Absurdity is embodied in literary works as nothingness of life, loss of interpersonal relationship and alienation of individuals. Absurd works embody different aesthetic tastes, and Gamov's greatest contribution is to make absurdity more concrete. Therefore, the reason why "The Outsider" has such a strong response in society is because Gamu has shaped this sense of absurdity into a concrete figure-Morso.
My first feeling about the role of Morso is how can a person be so indifferent to his life.
The first sentence at the beginning of the novel "Today, my mother left. Yesterday, I don't know. " Reading is slightly depressing and surprising, which lays the cold and dull tone of the whole novel. It stands to reason that a mother should be the closest person in the world. Her mother died, but her son Morso knew nothing about it. In the past year, I didn't visit my mother in the nursing home, because going there would ruin the weekend, and I didn't even bother to buy a ticket to catch the bus. After her mother died, Morso went to the room where her mother's coffin was placed. He carefully observed every corner of the room, white walls, transparent windows and even the screws on the coffin. But I was not interested in my mother's appearance. I stopped the porter from opening the coffin for him to see. When he was at the wake for his mother, he smoked, slept and drank milk and coffee, which made him very bored. As if his mother's death had nothing to do with him, he was ruthless. I didn't cry or feel sad at my mother's funeral, but I was filled with joy when I thought that the funeral was over and I could sleep at home for 12 hours. And the next day, I went swimming, went to see a comedy movie with my girlfriend, and had sex at my place.
Morso's life principle is just like his mantra, no matter what it is, it doesn't matter, it doesn't make sense ... His girlfriend asked Morso if he loved her? It is meaningless for him to say such things. Of course he doesn't! Girlfriend asked Morso if he would marry her? He said it didn't matter whether he got married or not. We can get married if you like.
Morso's neighbor Lemmon is a gangster and asked Morso to help him write a letter humiliating his ex-girlfriend. Lemon is happy to ask him if he wants to be friends with him. He can do it or not.
The boss thinks that Morso is still young and wants to promote him and transfer him to the Paris office to take charge of the marketing business. And Morso said, it's not necessary. It's the same everywhere. What kind of life is the same. Anyway, it will never change life.
Morso is such a person who likes to say everything. Without a strong love and hate, without a silent treatment of vital interests, without a clear view of right and wrong, everything is nothing to him. He completely separated his social and interpersonal relationships from himself, as if he were a body that looked on coldly and exuded a cold and gloomy atmosphere.
However, it is such a person who seems to have no self that is the most self-centered. It is such a person who seems to care least about the world, and he knows the essence of the world best. In fact, he is not an insensitive person. He is very sensitive to nature and has a strong sensibility. He and his colleague Emmanuel ran after the truck just to know what happened to the broken chain hairs of the truck and the crackling sound of the internal combustion engine. He drank wine and coffee in a hotel in celeste, walked home along the pier and looked at the green sky, which made him feel happy and comfortable. Later, he accidentally killed another Arab. When he was tried in court, he even forgot the speech of the defense lawyer, but he still remembered hearing the sound of an ice vendor blowing his horn and recalling his beloved neighborhood and the evening sky. How can such an emotional person be numb to the world?
Morso is not without feelings, nor is he a cold-blooded animal. On the contrary, he completely followed the most authentic emotional traces.
Morso didn't want his mother to die. In fact, he is deeply in love with her. After his mother died, he often suddenly thought of her. When he read a story in the newspaper, he remembered what his mother said, "You can't cheat in life". When you lost your free life in prison, he remembered what her mother used to say, "in the end, people can get used to everything." He agrees with her mother's philosophy of life. So he knew that his mother was free when she died, so there was no need to feel sorry for it. No one has the right to cry for him. Mentally, he is very close to his mother.
Gamov's Mosuo is very similar to ancient Zhuangzi. Zhuangzi is dead, his wife is singing, and others don't understand. Zhuangzi said that the cycle of human life and death changes like all seasons. Now she lies quietly between heaven and earth, but it is just a link in the change of life and death. But I was crying, don't I know the truth of life? We often only see their unreasonable troubles, but we don't get a glimpse of their real thoughts and unique inner world.
Morso used to be very progressive and had an ambitious college life, but after dropping out of school, he began to feel that all this was unimportant, so he refused his boss's suggestion that he should go to Paris. Morso makes friends with Ramon because Ramon is enthusiastic and active, and Morso's easy-going personality has no resistance to such a friend who is not tyrannical. It's not that Morso doesn't want to get married. Later, when he saw Ma Song and his wife living happily in a cabin by the sea, he had the idea of getting married for the first time in his life.
Morso's thoughts are as rootless as weeds, and his heart is empty and lonely. He never expects anything from the other side, nor does he deliberately cater to the public, even if he says something against his will. He insisted on a meaningless life. What kind of life is similar to his, and he is indifferent to the hopes, beliefs and ideals on which most people live. He felt that he would never change his life anyway.
Morso said, "Never cheat in acting while you are alive", which is his philosophy of life and the root of his tragedy.
The first half of the book focuses on Morso's strong self-consciousness from the death of his mother. In the second half, through the incident of Morso's manslaughter of Arabs, Morso was completely pushed into the collective criticism of social consciousness, which intensified the conflict between personal consciousness and social consciousness. This is also the absurdity of outsiders. The court trial paid no attention to objective facts at all. Morso fired one shot at the Arabs and made up four shots, which constituted a crime in law, but was bypassed in the court trial. Completely put aside the defendant Morso, he didn't cry and was indifferent at his mother's funeral a few months ago. In order to demonstrate the impure character and morality of the defendant, Morso was accused of burying his mother with a murderer's heart, sentenced him to death in a moral trial, and sent Morso to the guillotine. As Morso's defense lawyer said, everything in this trial is true, but nothing is true!
It doesn't matter about Morso's character. He doesn't want to defend himself or lie. He didn't think it was necessary. He obeys what people think of him, rather than expressing himself firmly. During the trial, Morso was deeply puzzled and bored by the judge's accusation, and he chose not to explain it like an outsider. Without the participation of other defendants, his fate can only be decided by others.
The last climax of the book is a conversation between Morso and the priest in a small cell. This part is the novel from the absurd court trial to Morso's insistence on objective truth. The priest and his disciples persuaded him to believe in God. Morso didn't obey the whole thing as before, but rebelled fiercely. It is inevitable that Morso was betrayed to death, but in this spiritual confrontation with the priest, Morso won.
Gamu wrote The Outsider in the context of World War II. Morso's image has aroused widespread resonance in the post-war capitalist society, and people after the war have fallen into a sense of hardship and uncertainty. The end of the war did not take away the boundless shadow it cast. The image of Morso is only the epitome of contemporary French youth.
They are anxious about human existence, but they look at the world with a super-rational attitude. As Morso said, nothing matters, whether it is the death of others or the love of the mother, because one day, all people will be betrayed by the death penalty without exception, and no one will be spared. But when he died, he gained a sense of happiness beyond the secular. He opened his heart to this cold and unfinished world, experienced such love and harmony in this world, and felt that he was happy once and now.
This year, a culture of low desire for Xiao Xi's mourning appeared in East Asia, which was somewhat iconicity with the nothingness expressed in The Outsider. A few years ago, a Japanese film "Little Forest" was very popular. In the film, the heroine Shizi travels to Tokyo, but after all, she can't adapt to the fast-paced life rhythm of the city and finally returns to her hometown far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. She put her love for her hometown into the cooking of food, and managed a small but comfortable life with a pair of hardworking hands, which is indisputable. Stone and Morso seem to be indifferent to the ever-changing world, but they express their affinity for the world in their personal experience.
I think there is a little Morso in everyone's heart, but the part of Morso that exists in the mind may not be that big, but that little bit will always pop up and tell us to be ourselves. I recall when I was in high school. At that time, in the key class, under the high-intensity learning atmosphere, I was eager to jump out of that suffocating wall and think about why I had to study so hard. I can hardly find myself in the sea of knowledge. Gradually, I began to retreat to the edge, and there were many rebellious behaviors in the eyes of teachers. I don't listen to the teacher in class. I sit in the last row with a pile of books in front of me and teach myself. In the eyes of my classmates, I am withdrawn, just like evil wind. I often run to the back of a big stone in a remote dormitory with a desk lamp at night to think about the meaning of learning and what is the meaning of life.
At that time, I rejected everything and people, locked myself in a dark corner, so that I entered the university and had to introduce myself. I said I felt like a curly hair, and I felt that a force straightened me. No, I didn't introduce my name and my hobbies. ......
I now recall that lonely time. I wore inappropriate clothes and transformed the quilt cover into a strange shape, regardless of anyone's comments and opinions on me. I wrote the philosophy of life in my diary and shared the topic of impermanence of life in class. Yes, I live like a fallen god, seeing through the world, but losing my initial love for it. I don't like communicating with my classmates, joining clubs and staying in crowded places. I isolated many people and things in this world. I thought it was me.
Some time ago, Chipa said that he and Cai Kangyong shared some feelings. He said that when many people bring it to him for signature, the three most common words are "Be yourself". After writing too many times, he felt that when many people were talking about being themselves, few people could answer what being themselves was. It seems that others are hell, and other people, whether they are family members, lovers, classmates or colleagues, can easily cause us pressure and trouble, so when I wrote down the words "being myself", I felt very free and got rid of others. But now he deeply realizes that you can't be yourself without others. When you draw a circle on paper and want to draw your own circle, when you draw successfully, it must have both the inside and the outside of the circle.
Suddenly realized that seeing through the truth of this world is not the whole of life. If we think that the truth is everything, shouldn't we be depressed to death about the cold truth? What are we going to do for the rest of our lives? Recite the truth every day! And even in the last second before dying, we can't fully see through everything. We think what we see through is only a part of us. If we can't see through everything, it is that every second must flow with the present life opportunity, which is the best way to live. Finding what you want to express is not vague, but concrete, just like the children in the city in Little Forest. She saw through the fast pace of the city and returned to her hometown. She incorporated her love for her hometown into the cooking of food and gained a lot of love.
If you have been looking for the meaning of life, you will never live, so on the basis of seeing through the world and keeping yourself, you should be able to complement others. We should also find our inner belonging and something to be crazy about, so that we can love the world better!
After six years, I returned to the back of the stone in high school. Now I really want to say that I love this world so much!