<i>L'Étranger</i> and the Messianic Myth, or Meursault Unmasked
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22329/p.v2i1.61Keywords:
existentialismAbstract
This paper attacks received ideas about Camus’s iconic hero as honest, modest, innocent, and even messianic. Reviewing these notions, first, as collated in Édouard Morot-Sir’s critical conspectus, ‘Actualité de L’Étranger’ (1996), I trace them back to Sartre’s seminal critique (1943), then to Camus’s characterisation of Meursault as ‘the only Christ we deserve’, in 1955. By close reading of the text, I show that, far from being the modern messiah of authenticity, Meursault is in fact a monster of male chauvinism and an unreconstructed misogynist, whose much-vaunted indifference and amorality only thinly disguise a psychopathology of autism, egotism, paranoia and sadism.Downloads
Published
2007-06-21
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Copyright for an article is retained by the author, with first publication rights granted to PhaenEx. By virtue of its appearance in this Open Access Journal, it is understood that the article is freely available for use, with proper attribution, for educational and other non-commercial purposes. Reuse of the article for commercial purposes by anyone other than the author requires permission of the author. The author agrees to use proper citation of PhaenEx as the original source whenever s/he later republishes or reuses the article in other platforms. ISSN: 1911-1576
Articles in PhaenEx are available under a Creative Commons Attribution License.