Is this just a story or a philosophy book?
Camus: born 1913, poor but overcame it, got an education, lived through WWI and WWII. Algeria. Sense of meaninglessness: how can you continue to live after the war after all the suffering and pain?
Absurdism. Did this philosophy come as a result of the Wars? Contrast Camus with Victor Frankel in Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankel survived the worst concentration camps and comes out with a more positive existentialism. Nihilism and absurdism under the umbrella of existentialism? Camus says that he’s not an existentialist. How are they different?
def. the universe is meaningless; the search for meaning brings conflict.
Other absurdism: Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett.
He manages to successfully avoid hope.
Is he immoral or a-moral? We think Meursault is a-moral, whereas Raymond is immoral.
Is the main character more reflective in the second half? Does he grow/change? By design, all is still meaningless.
This modern thought became post-modernism today: how yesterday’s absurdism became today’s entitlement.