Room for Imagination

               In order to be able to read this book and have a better understanding of it, one must start to understand how Mersault thinks. For him, there is no future, there is no past. He lives his life day to day, living a life completely void of memories or dreams. For him, everything simply is what it is. He doesn't need any reason to motivate his actions, and he prefers to just go with whatever is happening because in his eyes, tomorrow, none of the things you did today will matter.

                 When I got to the part where he killed the Arab, at first I didn't understand what had happened. why had he decided to pull the trigger? Did some past experience set off his impulse and encouraged his finger to squeeze? After some consideration, I realized that this was not the case. Mersault had no underlying reasons as to why he did it. He pulled the trigger because he had no reason not to. However, after coming to this realization I realized that there is actually very little the reader knows about Mersault, or any of the characters for that matter. All Camus gives us are small scenes of their lives at random intervals, what we make of them is entirely up to us.

"Nevertheless I answered that I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love Maman, but that didn't mean anything." (pg. 65)

                In this passage Mersault says he "lost the habit" of considering his actions, which implies that he did so at one point. What is Mersault's history? What events in his life led him to this existentialist lifestyle? I questioned similar things in my last entry but as the book progresses, we don't seem to be getting any closer to finding these answers. In the same way as Mersault lives, Camus tells us only what he wants us to know, leaving much room for imagination. We as readers are forced to infer what was really going on in his life, and what will happen to him because although he doesn't care what tomorrow may bring, we do. 

What is the point of life?

If we cannot define ourselves, if we cannot define the purpose of life, what, then, is the point of living? We are born to live, yet we live to die. Somewhere in between that we have to find ourselves and try to make the most out of what we have, before it is all taken away.

Most people are in constant search for meaning, for a reason to continue living. Many find this through religion, or mainly the belief in God. By placing their hopes, dreams, and pleas upon the hands of this supernatural being, they are, in a way, passing out some of the responsibility of their lives. They would not be able to bear the thought of them failing, and then having to take the entire blame for it. By placing this responsibility upon God, they see it as if they no longer have to worry about the result, because it is no longer in their hands.

We often find ourselves so wrapped up in our daily activities that we, for a moment, lose focus of what is really important to us. It is during these moments where we really stop what we are doing and begin to reflect upon life, society, and often, existence as a whole. Our minds fill with unanswered questions and endless possibilities, but after a while we snap out of our trance and go back to our routines.

However, this is not the case of M. Mersault, who is done with the questions. We have yet to find out whether it is because he detached himself from them because he could not tolerate not knowing any longer or because this was simply not the case with him, he is completely uninterested.

"It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed." (pg. 24)

M. Mersault no longer cares about the past or the future, the only thing that concerns him is the present. He talks about his mother's death as if it were something completely ordinary and there would not be a reason as to why his life should change because of it.

"I tried my best to please Raymond because I didn’t have any reason not to please him." (pg. 32)

Raymond asked Mersault to write a strong letter to a woman he thought was cheating on him, and Mersault complied. However, he didn't do it because he wanted to be a good friend or because he particularly agreed with Raymond's claims, he did it because there was nothing to tell him he shouldn't. The simple fact that Raymond had been nice to him was enough to convince him to do something that would most probably bring grave consequences in the future, but Mersault could not be bothered.

Although I have some ideals that somewhat resemble those an existentialist might have, I am by no means anything like Mersault. I would not be able to have nothing to look forward to, no hopes or dreams simply because the meaning of life is nothing. We might not know why we are here but the point is that we are, so we might as well make the most out of what we have because even though it is not important to the rest of the world, my life is important to me. 

Blue, Hopes and Dreams

“He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (pg. 180)

Although it is not one of the major colors that makes an appearance throughout the book, blue does come up a number of times, especially in regards to Gatsby and Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. In this case, blue signifies the great vastness of the sky, which was reflected upon Gatsby's enormous lawn, upon which he held his grand parties. Signifying dreams and illusions, this color reflected everything Gatsby envisioned his life would become: materialistic and fake. Often times referred to as blue, these lawns were witnesses to the artificial and meaningless lifestyle held by many of the nouveaux riches that lived during the time the novel takes place.

Even though it symbolizes hopes and aspirations, blue can also represent sadness, especially once you look at the world through the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. This allusion to God got to see the Valley of Ashes, how poorly the people there had to live, and how they had to struggle to get from one day to another. The billboard also witnessed how the rich would drive by this horrible place without giving it as much as a second look, or stopping to reflect on how those poor people had to live and how they were spending their money in completely unnecessary material things. In this case, the blue not only represents the sadness felt by Gatsby after Daisy rejected not only him but everything he had worked for his entire life; but also the sadness that God must have felt upon seeing what the world had become.