Preview

The Subject Of Humanity In Albert Camus The Guest

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
361 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Subject Of Humanity In Albert Camus The Guest
In the story “The Guest” by Albert Camus, the author explores the subject of humanity when one is presented an anomalous situation. In the beginning, an old gendarme brought a prisoner, an Arab, to Daru and ordered him to bring him to prison because he was accused of murdering his cousin. Even though the Arab was a criminal, Daru treated him like a guest and the prisoner was very surprised why he acted so humane; by the time it was night Daru made a bed for the prisoner in same room as he was sleeping and Daru explained to him that, “Men who share the same rooms, soldiers or prisoners, develop a strange alliance as if, having cast off their armor with their clothing, they fraternized every evening, over and above their differences, in the
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Stranger By Albert Camus: A Cultural Analysis
    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Stranger By Albert Camus: A Cultural Analysis

    The sun beams down, its smoldering rays spread to all they can reach. In the distance there stands a man, Monsieur Meursault, his hand in his pocket clenching the trigger of a gun. He stands there, watching another man along the beach, the Arab, anticipating him to make a move. And at the sight of seeing the Arab move, Meursault raises the gun and shoots -- hesitates a moment more then, fires four more shots at the now still body.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    State Of Confusion In Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal
    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages

    State Of Confusion In Ralph Ellison's Battle Royal

    Ralph Ellison begins the short story, “Battle Royal”, in some what of a state of confusion. The nameless narrator informs the reader that he has been essentially lost in the early twenty years of his life. The narrator’s grandfather adds to his confusion and the overall purpose of the story. While on his death bed, the grandfather claims to be a traitor and a spy. He charges his family to “overcome ‘em with yeses“(258, paragraph 2) and “undermine ‘em with grins”(258, paragraph 2) as he lays preparing for death. A point that the narrator subconsciously internalized, the reader sees through the series of actions and point of view of the narrator the use of role playing among blacks. For if this method is followed, blacks…

    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Response To Night By Elie Wiesel
    • 215 Words
    • 1 Page

    Response To Night By Elie Wiesel

    The author creates and develops the motif dehumanization by writing about how it is possible to destroy someone’s humanity and its capacity for empathy. Elie Wiesel wrote, “Spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread” (101). Elie notably reveals that the Kapos abuses them past their capacity which ends up with the prisoners losing their humanity to distinguish right from wrong and their morality. Wiesel additionally wrote, “I was nothing but a body. Perhaps even less.” (52). Expressively, the Kapos damages Elie to a point where pain turns into numbness and all Elie feels is an abyss of indifference and apathy due to the fact that the camp vanished his soul and identity away from him. The author…

    • 215 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Albert Camus Meaning
    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Albert Camus Meaning

    (Camus)” Camus believed in the absurd but also in the fact that it was others decided in how they live, not society or even his own beliefs. Throughout The Stranger Camus revels in the beauty of human consciousness and individuality. Without Camus’ commentary people might still believe in an ideal world, a utopia, which would really be a…

    • 1067 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Silence In Night Elie Wiesel
    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Silence In Night Elie Wiesel

    “Total silence in the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting”(Wiesel, 64). In this moment, three men are hanged for their crimes, and the prisoners are forced to watch. They say nothing, and watch with sullen eyes as more and more of them are put to death like animals. It's the terror put into them from watching these constant hangings, shootings, and burnings that make the prisoners sit still and watch. Anyone worthy of calling themselves human would say something about the horrifying things happening in the camps, but these men were stripped of their humanity and simply…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Justice In Franz Kafka's 'In The Penal Colony'
    • 1974 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Justice In Franz Kafka's 'In The Penal Colony'

    The explorer and those who share his Western beliefs see inhumanity in the torture that the apparatus inflicts upon the condemned. The officer suggests that the explorer may “object on principle to capital punishment in general” as his beliefs are Westernized, or “conditioned by European ways of thought” (Kafka 155). This refers to how, in Western nations like the United States, murder is only used as a punishment for criminal activity under very specific circumstances. In these nations, more humane, reformative methods of punishment like incarceration for a duration of time determined by the severity of one’s crime are preferred over impulsive, lethal punishments like the officer’s. If someone is ever sentenced to death in Western nations, it is due to the severity of the crime one has committed, and the method of execution is as quick and painless as possible. The officer’s punishments, on the other hand, do not seem to vary by the severity of the crime committed. Instead, any crime, no matter how seemingly trivial in comparison to another, is punishable by the same torturous death. The officer says, “Whatever commandment the prisoner has disobeyed is written upon his body by the Harrow” (Kafka 144). The phrase, “whatever commandment,” implies that any disobeyed law warrants extreme suffering on the criminal’s part, an idea that Westerners…

    • 1974 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Rhetorical Analysis Of George Orwell's A Hanging
    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Rhetorical Analysis Of George Orwell's A Hanging

    In the beginning of the passage Orwell discusses the cells of the condemned, comparing them to "small animal cages" (99). The prisoners were truly treated as less than human. They were kept in cells ten feet by ten feet "which were quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot for drinking water" (99). Orwell continues to compare the way the Hindu prisoner is handled…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Humanism In Brave New World Essay
    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Humanism In Brave New World Essay

    “Community, Identity, Stability” (1): this is what a perfect society is in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. But having stability is no easy task, especially when humanistic and biblical morals collide; a stable society is possible but only with the sacrifice of one or the other. This stable society is still fragile though. Creating a stable society with humanistic morals requires the complete destruction of biblical morals and the idolization of earthly obsessions. This destruction redefines what beauty is from a biblical standpoint to a humanistic point of view. In most developed societies today we can see the drive for change from biblical moral foundations to more humanistic morals. This can also be seen in the book 1984 written by George Orwell. Complete societal stability based on humanistic beliefs is achievable, but it requires the…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Guests of a Nation
    • 1292 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Guests of a Nation

    Guests of the Nation expresses horror, and dealing with the violence it depicts in an anti-heroic, realistic manner, which allows no evasion for the reader. We must constantly confront ironies and displace our hopes in order to effectively osmose the burdens of our narrator, Bonaparte.…

    • 1292 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Dehumanization of the Jewish People in Night
    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Dehumanization of the Jewish People in Night

    In Elie Wiesel’s Night, imagery is employed to show the dehumanization of the Jewish people by the Nazis as the Jews develop the “survival of the fittest” mentality, and as Eliezer looses the ability to express emotions. Wiesel uses imagery of the Jews’ “survival of the fittest” mentality to show the dehumanization of the Jews who are forced to endure treacherous conditions in the concentration camps. The enslaved Jews experience the worst forms of inhumane treatment. Pushed beyond their ability to deal with the oppressing starvation, cold, disease, exhaustion, and cruelty, the Jews lose their sanity and morality. Thus, Wiesel refers to the Jews as, “wild beasts of prey with animal hatred in their eyes; an extraordinary vitality had seized them, sharpening their teeth and nails. Men threw themselves on top of each other, stamping on each other, biting each other (Pg. 95 old book)”. This alteration of the Jews’ morality and character can only be credited to the dehumanization that they receive, not to the weakness of their spirit. The flock of hungry men clawing for food represents the selfish, animal-like, survival of the fittest mentality that replaces their normal human behavior. The Nazis purposely fail to provide the Jews with sufficient provisions, and as a result, the Jews are reduced to behave like beasts. The Jews, who once resolved that the only way to survive was to help one another, have since resolved that it is every-man-for-himself. Their wish to fulfill the needs that had been deprived from them is so strong, that they are even willing to go as far as to fight one another, to the death, for a small ration of bread. This selfish attitude of the Jews is even reflected by their young when their “sons abandoned their father’s remains without a tear.” (Pg. 87 old book) Rabbi Eliahou's son feels that his father is growing weak. Therefore, he believes that the end is near for his father and he wants to…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Night Elie Wiesel Human Nature Essay
    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Night Elie Wiesel Human Nature Essay

    Hanging the young pipel in front of the camp is completely inhuman, while the man killing his father for bread is a matter of instinct and human nature. Human nature is heavily debated today, some take an optimistic and hopeful approach, while others take a pessimistic and negative approach. Understanding the…

    • 538 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Night Essay by Elie Wiesel
    • 1157 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Night Essay by Elie Wiesel

    The prisoners of concentration camps faced and witnessed death daily, and so their primitive survival instincts became so strong over time that their own life mattered more than their family or anyone else's. They would do anything to survive. Night, by Elie Wiesel, is a memoir about his life in concentration camps during the time of the holocaust. Before going to the concentration camps, Eliezer is a normal boy with a loving family who would do anything for him, and he would do anything for them. Throughout his experience during the Holocaust, he witnesses prisoners sacrifice others, even family members to help ensure their survival. Elie too at times thinks of participating in these events with his own father. The harshness and horrendous environment of the Holocaust and its concentration camps led the prisoners to fight for survival. "In this place, it is every man for himself, and you can not think of others. Not even your father. In this place there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. (110) All of these moments of cruelty are provoked by the conditions the prisoners are forced to endure. In order to save themselves, these sons sacrifice their fathers, and their fathers sacrifice their sons. Thus throughout the story, the characters self-preservation is shown in many different ways.…

    • 1157 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Holocaust Man's Inhumanity To Man
    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Holocaust Man's Inhumanity To Man

    Since the beginning of time, nothing has created more agony and languishing over man than man himself. Through savagery, war, and loathe violations, the trepidation of the obscure and diverse has demonstrated how insensitive man can be to one and other. The Holocaust was a dull period in humankind's history. It indicated society how coldhearted man can be as Hitler drove 11 million pure individuals to their deaths in ghettos, concentration camps, and gas chambers. Through the anguish of the Jewish individuals on account of the German Nazis, there is no better depiction of man's inhumanity to man.…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Hamlet Being Human Analysis
    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Hamlet Being Human Analysis

    The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, William Shakespeare’s longest, and perhaps most notable, play explores several important aspects of the human condition. Hamlet’s battle between his emotions and logic, as well as his fatal flaws and what he considers to be morally good and looming evil, encased in a story of murder and betrayal enlightens audiences to contemplate the true meaning of being human. Ultimately, through Hamlet’s questioning of humanity and what it means to be alive and human, Shakespeare prompts the conversation in his audience.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis of Battle Royal - 1
    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Analysis of Battle Royal - 1

    In the short story, “Battle Royal”, Ralph Ellison uncovers a boy’s fight to maintain his dignity in a world of racial injustice. The first person narration portrays a naïve view of the boy’s values of what he believes is important in life that is only questioned by his grandpa’s firm conviction of dignity. On page 39, starting with paragraph 99, the text depicts the differences between the two segregated worlds of black and white.…

    • 933 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics