From the entire book, I was very ingredient by the plot and the sudden murder in middle of the book. Yet, out of every wack events that occurs in the book, such as the reason behind his murders and the reason behind the lack of emotion, the events that happened near the end of the book. In small 20 pages of the end, crazy events happened that decided if the character that we have been following would die or live a long jail sentence. In these two chapters, a question that pops out often is why does Mersault not lie about the events that happened? As we discussed in class, all of the events and evidence the court uses against Mersault were all said by him as he was the only living witness. In my opinion, Mersault appears to not be capable of looking at the future. Just as he cannot understand what good being married would be or the effects of getting a promotion, he cannot see the effects of manipulating the situation. It is seen time and time again that the court system is not that great as it is very biased, so we can easily see Mersault getting out of his crime scott free.
Also, another interesting topic is the prosecutors argument. More specifically, his argument that the case tomorrow, which is the murder of a father done by his son, was caused or effect by Mersault. At least how I read the scene, the case tomorrow didn't seem like the same case since it talked about how the murder was the son of father. The logic behind this argument seems puzzling to me. I believe that the argument being made was that the action of Mersault putting his mother into the nursing home was an act that is similar to the one made in the case tomorrow. Moreover, Mersault actions and this murder he committed is worse than the murder who murdered his father, one of the worst crimes a man can do.
Mersault at the end also does something very unlike Mersault we all got used to. Mersault explodes into a blind rage. For a person that is very recognizable for the lack of emotion, the intense emotion such as rage was not to be expected. Especially since Mersault seems to be extremely passive throughout the book, why would he choose to go against it when his time is running out? An answer to this which is interesting is the theory that Mersault has a hatred to his father. Therefore, the chaplain said the word "father" it triggered a rage inside of him. However, I don't see this being very likely as simply saying a word that relates to the past doesn't seem very likely to release that big of a reaction. What do you guys think? What do you think about this very dense chapters?
Also, another interesting topic is the prosecutors argument. More specifically, his argument that the case tomorrow, which is the murder of a father done by his son, was caused or effect by Mersault. At least how I read the scene, the case tomorrow didn't seem like the same case since it talked about how the murder was the son of father. The logic behind this argument seems puzzling to me. I believe that the argument being made was that the action of Mersault putting his mother into the nursing home was an act that is similar to the one made in the case tomorrow. Moreover, Mersault actions and this murder he committed is worse than the murder who murdered his father, one of the worst crimes a man can do.
Mersault at the end also does something very unlike Mersault we all got used to. Mersault explodes into a blind rage. For a person that is very recognizable for the lack of emotion, the intense emotion such as rage was not to be expected. Especially since Mersault seems to be extremely passive throughout the book, why would he choose to go against it when his time is running out? An answer to this which is interesting is the theory that Mersault has a hatred to his father. Therefore, the chaplain said the word "father" it triggered a rage inside of him. However, I don't see this being very likely as simply saying a word that relates to the past doesn't seem very likely to release that big of a reaction. What do you guys think? What do you think about this very dense chapters?
Alexithymia? Like seriously, perhaps the fact that he has alexithymia and a lack of a fatherly figure in his life that causes him to act this way. His sudden explosion of emotions shows us that all along, he did have emotions, though they were quite muted.
ReplyDeleteThe outburst was an interesting scene given the context of the book. It's almost as if he's buried his emotions for so long that he needs an outlet. It reminded me of how sometimes people who never show their anger and are able to keep a facade of calm after a while eventually breakdown and just let it all out.
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