Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and philosopher. At the age of 44, he won the Nobel Prize in literature. He is the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in history.
Albert Camus was born in Algeria when it was a French colony. He was born into a low-income family. Camus studied philosophy at the University of Algiers. When the Germans invaded France in 1840 during World War II, he was in Paris. Initially, Camus attempted to escape. However, he then joined the French Resistance. He served at Combat as editor-in-chief. He became a celebrity figure after the war and delivered many lectures across the world. He was politically active. He was also a member of Left, a group that opposed the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union.
Albert Camus supported anarcho-syndicalism because of his moralistic views. Organizations that sought European integration made him their member. He had a neutral during the Algerian war. He advocated the pluralistic and multicultural Algeria, a stance that was opposed by many parties.
Camus’s views about philosophy gave rise to a new philosophy known as “absurdism.” He is regarded as an existentialist, despite the fact that he rejected this term throughout his life.
A Short Biography of Albert Camus
Albert Camus was born on 7th November 1913 in Mondavi, Algeria. He was born into a low-income family. His father was killed in World War I. Camus then lives with his mother in low-income neighbors of Algeria. His mother was partially deaf.
Camus was a brilliant student and performed very well in school. He attended the University of Algiers. There he studied Philosophy and also played for a soccer team. In 1930, he suffered from a bout of tuberculosis due to which he left the team. Afterward, he only focused on his study. He received an undergraduate and graduate degree in the field of philosophy in 1936.
Political Engagement
Albert Camus engaged himself in politics when he was a student. He first joined the Communist Party and then the Algerian People’s Party. He opposed the colonization of French as a supporter of the rights of an individual. He advocated the Algerian’s empowerment in labor and politics. He later associated himself with the anarchist movement of French.
When World War II started, Albert Camus became a part of the French Resistance to liberate the Paris from the invasion of Nazi. During his tenure of military service, Camus met Jean-Paul Sartre.
Camus, just like Sartre, Camus wrote about a political issue and also published the political commentaries in the war between the two allies through the war. In 1945, Camus was among the few Allied journalists who denounced and condemned America’s use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Camus was a straightforward and outspoken critic of the theory of communist, which caused a rift with Sartre.
Literary Career
One of the characteristic contributions of Albert Camus to the field of literature is the philosophy of absurdism. Albert Camus is often regarded as an existentialist who believed in the philosophy of existentialism; he surprisingly rejected the label saying he would be rather viewed as Sartre’s philosophical friend.
The most celebrated works of Albert Camus contain elements of existentialism and absurdism. These works include The Plague, The Stranger, and The Myth of Sisyphus. The Myth of Sisyphus has obvious elements of absurdism. Whereas the protagonists of the other two plays encounter the social and cultural absurdity with terrible outcomes.
Being Algerian by birth, Camus introduces a new and fresh perspective of an outsider into the literature of French. His works are somewhat related to but different from Paris’s Metropolitan literature. Albert Camus also wrote and adapted plays in addition to novels. During the 1940s and 1950s, he was very active in theatre. Exile and the Kingdom and The Fall are part of his letter works.
Personal Life
Camus, as a young man, married twice and then divorced. Throughout his life, he states his dissatisfaction with the institution of marriage.
Nobel Prize and Death
At the age of 44, he won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1957. He is the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in history. Albert Camus died on 4th January 1960 in France.
The Writing Style of Albert Camus
Clarity and Conciseness
The writing style of Albert Camus is precise and specific. He does not employ figurative language in his works. However, he rather expresses the views of his characters bluntly. Camus’s brilliant writing style makes him able to familiarize his style to show the unique characteristics of his narrator and the particular themes of his novels. He focuses on the portrayal of the character’s detachment. This skill of writing is apparent in his novels The Falls, The Stranger, and The Plague.
Straightforward Style of Camus
The writing style of Albert Camus is very straightforward. It is apparent in most of his works. The narrator, Meursault, of his novel The Stranger, is an existentialist. With straightforward style writing, Camus is able to exaggerate the thoughts of the narrator.
One of the fine examples of this is the simple logic of Meursault:
“I worked hard at the office today. The boss was nice. Before leaving the office to go to lunch, I washed my hands. I really like doing this at lunchtime. I don’t enjoy it so much in the evening, because the roller towel you use is soaked through: one towel has to last all day.”
The basic and straightforward sentence of the narrator reflects the logical and rational process of his thinking. In the novel, when Meursault recollect the terrifying and traumatic events of the article in jail, he uses the simple, clear and straightforward language to tell the summary and then his reaction to the article as:
“The mother hanged herself. The sister threw herself down a well. On the one hand, it wasn’t very likely. On the other, it was perfectly natural.”
The language and style are basic. However, it accurately shows a detached perspective of Meursault.
Versatility of Style
Though the style of Albert Camus is detached, he showed greater complexity in the thought of the characters. For example, in the play The Plague, there is an unusual complexity of thought and sentence structure even though the anonymous narrator of the novel uses clear language to express his impressions and account of disease, his description, and commentary of the disease is interesting and intricate.
The narrator of The Plague, for example, employed diversity in his sentences while describing a conversation. He employed rich imagery to introduce a minor character name, Raoul, as:
“Again, ‘the friend’ slowly moved his equine head up and down, without ceasing to munch the tomato and pimento salad he was shoveling into his mouth.”
However, after some dialogue, Camus starts using simple language, as
“Horse-face nodded slow approval once more. Some time was spent looking for a subject of conversation.”
The different writing styles of the three celebrated novels – The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall – show the versatility of Camus’ writing style.
Adaptation and Barriers
Adaption to the need of the particular novel is the basic and key characteristic of the writing style of Albert Camus. In his novels, Camus adapts his style of writing to emphasize on the detachment. However, he changes his choice of language and the structure of sentences so as to become appropriate with the particular narrator’s voice.
However, the play The Stranger is somewhat an exception. In this novel, Camus intends to employ an intermediary character that plays the role of a barrier between the novel and the readers. Though he does not employ any character between the narrator Meursault and the readers, the language he employed is so detached from the main action of the plot that a reader feels a kind of gap.
Even though the narration of Meursault is concise and clear and has a clear mode of thinking, his straightforward narration suggests that he isn’t feeling accountable for any of his actions. For instance, when he shoots, he describes his shooting as “The trigger gave.” The employment of passive voice suggests he is not taking responsibility for the shooting.
In the novels The Fall and The Plague, Camus employed figurative language that plays the role of a barrier between the narrator and the reader. The style of these two novels repeatedly reminds the readers of their separation.
Absurdism
The works of Albert Camus centers on the philosophy of the absurd. What an absurd man looks like or appears to be is best exemplified in his character of Meursault in the novel The Stranger. The essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” shows his absurd and existentialism beliefs.
Camus views that life has no meaning, and someone tries to find the meaning of life; he would eventually have to lose his reason and must make a choice. Then he has to make is to find another meaning or to commit suicide. Death is the only end of life. And if someone wants to end their life earlier, they have to commit suicide.
According to Albert Camus, being absurd means being irrational, and it is an unstoppable force. An absurd person does not think about the consequences or outcomes of his actions. For Camus, the universe is absurd and irrational. And the circular movement of life has only two options – suicide and finding meanings. Moreover, the relation of a man to time is also absurd.
Conclusion
To conclude, the writing style of Albert Camus contains many differences in sentence complexity, overall style, and point of view. He inculcates a complex philosophy of absurdism that makes his thoughts complex. However, the short, concise, and clear sentences along with the obvious intentions to detach the character and readers unify and link his works.