Existentialism in The Stranger

A while ago we finished The Stranger by the Nobel-prize-winning Albert Camus in my AP English class; I loved it. I enjoyed this book so much so that I bought A Happy Death, an obvious original draft of The Stranger, and though I'm only a third of the way into the novel, I love it. I have reveled in these books because of their themes regarding the existentialist. I adore the philosophy of existentialism. Camus seems to write about existentialism in his works, particularly in The Stranger, but he says this is false. He had said, "I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless." This quote shows his belief in absurdism, and so if he supports absurdism, why would he choose to write about existentialism instead of absurdism?
I'm not sure why he wrote of existentialism, I just know that he did. The proof is in the plot of The Stranger and its protagonist's thoughts. The novel does exemplify absurdism up until the protagonist, Meursault, is sentenced to death. Before, Meursault justified monumental events with the notion of absurdism; he tells himself that his mother died because everyone dies and that she was old, he accepts a marriage proposal indifferently because all he is doing is simply saying, "yes." There is the shift of absurdism to existentialism because Meursault had always perceived that the world is random and chaotic, and for once, Meusault's life is not random: he follows a regular routine in prison, and his death sentence is inevitable. Meusault, for the first time in his life, has one "sure-thing": he will be executed. As Meursault is awaiting the wretched guillotine, he reflects, "As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate." Meursault is finally at peace with himself, and as existentialism requires, he has found his fate, his purpose. Meursault realizes, as illustrated in the above quote, that his purpose is to go to prison so he could finally be happy. 

The Awakening Analysis and Aftermath

The Awakening by Kate Chopin follows Edna Pontellier in the mid/late 19th century. (I am assuming the novel takes place the between 1870 and 1890, because Edna's father was a general in the Civil War.) Edna, like many women in this era, is apathetic and uninterested in life--she is lonely and bored, and cannot seem to find happiness. She is comforted through her art, spending hours painting, only to hear her husband complain and worry that she will not complete her "household duties." As a married woman, her independence is extremely limited. (In the US in 1872, Illinois granted the freedom of occupational choice to both men and women. But when Myra Colby Bradwell, who studied as her husband’s law apprentice to pass the Illinois bar, tried to practice as a lawyer, the US supreme court ruled that the state doesn’t have to grant a law license to a married woman. Their ruling was in 1873.) Edna is pushed into the arms of another man, two actually, and realizing she cannot do anything she wants, she kills herself.

Fortunately, women have come very far in society, obtaining rights that were once just a fantasy, causing women to now have opportunities to succeed and do what they want with their lives. It all really started in Pennsylvania in 1718, where women wer able to own and manage property – if their husbands were incapacitated. Women kept gaining rights; New York, in 1771, was the first state to make it illegal for a husband to sell his wife's property; in 1839, in Mississippi, women could own property. The first women's rights convention was held in 1848. No other advancements were made, other than women's rights groups forming, until 1869, when Wyoming passed a women's suffrage law and allowed women to serve in juries in 1870.  By 1918, New York, South Dakota, Michigan, Oaklahoma, Nevada, Montana,  Alaska, Illinois, Arizona, Oregon, Kansas, California, Washington,  Idaho, Utah and Colorada have given women the right to vote. The ninteenth amendment was passed on August 26, 1920, granting women the right to vote, and it was only up from here. It was soon normal for women to work, because men were fighting wars. Women started going to college. More women than ever are completing their education and doing what they want.