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Assignment for annotated bibliography for Camus’ The Stranger

Gay-Crosier, Raymond. "Albert Camus." French Novelists, 1930-1960. Ed. Catharine Savage
Brosman. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 72. Detroit: Gale Research, 1988.

Summary：

This is a biographical about Charles de Gaulle. He was a very important people on French history.
He was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War I. His
books are reflection his point of view and consisted of two facts. He was resigning after 1944, but
feels necessary to come back to the political scene and to call for the creation of new governing
institutions.

Important quotations：

Gaulle, Charles de (1890-1970), French army officer, statesman, and political leader. An expert on
intensive armored warfare, which he had anticipated, de Gaulle was one of the few French
commanders to gain success against the German attack in the west in May 1940. On June 6,
1940, he was appointed deputy minister of war. Ten days later, de Gaulle was among the first who
refused to go along with the surrender to Germany by French prime minister Philippe Pétain.
Arriving in London, de Gaulle announced the formation of a Free France Committee and called on
French soldiers and civilians, wherever they might be, to join him. He sought to engage French
forces in battles for the liberation of French colonies, even when this meant fighting against the
French army that had remained loyal to the Vichy regime. This was the case in Syria and Lebanon
in June 1941, when the Free French fought alongside the British. On this occasion de Gaulle
visited Palestine, from June 13 to 23. In the November 1942 battle for the liberation of North
Africa, however, the Allied forces did not inform de Gaulle of their plans, preferring to entrust the
civilian administration of Algeria to François Darlan and the Vichy officials who surrendered to
them. The anti-Jewish legislation that the Pétain government had introduced in Algeria remained
in force until it was rescinded by de Gaulle in October 1943, when he overcame his rivals and
placed Algeria under Free French control. (paragraph 1)

Purpose:

This source from “Charles de Gaulle” not only talks about how the Charles de Gaulle’s life was,
it also indicated the peoples living conditions at French at that period. The war is very cruel; it can
make a person cold-blooded or numb. As Camus described in the “The Stranger”, the life to
Meursault seems nothing, he gave people the expression of calm, and nature seems a big deal to
him. But in the war time, how can people be so calm, unless that people is already lost his all
hopes of life. And also in the war time, death seems so normal, there’s many people die every
day. So people already have too much sense about death and become numb. As what
Meursault’s thought in the “The Stranger”, that everyone would die someday. So death seems
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nothing to him.
This source helps us to understand more about Meursault’s thought of life.

Gay-Crosier, Raymond. "Albert Camus." French Novelists, 1930-1960. Ed. Catharine Savage
Brosman. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 72. Detroit: Gale Research, 1988.

Summary:

This is a biographical essay about Albert Camus. Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in
Mondovi in Algeria. He is one of the best-known twentieth-century French authors. He was a
French Algerian author, philosopher and journalist. He moved to Paris after World War II as a
journalist.
Important quotations:

“The years from 1934 to 1937 were marked by Camus's increasing political involvement and
related cultural activities, his travels to the Balearic islands and to central Europe, the rapid
deterioration of his marriage and eventual separation from Simone Hié, whose drug addiction
and related extramarital escapades became unbearable.”

Purpose:

The source from “Albert Camus” biographical essay, we can directly see that Camus’s life was
not that good. His living conditions had leaded him the different opportunity as others. His life is
so poor, but this poor made him stronger, and have more strength than others. Albert Camus
received the award the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. But just over two years he received that,
he was having died in an automobile accident. Camus’s life-styles of Algiers was so monotonous,
but he love to play soccer. He recognized that he lacked of communication and social contacts. As
in his book “The Stranger”, he indicated that meursault’s lack of social contacts. In 1930, at
seventeen, Camus was diagnosed as having tuberculosis. Camus was cited as a proponent of
existentialism. His existentialism was full expressed in the novel “The Stranger”. Camus opposed
to nothingness, and to promote resistance, the resistance of Camus is more spiritual, that is not
how you do, but rather how you feel. As he shows in the “The Stranger”, that action doesn’t have
that much meaning.

MARTIN, V. M. “Absurdity.” New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 48-
49. Gale World History In Context. Web. 14 Dec. 2010.
Summary:

Absurdity is a basic notion for a number of modern thinkers. The dictionaries define the absurd
as that which is contrary to reason, as used by these writers it designates that which is without a
reason. The absurd is a situation, a thing, or an event that really is, but for which no explanation
is possible. Some playwrights indicated the absurdity thought dramatics, and have been called
collectively the Theater of the Absurd.
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Important quotations:

The notion was then taken up by modern thinkers, especially by existentialists, but in an atheistic
context. Thus, absurdity for Sartre arises from the absolute contingency and complete gratuity of
the world. Because there is no God, Sartre argues, there are no reasons for things. Things just
are; and because they are without any reason for being, they are absurd. Ultimately all things
come from nowhere and are going nowhere. Camus gives a different meaning. Admitting that
there are scientific explanations for the various parts of the universe, Camus denies that there is
any ultimate reason for the whole. Absurdity is a feeling that arises from the confrontation
between man, who is looking for a unified explanation of all things, and a world that has no basic
meaning.

Purpose:

This source is fantastic to help us to understand more about the book “The Stranger”. Camus
was also a modern thinker of absurdity, he shows his notion of absurdity in the book through
Meursault, and denies that there is any ultimate reason for the whole. Meursault is an
unperceptive man, existing only sensory experience, the funeral procession, swimming in the sea,
sleeping with his girlfriend, only real and true things are his physical experiences. Meursault’s
non-meaning actions and indifference of life indicated that the world has no basic meaning. And
in meursault’s head, there is no god, he wasn’t believed in god. As some modern thinkers’
notation’s that there is no god, there are no reasons for things, and all things come from nowhere
and are going nowhere.

Kirpalani, Anita. "France's Real Immigration Story.” Newsweek International 1 Feb. 2010.
Gale World History in Context. Web. 14 Dec. 2010.

Summary:

In the story, anti-immigrant sentiment has across Europe by financial hard times. Policymakers
were debate on what it means to be French, and to use immigration as a pretext to talk about
ethnicity, an otherwise taboo notion in France. And the book suggests that their time might be
better spent on policies that create opportunity for the poor immigrant than on debating who
can rightly call themselves French. The book’s main finding is that family’s class origin and
parent’s positive attitude plays a huge role and will influence their children on whether they will
thrive in France.

Important quotations:

"He asked why I had put Maman in the home. I answered that it was because I didn’t have the
money to have her looked after and cared for. "(Camus 87)

Purpose:
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Meursault is a young and aimless Algerian immigrant to France. He is in the poor family with
her mother. He doesn’t have that much money to afford and take cares his mother, and he
doesn’t have that much sense about things and the life. The source from “France’s real
immigration story” helps us understand the situation of immigrant has to face as Meursault. Poor
was one issues of Meusault. In Algiers, the more French one was the more important the
individual. This is why it was more upsetting to the court that meursault was not respectful of
their societal norms, and killing an Arab was a minor offense.

Lehman, David. "Exit no exit: whatever happened to existentialism?." American Scholar. (Vol.
77). .2 (Spring2008): p16. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Malden High School. 10 Dec.
2010

Summary:

Existentialism assumes that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of
themselves, this thought was largely import from Europe. There some of the greatest moments
in the history of existentialism.

Important quotations:

Sartre's philosophy is generally taken as the paradigm of existentialist philosophy, and other
figures are usually considered existentialists insofar as they resonate with certain sartrean
themes—extreme individualism, an emphasis on freedom and responsibility, and the insistence
that we and not the world give meaning to our live. Thus some key figures who might be
considered existentialist, Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, are sometimes excluded
because they are not sufficiently Sartrean. Existentialism can be defined as a philosophy that puts
special emphasis on personal existence, on the problems and peculiarities that face individual
human beings.

Purpose:

Meursault was can say an existentialism, he is the people who act free and believe in himself.
He doesn’t care’s other people or other thing; the world seems have no meaning to him. He live
on his own world.

Sivers, Peter Von. "Algiers" Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Ed. Philip
Mattar. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 139-140. Global Issues
In Context. Gale. Malden High School. 16 Dec. 2010

Summary:

France occupied Algeria in 1830, and in 1834 declared a French colony Algeria. In France during
the reign of a large number of Europeans came to settle in Algeria. In 1954, about 100 million
people of European descent living in Algeria, including a large number of generations of French
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people living in the area. For many French people, it is unacceptable to give up Algeria. And
Algiers War was a conflict between France and Algerian independence movements from 1954 to
1962, which led to Algeria gaining its independence from France.

Important quotations:

In 1954, overwhelming agrarian inequality and misery triggered the Algerian War of
Independence. The war hastened the rural exodus, and around 1956, for the first time, more
Muslims than Europeans lived in Algiers. In 1957, the war extended to the city, where it was
fought briefly in the Casbah's maze of cul-de-sacs. In 1962, France's President Charles de Gaulle
grew weary of the political divisions the war was creating in France, and Algeria achieved its
independence. Furious settlers scorched parts of downtown Algiers before leaving the city en
masse (311,000 left between 1960 and 1962).

Purpose:

The Stranger is set in Algiers around the late 1930s or early 1940s. Meursault was a young and
aimless Algerian immigrant to France. The World War also happened around that year. People all
have hard time to live well at war time. Meursault was one of them who lived in poor.

"Sad love poem..." Youtube. Pub. by vainly112. 16 March 2008. 17 Dec. 2010.

Summary:

This is a beautiful and sad poem about love. The one who fall in love with others has got painful,
and this pain has grown. His/Her life was empty without other.

Important quotations:

During sleepless nights

I pretend that the past isn’t real
It brings back how I used to feel
So much sadness in my hopeless life
Never knew things would change so fast
You are not here and I’m alone
Trying to run away from the pain that has grown
I feel so empty now that you are gone
This one is for you
And these words aren’t brand new
Though it’s coming from the heart
Thank you for the life you’ve given me
Thank you for the hope I’mfinally here
You’ll always be in my mind
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Hood, Thomas. “Silence.” Poetry Out Loud. 16. Dec. 2010

Summary:

This is a poem about silence. Thomas describes what silence means to him.

Important quotations:

There is a silence where hath been no sound,

There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave—under the deep deep sea,
Or in the wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hush’d—no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

Purpose:

Meursault was also a person who always keeps his silence. He didn’t care to communicate with
people and to share his thought. He keeps his silence as this world is also silence, and bored. And
the life is also seems silence to him, and means nothing.