Absurdity Between Kafka and Camus - 4307 Words

This paper seeks to compare and contrast the philosophical views of two great philosophers, namely Albert Camus and Franz Kafka. The works involved in this argument are Kafkas The Metamorphosis and Camus The Outsider. The chief concern of both writers is to find a kind of solution to the predicament of modern man and his conflict with machines and scientific theories. Death, freedom, truth and identity are themes to be studies here in the sense of absurdity. Kafka was born in Prague in 1883. On the Surface, it would seem that he led a very uninteresting life. He grew up in German-speaking Jewish family. His father was very oppressive towards him which made Kafka increasingly isolated. Kafka thought of writing as both a curse and a†¦show more content†¦Or is there some sort of transition to an afterlife? However, most philosophers are skeptical about these questions. Hereinafter, I will verify the conservative assumption that death is annihilation, or permanent nonexistence in relation to both, Camus and Kafka. In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. The divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being. Above all, it is drawing all the inferences from the painful independence. In a sense, The Outsider is a parable of Camus philosophy, with emphasis on what is required for freedom. Mersault, the hero of The Outsider, is not a person one would be apt to meet in reality. Mersault does not achieve the awakening of consciousness, yet he has lived his entire life in accordance with the morality of Camus’ philosophy. What is morality? And what are the qualities necessary for freedom, which Mersault manifested? First, the ruling trait of his character is his passion for the absolute truth. While in Mersault this takes the form of a truth of being and feeling, it is still the truth necessary to the conquest of the self and of the world. This passion is so profound that it obtains truth even whenShow MoreRelatedExistentialism And How This Philosophical Theory Has Developed Over The Years1443 Words   |  6 Pagesprecursors of this movement. Other major philosophers like Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger also deny any association with the movement yet their work is pivotal in bringing this theory to the world. Writers like Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka also discuss this theme in their work, thus creating literary work on existentialism and developing this theory further. 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