The Divided self: a study of Albert Camus' L'etranger and La chute

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1978
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Abstract
This study deals with the psychological drama of the divided self in Albert Camus' novels L'Etranger and La Chute. The anxieties experienced by Meursault and Jean-Baptiste Clamence, their perceptions of reality and the ways in which they relate to others all closely coincide with the schizoid and schizophrenic states of being described by Dr. R. D. Laing in his existential-phenomenological study of sanity and madness, The Divided Self. The bewildering, often cryptic and contradictory behaviour of both Meursault and Clamence can be better understood if they are viewed, not as integral, uni-dimensional characters, but rather as ones who are split, to a schizoid and schizophrenic degree respectively, into two counteracting true and false selves. This analysis takes into account three principal existential modes of Meursault and Clamence: each character is studied firstly according to how he relates to the world, secondly to others, and finally, as seen through the attitude he eventually adopts towards existence and the meaning it comes to hold for him, to his divided self.
Description
Bibliography: p. 80-84.
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Citation
Kowal, L. (1978). The Divided self: a study of Albert Camus' L'etranger and La chute (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/18749