Midterm Gradelist

Here is the list of current participation grades. I've also included the number of short assignments you've completed (out of a maximum of 6) and the number of class absences. Remember that after three absences without penalty, each additional absence brings down your participation mark by one grade increment (for example, from A to A-).

If you're not on the list and would like to be, email me a 4 digit code of your own creation (not your campus ID)--I'll use it for final essay grades as well.

Week 10 Study Quesions

Albert Camus

We'll be watching a movie next Tuesday, but go ahead and do the readings in advance, so you can identify the themes from the readings in the movie. (For those who have been assigned study questions, you should prepare answers for Thursday's quesions, not Tuesday's.)

When you read Camus' novel The Stranger, compare the main character (Meursault) to Camus' description of the "absurd man" in Myth of Sisyphus. How is Meursault similar to, or different from, the absurd man?

Also think about the meaning of the title of the novel. In French, "stranger" also means foreigner or outsider. What makes Meursault an "outsider"? What is he "on the outside" of? Who is he a "stranger" to? What could he do to stop being a stranger?

Tuesday:

In preparation for the movie, think about the following questions:

1. If you knew that today is the last day of your life, what would common daily activities would you decide not to do today, that you would have done otherwise? Why not?

2. If you knew that the entire world would end tomorrow, would you consider doing anything that you would usually consider either immoral, illegal, or foolish? Would you loot, or steal, or harm others? Why or why not?

3. If the entire world were to end tomorrow, would you spend any of your final day helping others? Why or why not?

Thursday

1. If someone you knew reacted to a loved one's death the way that Meursault reacts to his mother's death, what would you think? Is his reaction inappropriate? Is their anything wrong with him or with his attitude towards others? Based on the reading from Myth of Sisyphus, how do you think Camus would answer these questions? (Keeping in mind that the Camus, as the author, may not always agree with the views or actions of his characters.)

2. Is it wrong for Meursault to write the letter for Raymond to his mistress, even though he knows Raymond wants to harm the girl? Is it wrong for him to act as a witness to the police for Raymond? Based on the reading from Myth of Sisyphus, what would Camus say?

3. Do you think Meursault is happy? Why or why not? Prior to the murder, he keeps saying that things aren't his fault, and thinks people are judging him. Apart from the murder, do you think he's guilty of anything? Why or why not?

4. What do you think of Nietzsche's question about the "eternal return"? Would you be happy if you had to live through every single event of your life, even the most miserable moments, an infinite number of times? Why or why not?

Week 8 Study Questions

Tuesday (CR 117-24)

1. Albert Camus says that "to understand is . . . to unify" and that the mind's deepest desire is for familiarity, unity, and the absolute. What does he mean by this? Why does he think that the world frustrates this desire?

2. Camus' essay is devoted to a unique feeling or experience of an aspect of the human condition that he calls "the absurd." We experience this feeling, or become aware of this aspect of our condition, in a number of ways. For example, he says a feeling of weariness over "daily routine" and the "acts of a mechanical life" can lead sometimes lead to the feeling of absurdity. What's so absurd about daily routine? After all, daily routine is familiar and comfortable. Routine also gives unity and order to life, and our daily repeated activities are perfectly meaningful, since they are mostly devoted to promoting our life and well-being. Where's the absurdity?

3. Another way in which we might encounter the absurd is through the realization that we are mortal. Camus says that sometimes when a person "situates himself in relation to time," taking stock of how much time has passed, and recognizing the inevitability of death, this lead to a feeling of revolt that is the absurd. Why should death provoke the feeling of absurdity? Death is perfectly natural, and part of the natural order of the organic world. Why is death absurd?

4. What does Camus mean when he says that when we experience the absurd, we recognize that the world is "foreign," "strange," or "inhuman"? He says that the world loses its "illusory meaning." What meaning is he referring to, and why does he think it is an illusion?

Thursday (CR 125-32)

1. What are the "two certainties" on which the absurd depends? Camus' view of the human condition is correct only if these supposed "certainties" are true. Do you think they are?

2. Camus says of the absurd man that "all he feels" is his "irreparable innocence." Kafka, Sartre, and the narrator in Camus' own novel The Fall, on the contrary, say we are guilty. How do you think Camus would respond?

3. Why does Camus think that the fact of death means that we are not truly free? Yet he also thinks the absurd individual feels less hampered and, in a sense, "freer" than the other people do. Why?

4. In Camus' description of the mythical character of Sisyphus, he says that we "must imagine Sisyphus happy." Do you think it is possible for Sisyphus to be happy, despite his predicament?

Pictures of Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, and Kafka

Friedrich Nietzsche

Fyodor Dostoevsky


Haymarket Square, St. Petersburg
(Where Raskolnikov overhears that Alyona will be left at home alone the next day)

Franz Kafka

Prague Castle and Cathedral
Kafka's home city
(and location of the Cathedral scene in Welles' film version of The Trial)

Pictures of Jean-Paul Sartre