci: why do you do what you do?
D. How does this story relate to existentialism?
1. Daru is physically and socially isolated from everyone; no inherent meaning—yet he does not despair
2. see Daru transcending expectations to create meaning—through his own action/decisions (he doesn’t just go along with what system mandates that he does)
3. question with Arab: did he just fit in, follow the beaten path to the jail without thinking? Or did he make an existential decision—that in his own value system what he did was wrong and he needed to put himself in jail?
Existentialism
1.
Bleak
world—rational understandings of events don’t work; religion doesn’t offer any
answers: no inherent meaning
2.
Rather
than give in to despair, we create our own meaning
3.
No
set guidelines except to act in “good faith,” by which Sartre meant that we
need to act on our own, not just following the crowd or deciding
something based on guidance handed down from an institution
4.
What
happens when we act on our own: create our own meaning through our action
Summary:
no inherent meaning; I choose to act because of my own ideas of what is right;
in that action, I create meaning