Albert Camus' Idea of Rebellion In The Outsider

Abstract

 In novel The Outsider, Camus depicts the reality of the French colonialism in Algeria. The novel presents Camus' condemnation of Meursault's indifference to the brutality of the colonial society he belongs to. Meursault kills an Arab and he is judged not for this crime but because he doesn't behave according to the codes of his society during his mother's death. This shows that the Europeans  treat the 'others' as 'things' ,and for the European judges, the murder of an Arab is not different from breaking a stone or cutting a tree. Meurault is  a stranger in a strange world and the revelation he experiences at  the moment of facing this world splits him from the values of his society. He retreats into the world of sensations, he trusts only the things he can see and find meaning in, refusing the abstract values of his society which are devoid of meaning. This substantiates Camus's message  of art as a rebellion against the rigid system imposed on man  and his attempt to transcend the limits of his society  and create his own world of ideas in which he feels free to enjoy what he never experiences before, art as a transformation of human existence and an everlasting struggle for giving it meaning.