Albert Camus (1913–1960) was a well-known French novelist, essayist and playwright, a master of "existential" literature.
"The Outsider" tells the story of such a person's life. Meursault works as a clerk in a company, never married in his mid-30s, and has a mother who lives in a nursing home.
The nursing home called to tell him that when his mother died, he did not show sadness, as if it was only his own relatives who had died. There was no crying, and he drank coffee while guarding the spirits, chatted with people, was so tired and sleepy that he forgot his mother's specific age, and he even refused to see her for the last time. Just like he was at work, he slept for 12 hours after the funeral.
The day after his mother was buried, his girlfriend proposed to go to the movies and swim, he did not refuse, the girlfriend asked him to get married, he thought it was okay to get married or not, it had no effect on him, but he clearly told his girlfriend that he did not love him.
The company decided to let him go to Paris to work, the salary was much higher, and Paris was a big city that everyone aspired to. He also refused, except that he didn't think life was annoying to him now, and most importantly he had no interest in changing.
Neighbor Raymond asked him to drink and befriend him, asked him to help write a sharply worded letter to his mistress, and asked him to testify on Raymond's behalf, which he readily agreed to. Later, when he and Raymond went to the seashore, they met several Arab friends of his mistress, and a conflict broke out, and Meursault killed each other.
After being imprisoned, the lawyer won the sympathy of the prosecutor for telling him to lie about his human side. He again refused, disdainful of telling lies, and ended up breaking up.
The examining magistrate also came to persuade him, but to no avail, and in court he was accused of inhumanity, premeditated intentional homicide, and so on, and he did not defend himself, and felt that the prosecutor was smarter than him and the lawyer.
He was eventually sentenced to death, he did not receive guidance from God, he felt that he had committed a crime and deserved to be punished, and others had no right to dominate. Even at the time of his death, he was immersed in the construction of the guillotine.
"Life is similar, and people can never change their lives."
On the contrary, I feel that Meursault is a very real person, and in this society, he is not a simple outsider. But in the social group, your overly obvious personality is too resistant to survival, and if you do not yield, then you will be excluded or even isolated.
Orwell's 1984 implies that under our new industrial management system, man creates machines like man, while man develops more and more like a machine, which will be an era of loss of humanity and total alienation, in which man becomes an object, an annex to the process of production and consumption.
But in the world of 1984, you can rebel internally, and in totalitarianism you lose your life. Unless you resist, you will awaken. So you can't be an outsider, you can only obey in the bureau.
Meursault was too rational, and he was not as materialistic about life. At the end of his conversation with the priest, I think it was wonderful. But do you need a rational person in life, or is it easier for people who go with the flow to survive?
Last week, there was a big party within the company. 10 minutes before work, the vice president of the company informed that everyone would gather in the evening to welcome the new leaders. Of course, they don't like to go, but what can you do, if you don't go, you will offend the leader, and China's personal relationship is more complicated. So everyone went, hurried to dinner, and socialized with each other in a false way. I think this is China's humane society.
Seeing Meursault, I felt on the one hand like the lying flat family now, and on the other hand, he was like a rational fighter. We see the truth in him, there is no high pursuit of the materialism of life, and there will be no gain or loss in relationships. We are not trying to be outsiders, but the rationality in our hearts is obviously weaker than sensibility, easy to get lost in lies and falsehoods, and I can't distinguish between these external interferences.
Maybe you will also get to the bottom of it, what is rationality? Where are the boundaries? I don't think a single copy of The Outsider will satisfy you, but you can read a few more books to make you stand a little taller and see the world different.