An Unconventional Resolution

Monsieur Meursault, in The Stranger by Albert Camus, is faced with his mother's death at the beginning of the novel.  In fact, on the very first page, the speaker tells the reader his mother is dead.  For most people, this would seem like a large challenge to overcome.  A challenge filled with grief, mourning, and loss.  However, as Meursault buries his mother and other people attend her funeral, he is not distraught over her death.  He quickly moves on from her death, making it seem as if there was nothing he needed to deal with emotionally.  As Meursault journeys through the rest of the novel, he encounters many different challenges one would think would take awhile to overcome.  But Meursault does not take an extended period of time to look adversity in the eye, but instead moves on to the next thing, as if it were no big deal.  At the conclusion of the novel, Meursault sits in his prison cell, waiting for his execution date.  He does not know exactly when it will come, but he knows the end is near, and he accepts his fate. 

As the course of the year goes on, and I continue to read and discuss our class novels, I have come to recognize when a character is faced with adversity, and eventually how they overcome this challenge.  I then proceed to write about it on this blog.  But while I was reading The Stranger, I found it was harder to comprehend how Meursault dealt with all of the different challenges he was faced with.  He seemed at first insensitive, indifferent, or complacent to the different situations, and I found it hard to relate to the emotional side of his character.  When Meursault chooses to accept his circumstances at the end, I finally understood how he was choosing to face the adversity.  Meursault wasn't trying to change the different challenges he was handed, but instead accepted them and moved on.  He didn't dwell on one certain problem, but realized there would be many problems to come, and he didn't want to live his life worrying.  Some might say he didn't have the capability to feel emotion toward hard things life handed him, but I would argue he overcame each challenge in the only way he knew how.  It might have been unconventional compared to some of the other protagonists I have come across this year.  However, I enjoyed reading Meursault's journey, and watching him deal with life's challenges. 

Internal Adversity

Adversity can come in many different forms.  Sometimes it can be conflict with a certain person, sometimes it can be physical fighting, or sometimes it can be emotional.  In James Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, has an internal conflict throughout the novel.  Stephen does have some tiffs with his father, but the battles he has with himself are far greater, and more important, to Stephen.  Stephen can't decide whether or not he wants to pursue a life of priesthood, or instead become an artist.  He goes back and forth between the two, first by admiring the priests and wanting to live a life of devotion like them, and then he critiques them and their lack of knowledge.  Stephen also internally debates whether or not the sins he commits are bad enough to keep him out of heaven.  Stephen constantly goes back and forth between being a priest or not; not only because of his critiques of them, but also the fact that he doesn't want to necessarily give up the sins he is committing, even though he knows they are wrong.  Joyce's use of stream of consciousness also makes Stephen's conflicts more alive and known to the reader.  The reader gets inside of Stephen's head, and can't escape Stephen's problems, much like Stephen.  The struggle becomes real to the reader, much like how it is real to Stephen.  By choosing to examine his own life and what he wants, Stephen realizes he wants to be able to think however he wants.  The life of an artist comforts him, and he chooses to pursue it, instead of priesthood.  He is finally able to make a decision best for him, and he overcomes his adversity in a way that is both inspiring and relatable. 

Becoming Visible

In Ellison's the Invisible Man, the eponymous narrator is faced with adversity throughout his journey of self-discovery.  First, when he is forced to leave his college and move to New York City.  He again struggles when he is blown up in a chemical explosion at a paint factory, leaving him jobless and nowhere to go.  Finally, when the Brotherhood kicks him out and he does not know what his future holds, he must decide how he will respond to his hardships.

The Invisible Man is not treated well during his time in the South and not treated well in the North either.  "I was pulled this way and that for longer than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself."  The narrator must decide who he is and what he aspires to be, rather than listen to what outside sources tell him he should be.  By choosing to overcome his struggles, he develops into the man he is supposed to be.  The adversity the Invisible Man faces is first outside people making him decide who he wants to be, but eventually it turns into an inner struggle within the narrator.  He must fight himself  to decide who he will become.  

The inner battle to find oneself is much needed and helps the character move forward and eventually overcome the outside forces which were influencing him.  He chooses to stay true to who he is and what he believes in, rather than buy into other people's ideas.  He overcomes the outside voices and listens to his own.