This is an essay that I wrote for my AP Literature class.
Freedom
Society lays forth the trappings of Man, expecting him to
behave in such a way, talk in such a way, and think in one too. If society were
“perfect”, the individual would be eradicated, removed, expunged by the
societal pressures of community, coupled with the alienation experienced
between person to person. The only escape from the shackles of society is to
shed them entirely, break out from the rules that society has placed on
individuals, and acquire freedom, the goal of individualism. Peter Weir’s The
Truman Show and Albert Camus’ The
Stranger both tell of the journey to existentialist freedom, in which the
protagonists experience alienation, absurdity, and, ultimately, freedom.
Up to the inciting incident, both Meursault of The Stranger and Truman of The Truman
Show have apparently led “normal” lives, with everything appearing to be as it should. But, this
image begins to crumble for Meursault as he observes the aftermath of his
mother’s funeral. Following the funeral is Saturday, which Meursault spends at
the movies and with a woman and in merriment (unlike the expected mourning),
and then spends that Sunday relaxing in his apartment, smoking and eating and
people-watching, and he realizes: “nothing in [his] life has changed.” (30) From what one could be led to believe,
the loss of someone like a mother is typically a profound and existence
shattering experience, and yet Meursault came out of it without an emotional
scratch, creaking open the door of alienation for him. Truman experiences a
similar illusion-breaking encounter, involving an earth-bound stage light,
which fell from the sky from no apparent source, and this being only the first
sign of abnormality. Truman observes distinct irrefutable patterns in the
positions of people of his world, notices how his wife seems to be advertising
objects to no one, as well as other discrepancies. These altercations in turn
cause the cracks that will shatter the existence Truman has grown to accept,
much as the calm after his mother’s funeral with debase Meursault’s.
These cracks, having been already created by the inciting
incidents, spreading for there towards a matrix of crevices, weakening either
the reality of the world (The Truman Show) or the perception of the
world (The Stranger), and in there
the act of absurdity occurs. The alienation of the individual climaxes in a
blatant and, often, aggressive, action or decision which shatters the previous life
the individual lived. For Truman, he experiences absurdity when he randomly
runs into a corporate office elevator, and instead of seeing the interior of an
elevator, observes several crew members for his life conversion on a
deconstructed set. Truman is hustled from the room, but he still cannot deny
what he has seen, and it has crumbled his sense of reality. There is no
rational way for Truman to explain what he has seen, no way to sweep it away
under a rug: it’s stuck there, and it’s going to push him away from everyone. Truman
cannot fit what he say into his concept of reality, so instead his concept of
reality must be altered, as well as his relations with other people. Meursault
brings absurdity onto himself, when he murders the Arab for seemingly no reason
at all. He acts irrationally, no provocation or action available to justify his
decision, and that is when his world splintered: knocking on the “door of [his]
undoing” indeed (76). Meursault found
himself being interrogated, his once-close lover a distant visitor at a cell
door, his friends now silent sentinels to his every move; Meursault is, in that
instance, alone, his alienation practically complete. All that remains is the
last step towards freedom: Death.
Sounds drastic, yes, but it’s true. The final step
towards achieving existentialist freedom is dying. Meursault, faced with the
inevitability of his own demise, and the meaninglessness of it, is happy. He
welcomes the “indifference” of the world as a “brother”, a companion and
friend, brother implying that the kinship he feels towards the world and it’s
indifference is that of a familial tie (154). Meursault finds his freedom,
because he not only accepts the fact that he is going to die, but he also
accepts the fact that the world as a whole will not care if he dies that very
day. He is therefore, released from the despair and pain of alienation, because
he understands that his inability to connect with anyone else is common,
futile, and meaningless; in an essence, not worth the time worrying over being
close to people. Truman dies as well, but not in the literal sense of the term,
but instead by the massive metaphorical imagery in the final scenes of The
Truman Show, when he accepts freedom, and acquires it, because he “dies.”
First, the boat Truman rides is called the Santa
Maria, or the St. Mary, mother of Jesus, across an ocean (water which, is
often used as a symbol for transition) and through a storm, a tempest which
alludes to the Great Flood of the Old Testament, when God floods the Earth and
kills almost all of life, which represents the act of Truman’s death. He then
sails into the sky (well, technically he crashes into it, but it represents
ascending into heaven), from which point he appears to be walking across water
(alluding to Jesus), where he climbs a set of stairs to a door that leads to
the Outside, when Cristoff, the show’s executive producer and creator, speaks
to Truman from above (almost as if he were God), and so Truman dies. He
realizes that everything that happened in Seahaven was meaningless, the town
that hid the truth. He accepts that his life was meaningless, feels it is time
to cast of the feeling of alienation, since Truman grew up in a place where
everyone knew his name. He is now ready to face the freedom of alienation,
where everyone will be experiencing uncertainty and hardships just as he will.
And so, through the stages of the inciting incident, the
act of absurdity and death, both Truman of Peter Weir’s The Truman Show
and Meursault of Albert Camus’ The
Stranger achieve existentialist freedom from alienation, as they realized
that their world was wrong, that absurdity was abound and very real, and
finally that it was all meaningless, and in a way obtained enlightenment. Of
course, they both died for that enlightenment, so were they only truly happy
for those brief moments before death? Or did that happiness carry on elsewhere,
passed the indifferent world?
On A Dream, by John Keats
As Hermes once took to his feathers light,
When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon’d and slept,
So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright
So play’d, so charm’d, so conquer’d, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,
Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev’d that day;
But to that second circle of sad Hell,
Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows—pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."- Dr. Seuss
Work Cited
Camus, Albert, and Matthew Ward. The
Stranger. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print.
