The Stranger Essay Assignment:
Choose a topic of interest from one of the following:
1)Given the current climate of our world and society is Meursault as Camus stated, “The only Christ we deserve?”
2)Create a thesis and react to the following:
Meursault all but ushers himself to the guillotine. His choice not to lie to the prosecutor shows more that he is stupid rather than immoral or amoral. He is smart enough to understand the system yet too ignorant to understand how he should operate inside of it. He has shown an ability to lie. He lies at the whim of a pimp to the police. He does it once, but when his life is on the line he chooses not to do it again. Meursault deserves death because he asks for it.
3)As Sartre reports in his essay “An Explication of The Stranger”: “Camus provided us with a precise commentary upon his work. His hero was neither good nor bad, neither moral nor immoral. These categories do not apply to him. He belongs to a very particular species for which the author reserves the word ‘absurd’. But in Camus’ work this word takes on two very different meanings. The absurd is both a state of fact and the lucid awareness, which certain people acquire of this state of fact. The ‘absurd’ man is the man who does not hesitate to draw the inevitable conclusions from a fundamental absurdity.”
Discuss the effect of the absurd upon The Stranger.
4)Using The Stranger discuss whether or not a justice system should use its ultimate penalty on those who do not believe that their own life (or the lives of others, such as their victims) has any intrinsic value.
5)What is a reader to make of Meursault’s refusal of God when speaking to both the Magistrate and the Chaplain? Is Meursault a agnostic or an atheist? Is he amoral or immoral? Make sure to consider point of view when creating your argument.
6)At the end of his meeting with the Chaplain, Meursault asks, “What did it matter that Marie now offered her lips to a new Meursault?” Form a thesis and discuss the role of love in The Stranger.
7)Create a thesis that discusses the following quote in context of the entire text.
“She said, ‘If you go slowly, you risk getting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work up a sweat and then catch a chill inside the church.’ She was right. There was no way out.”
8)Given that Meursault is to suffer the death penalty, how is beheading a better and more symbolic way of serving justice than other methods of enforcing the death penalty (i.e. firing squad, hanging, electrocution, poisoning).
9)Using The Stranger and “Bartleby, the Scrivener” to react to the following Camus quote: Nobody realizes that some people extend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
10)React to the following: Camus (in “The Guest” and The Stranger) creates characters who are sympathetic because they do not act upon the world, but instead allow the world to act upon them.
11)“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.” Using The Stranger and “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (available online via Project Gutenburg) or “The Guest” and the above quote by Camus react to the following: Due to the way in which Meursault leads his life he was never unhappy.
After you have chosen a topic develop a strong and interesting thesis that will allow for and include:
- 3 or more points of support
- 5-7 citations
- 3 or more sources
- a paper that is 3-5 pages in length
- 6 or more paragraphs
- a strong opening and conclusion
- a works cited page
The AP Rubric we are using will be applied as long as the above criteria have been meet proficiently.