8B

ENG 205 Week 8 Unit B: Camus

 

1. Discussion board: (200 WORDS)

Albert Camus

Attached Files:

·  the guest by albert camus.pdf (92.391 KB)

READ: The Guest

Discussion question:

Here is a link to a short film (student-made) of "The Guest."  What do you think of the effort?  Compare the story (text) with the film.   What does the film do well?  What is is missing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tql3QH3b3Co

2. Write responses for other 3 student’s work. (50-75 words for each)

FIRST STUDENT

I had a difficult time deciding how to classify Pablo.  With each of Beauvoir’s types of men, some of the characteristics fit him and some don’t.  I’m going to say that he seems like a nihilist.  Beauvoir says that “the nihilist is a systematic rejection of the world and man”.  Pablo seems to have been imprisoned for being an anarchist.  He’s rejected the world in which he lived prior to being captured.  While he’s awaiting execution, he rejects his fellow captives, their captors, Gris, and Concha.

Beauvoir also states that a nihilist rejects his own existence, which Pablo does, at least during what he believes to be his last hours on earth.  She mentions that nihilists show a contempt for men, which Pablo does.  He has contempt, not sympathy, for Juan when he is crying and Tom when he soils himself.  Pablo has contempt for the Belgian because he believes that he has ulterior motives in being there.  He has contempt for Concha when he imagines that she wouldn’t look at him the same way if she were with him then.   

SECOND STUDENT

I found Pablo to be the nihilist, quite early on. Beauvoir stated that the nihilist rejects the world and man. For a large part of the story Pablo was rejecting his fellow prisoners, jailors, doctor and then later Concha and in the end ironically Gris. He describes Tom and Juan as gray and rotten, he believes that Juan will never be young again. He condemns Tom and Juan also when they defecate and cry respectively. It’s odd that he condemns them for these things because there is a point where Pablo isn’t sure if he urinated in his pants himself. Pablo is also sweating quite a bit which is a form of his own terror, he just displays it differently. Pablo also rejects his love of Spain and attempts to change its government later on by saying “I knew he was more useful than I to the cause of Spain but I thought to hell with Spain and anarchy; nothing was important”. If we take Beauvoir’s definition of a nihilist, Pablo fits this definition well because of the examples that I gave, he rejected man and the world.  

THIRD STUDENT:

When I started reading this piece I felt at times it was convienient to label Pablo as a nihilist.  Though, I don't think it's entirely fitting.  Pablo falls into a category that is somewhat similar to the nihilist, the adventurer.  The adventurer is someone who acts without thought of consequence.  Their goal isn't clear, but they revel in their own freedom.  We see Pablo acting in a way to the guards just to get kicks out of it. Beauvoir states "He likes for its own sake", Pablo goes out of his way to humiliate the guards, using the freedom only a man already condemned to death can have.

 At times we even find Pablo holding himself from breaking into laughter, making minute observations of those around him, the constant reflection on temperature.  Pablo sees through his actions with a certain zest.  Not something I think one would see in the nihilist.  Beauvoir also states that the "adventurer does not limit himself to asserting his existence in solitary fashion. He asserts it in relationship to other existences. He has to declare himself". Just as he refuses charity from the doctor, as he declares to die clean not give into the madness, and when he lies to the captain.