Writing The Stranger Essay
The Stranger Essay Allows You to Demonstrate Your Literacy Analysis Skills
The Stranger, a novel by Albert Camus, who is a Nobel prize winning French writer. A philosopher a journalist and a football player, Camus demonstrates his literacy prowess in this first book itself. The novel tells the story the main character Meursault. The Stranger is both a literature text and a philosophical text, due to the world outlooks it presents. The book is written with the central theme of how main characters perceive and see the world around them. Students are often assigned with literary work analysis by writing essays as A View from the bridge essay, Montana essay, blood brothers essay etc. When an assignment is given to write The Stranger essay, choosing the type of essay and the topic to be written on are the primary steps.
What is the Theme and What are Appropriate Topics?
• Differences in World Outlooks – Here the author highlight how the same world is seen through different eyes with different perspectives. Such perspectives are coloured by each individual’s internal mindset and conditioning experiences. For example, the main character Meursault appears to be peculiar in his ways. He is portrayed as hedonistic man who depends on sensory experience. Within contexts as his mother’s funeral or his dates with the girl friend Maria, no emotions are depicted. In the mind of Meursault however, it is the world that is irrational and not he. This is an excellent area to write an argumentative or opinion style literacy analysis, imparting your own ideas vs. the author’s theme and message.
• Physical Matter Vs. Emotions and Relationships: Camus uses the book to show how some people value physical matters over emotions and relationships. A depiction to cite from the book is how Meursault is obsessively annoyed with the heat during his mother’s funeral procession than the sadness associated with the death of his mother. He chooses to focus on the heat which is physically irritating and causing a discomfort to him than the sadness which should be affecting him. In many other incidents, Camus highlights how this central character gives precedence to trivial physical issues over matters of emotional or social value.
• Futility – This work is laced with Camus’s philosophical thinking and this is why there is a strong massage of futility in this story. Meursault who carelessly took lives had to realize that death is common to all and no one is eternal. This is depicted by him coming in to agreement with the Chaplin.
The book is rich with many different topic ideas. Student can find many topics that can examine any of these themes and more. A close reading of the novel will help find an interesting and involving topic idea that can be developed in to an excellent piece of literacy analysis in the form of opinion essays, argumentative essay or discussion essays.
Tactics Used By the Author
Assessing the literary elements that are used in the novel to convey the central idea, the theme and message is an important part of a literacy analysis essay. There are some very prominent elements in the Stranger novel.
• Watching from outside – This method of establishing different perspectives of character is very useful to show the contracting nature of humans. Here the main character is shown to be observing everything yet he does so passively, without passing any judgment on those whom he observe.
• Death - This motif is used right across the novel from beginning to end, showing how the different characters react to the aspect of loss of life. This is also used to show how the value placed on human life differs by people.
• Characters and Philosophy: The students can analyze the characters of the novel and how Camus uses them to develop his theme of absurdity. This is very important aspect for a philosophy essay.
• Background Factors: Another aspect to examine is how the background of Camus affected his philosophy that is espoused in The Stranger.
Writing a High Scoring Essay
The Stranger essay is not an easy that can be written on a whim. Students must find an interesting essay topic and then be able to write a deep and insightful essay that addresses various facets of this literacy work. For those finding it hard to read the novel closely due to time constraints or lacking in writing skills, securing some professional writing help can be useful.
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