The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living English Literature Essay

The Outsider ( 1943 ) is a Gallic philosophical novel which explores assorted philosophical schools of idea, including ( most conspicuously and specifically ) absurdism, every bit good as determinism, nihilism, and stolidity. A Doll ‘s House ( 1879 ) , on the other manus, is a Norse drama, which is frequently called the first true women’s rightist drama. The drama is besides an of import work of the naturalist motion, in which existent events and state of affairss are depicted on phase in a going from old signifiers such as romanticism. The supporters of these plants live are shown in the universe where they do n’t belong. Both the plants show a struggle between the supporter and the society. This is because the single doctrines, involvements and beliefs of both of the supporters clash with those of the society they live in.

“ The unexamined life is non deserving life ” , Socrates had said this on his test for unorthodoxy. He used to promote his pupils to doubt and dispute the recognized impressions of the clip, and believe for themselves. Socrates was given a pick ; he could either accept a sentence of decease or halt learning the pupils to dispute the beliefs and take a life in prison. Socrates believed that this option would rob him of merely thing that made his life utile: analyzing the universe around him and seeking to do the society better. For him, it was unpointed to populate an ‘unexamined ‘ life. So he wanted Athens to honor him for his service to society. The consequence, of class, is that they had no other alternate and were forced to vote for a penalty of decease. The axiom ‘s pertinence can be verified by widening to the instance of Meursault and Nora.

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Nora Helmer, the supporter of the drama A Doll ‘s House, lives in a society where adult female were to be seen and non heard. She challenges the universe genteelness adult females, bearing a sacrificial function in the society. She leaves her hubby in disdain. This characterises the political state of affairs of the clip when the play was set, i.e. 1879. The first female “ achievement ” had taken topographic point in 1871, provoked by a turning defeat in the female population. This was the clip when adult females were doing their manner into the work in big Numberss, while adult females ‘s precedences were non accomplishing a corresponding impact in the political domain. Like Socrates, Nora had an alternate which was populating with her hubby with guilt and shame after ‘deceiving ‘ him ; but she did n’t take that manner because this option would rob her of the same thing as Socrates.

On the other manus, the instance of Meursault, the supporter of The Outsider, can merely be compared with the finding of Socrates to accept the penalty of decease alternatively of seeking to salvage himself. He displays his honestness, courage and endurance in the narrative. But, there is a large difference between Meursault and Socrates of workss for which they are punished. Meursault is punished for his cold behavior and violent death, whereas, Socrates in an effort for the improvement of his society. He is shown as an apathetic individual who laughs on his decease sentence and is willing to hit a adult male. The fresh portrays the pre-independent French-Algerian colonial society, where the inhabitant Arabs had a hatred for the Gallic. Like Socrates, Meursault besides challenges the recognized beliefs, but in a really absurd manner.

Before the reverberations of the self-contemplation by Nora, she portrays a childlike lady who ever would believe of the good of her household and her hubby. She can be considered docile to Torvald ( her hubby ) . Initially, Nora is a cheerful, fleeceable, naif, submissive and infantile adult female. She is an intelligent homemaker, but when it comes to concluding determinations she is ever suppressed. Yet, she merrily accepts her life the manner it is. Furthermore, she emphasises how antic her life is when she talks with one of her friends:

“ I feel so alleviated and so happy, Christine! It will be splendid to hold tonss of money and non necessitate to hold any anxiousness, wo n’t it? ”

She ever tries to soothe herself by avoiding the realization of the true nature of her matrimony and of the society she ‘s populating in.

Meursault is a adult male who wholly dwells in a physical universe. He is presented as a cold and hardhearted individual with respect to his relationship with, and decease of, his female parent. He may look to be passionless to a reader, but he has emotions. But they are non sensuous! He does non demo heartache or unhappiness or felicity in many of the fortunes, in which 1 would detect strong reactions in other ordinary people. All what he thinks about is his physical comfort. The fresh starts with the decease of Meursault ‘s female parent. An passionless statement opens the novel:

“ Mother died today. Or possibly yesterday, I do n’t cognize. ”

This is a black statement which bluffly tells how less he cared about his ain female parent. The statement has an uneasy tone created through Meursault ‘s indifference at the decease of his female parent. Camus ‘ usage of first-person narrative emphasizes the fact that Meausault ‘s apathetic reaction to his female parent ‘s decease is an honorable one and non simply the appraisal of an perceiver. Meursault ‘s temper and tone seem to be unagitated and normal, even though his female parent had died. Camus uses short sentences mirroring the emotionless, uncaring diction in the wire. Camus uses the narrative construction, for the reader to make and go the consciousness of Meursault. Utah Sate University Professor David Anderson notices that “ Meursault takes the stance of merely describing these feelings, without trying to make a consistent narrative from them. ” Micheline Tisson-Braun remarks that Meursault “ registries facts, but non their significances ; … is strictly instantaneous ; he lacks the rule of integrity and continuity that characterizes adult male ” ( Willenberg )

Nora and Meaursault undergo several events which enlighten them about the absurdness of the universe they live in. These events are indispensable for the reader to understand the ground behind the rebellion of these two characters. Nora realises how the matrimony was a ‘playtime ‘ for Torvald. World begins to resuscitate Nora ‘s senses when Torvald says:

“ My beloved, I have frequently seen it in the class of my life as a attorney. Almost everyone who has gone to the bad early in life has had a fallacious female parent. ”

To which Nora inquiries:

“ Why make you merely say- female parent? ”

When Torvald knows of how Nora had saved his life alternatively of understand and appreciating her attempts he diminishes her by stating that she is unfit to raise kids. Nora eventually realises how she had been ever oppressed in her ain house. She rebels against Torvald stating:

“ I mean that I was merely transferred from dad ‘s custodies into yours. You arranged everything harmonizing to your ain gustatory sensation, and so I got the same gustatory sensations as your else I pretended to, I am truly non rather certain which-I think sometimes the 1 and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been populating here like a hapless woman-just from manus to oral cavity. I have existed simply to execute fast ones for you, Torvald. But you would hold it so.

You and dads have committed a great wickedness against me. It is your mistake that I have made nil of my life. ”

Meausault awakens after he is arrested for killing an Arab. When he is sent to prison, he expressed a few spots of realisation about his look of emotions strike his head. He is bit by bit sentenced to decease as he did non desire to lie in the tribunal and follow his advocator ‘s instructions. However, his thought begins to broaden one time he is sentenced to decease. The chaplain, who attended his female parent ‘s funeral, visits the prison and attempts to reform Meursault. But Meursault becomes aggressive towards him and refuses to better, believing he is right. He thinks:

“ From the deepnesss of my hereafter, throughout the whole absurd life I ‘d been taking I ‘d felt a obscure breath drifting towards me across all the old ages that were still to come, and on its manner this breath had evened out everything that was the being proposed to me in the every bit unreal old ages I was populating through. ”

The fresh consists of two parts. When traveling from the first portion to the 2nd a important alteration in the linguistic communication used can be noted. This shows ripening in Meursault ‘s thought. A frequent usage of nonliteral linguistic communication can be observed in the 2nd portion, for case:

“ When I entered the room, the repeating off the immense, au naturel walls and the rough visible radiation pouring down out of the sky and reflecting off the Windowss made me experience instead dizzy. ”

Self-fulfillment is seen in both of the mentioned characters, but the realisation is really distinguishable. Nora ‘s realization made her leave her hubby to prosecute her ain dreams and desires:

“ Listen, Torvald. I have heard that when a married woman deserts her hubby ‘s house, as I am making now, he is lawfully freed from all duties towards her. In any instance, I set you free from all your duties. You are non to experience yourself bound in the slightest manner, any more than I shall. There must be perfect freedom on both sides. See, here is your pealing back. Give me mine. ”

But in the instance of Meursault, the realisation makes him accept the unreason of life. His realisation largely was, after stating absurd statements he would come to cognize that he should non hold said that because of the awkward and unexpected reactions of the hearers.

I personally agree with the mentioned axiom of Socrates. But at that place seem to be a clang of perceptual experiences in people ‘s head about such a doctrine. Peoples consider that happening mistakes and errors in the societal tenet is a mark of a rebellious individual, as we can see in the instance of Socrates. This feeling has been at that place from the age of Socrates till the present, and I do non wholly see it as incorrect. Nora had done something in the terminal that can non be considered as wholly right. She proves herself to be an graven image for other adult females populating under laterality ; but at the personal degree, I do non believe her action will wholly assist her out of her jobs. Turning back is non at all possible in her instance ; she can merely traverse it holding the needed will-power and optimism. About Meursault, I would wish to state that, I really appreciated the manner he stayed happy in his universe and ne’er allow emotionally drastic state of affairss of all time hurt him. But emotions are decidedly required for better determination, and to populate peacefully with all the people around you. Bing happy in what you have is decidedly a good thing to make, but at the same clip the individual should besides be able to judge right or incorrect in the universe. Not like Meursault who concluded that people ‘s lives have no expansive significance or importance, and that their actions, their approachs and departures, have no consequence on the universe!

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