All my life I've been told to enjoy each moment as if it were my last, and every single my objective is to do so. Memories are created in the process, good or bad. Even so there is no reason which prevents me from having fun and learning in the process. The Jesuits use to say "Ora et Labora" which means work hard and pray every day. I've had my problems, and as hard or impossible as they seemed they were left in my past. It's funny how things work out. Just a while ago (about a year and a half) I was the most negative person on this planet. Everything good that happened to me, I thought was luck and it wouldn't stay around for much longer. Things change...people change. In The Stranger, Mr. Meursalt cares for nothing and no one. He's a man who lives his life by not caring about anything, not even his mother's death, his girlfriend's marriage proposal and even worse watching as a man hits a woman and not wanting to help. This is beyond negativity. The only explanation is a boy with a twisted childhood or an event that traumatized him for the rest of his life.
Up until know, I've noticed that Meursalt reminds me of a character in a movie called Little Miss Sunshine. Olives grandfather, acted by Alan Arkin, doesn't care about a thing. He gets kicked out of his retirement home because of his foul-mouth, inhaling cocaine and always thinking about having sexual relations. The grandfather always gives bad advice to his grandson and is a bad role model. Meursalt and Alan Arkin's character are very alike in there way of thinking, they don't really care if they get run over by a car and die, that would be even better than the life there living. There are some differences between the character's. Alan Arkin does care about his family while Mr. Meursalt doesn't even want to know about them. That's the only thing that separates their personalities.
Concerning the questions that were asked before, there is really only one that can be answered fully. We finally discover who the woman Meursalt is dating really is. It seems unbelievable to think that after all he says he desires her, when she asks him to marry her, he says no. Mr. Meursalt is a very strange man, he explains at the beginning that he and the woman were almost dating, and that they had to stop because she left. When they finally get back together after leading the reader to believe that was the objective, he throws everything away by not caring and simply acting like a spoiled brat. It's ilogiacal, but when you live in a world of negativity this nonsense is your logic.
- Why does Meursalt have to act so negativly?
- Is going to marry Marie?
- What ever happened to Salomons dog?
- Is Raymond going to get into some kind of conflict and drag Meursalt along with him?
- What was Maman and Meursalt's relationship like? Did he really send her off to the retirment home because he loved her?
4 comments:
Jose, I read your blogs and I agree with you. You express yourself in a very unique way and have very interesting points of view. I agree with the connection youmade with little miss sunshine!
George, thanks to your blog I now understand how to do this homework which was not explained and questions about it were not answered. You have really given this simple novel a lot of thought and we should learn from your ideas.
I want to congratulate you because I think your post was excellent. I really like the way you approach each topic on the book and how you relate it to your personal experience in life and a movie. It looks like you like to relate your posts to movies and i think thats a great idea.
You certainly are good at making connections between this text and popular culture. Remember, you don't have to follow a format. You can choose to write these any way you like, only that you keep your entries in formal register.
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