Same belief, two religions
... think of Marie, a living one£he is not ¡°interested in her if she was dead¡±, as he does not want other people to remember him after he dies(Camus, p. 110). Meursalt¡¯s indifference further extends to men in general. The most shocking evidence is right at the beginning of the whole book, a most unconcerned way he depicts his mother¡¯s death. Society has developed reasonable behaviors for certain events in a person¡¯s life. Being an honest person, Meursault does not want to lie about his feelings; however, his attitude in dealing his mother¡¯s funeral makes the society turn against him later on. Drifting away from normal feelings of men, Meursault establishes a firmer relationship with the nature. He finds more pleasure in observing the nature and byr177 dissolves his body and mind into the nature. In the book, there are numerous examples to show that Meursault accepts his life with sensations over his life with God. The second day after his mother died, Meursault is found swimming with his future fianc¨¦e, Marie. Lying on Marie¡¯s stomach, the ¡°blue and gold¡± sky releases all of Meursault¡¯s stress from the dull color of black and white during his mother¡¯s funeral (Camus, p. 24). In Meursault¡¯s thinking, the images of the nature, the sun, the earth, water, sky, Greenland, give more meaning to his existence, and they remain in the world long after men pass away as he acknowledges that ¡°after all, nothing ha[s] changed¡± after the burial of his mother (Camus, p. 28). This would mean that Meursault is more obsessed with the earthly love and is willing to live in a world without God. Meursault is an observer of nature and knows everything well, but he tries to get away from troubles. For example, he knows when he asks for two days off to attend his mother¡¯s funeral, his boss gets very angry. He also gets frustrated because the boss will not listen to his apology. Nonetheless, he does not care if the boss will forgive him or not, for he believes that ¡°after all, it wasn¡¯t for [him] to apologize¡±, and ¡°it was more up to him [his boss] to offer [him] his condolences¡± (Camus, p. 9). His attitude might seem strange to reader¡¯s eyes. Surely no employee wants to give his byr177 boss an awful impression, but there he is, realized but ignores what his boss think of him. Maybe Meursault is just afraid to get involved with further dissatisfaction of his boss. Sometimes explanation makes things more difficult than it already is. This is a similar comparison to his denial to the existence of God in front of the Magistrate and the Chaplain. In some stories, when the main character is in doubt of religion, minor characters usually offer their ideas of religion to the protagonist. Despite the fact that the Magistrate may not be as sincere as he intends to be, Meursault has his own rules of life, unrestricted by any sort of religion. The religion is based on the framework of Christianity in The Outsider, which contains a theological value that encompasses sin. Nevertheless, by refusing anything more than the murder of the Arab guilty, and unwilling to believe an irrelevant man, namely Jesus Christ, died for his course, Meursault is rebuffing the whole concept of Christianity that the Magistrate reluctantly gives up and calls him ¡°Mr. Antichrist¡± at the end(Camus, p. 70). On the other hand, Nora lives in a society where the authority is received mainly from male attitude. However, she does not follow the rigid rules and falls into telling white lies. Even her forgery of her father¡¯s signature can be considered as a big white lie as well, for she has done it to protect her husband¡¯s self-esteem. Other byr177 instances of lying can be found when Nora tries to hide the forbidden food, macaroons, into her pocket before her husband, Torvald, sees it. Nora hides herself from the reality under a role of a seemingly adequate wife shows that the preach she receives from priests is only affecting on the surface of her life, which is acceptable by a society in which only appearance matters. That is, as long as her fraud is kept unknown, she can live without any guilt. Therefore, Nora is only a nominal believer who does not act according to the comm...