O'Donohoe, Benedict (2007) "L'Étranger" and the Messianic Myth, or Meursault Unmasked. PhaenEx Journal of Existenial and Phenomenological Theory and Culture, 2 (1). pp. 1-18. ISSN 19111576
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
This paper attacks received ideas about Camus’s iconic hero as honest, modest, innocent, and even messianic. Reviewing these notions, first, as collated in Édouard Morot-Sir’s critical conspectus, ‘Actualité de L’Étranger’ (1996), I trace them back to Sartre’s seminal critique (1943), then to Camus’s characterisation of Meursault as ‘the only Christ we deserve’, in 1955. By close reading of the text, I show that, far from being the modern messiah of authenticity, Meursault is in fact a monster of male chauvinism and an unreconstructed misogynist, whose much-vaunted indifference and amorality only thinly disguise a psychopathology of autism, egotism, paranoia and sadism.
Item Type: | Article |
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Schools and Departments: | School of English > Sussex Centre for Language Studies |
Related URLs: | |
Depositing User: | Benedict O'Donohoe |
Date Deposited: | 06 Feb 2012 20:31 |
Last Modified: | 30 Jul 2012 11:51 |
URI: | http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/26372 |