Morals

The Stranger by Albert Camus

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Once again I find myself with that post-salinger feeling. There have been several books I have read since the Catcher in the Rye that have evoked the same feeling. This is yet another book that is seeking to make a point that I do not find unique or unexplored in my life.

At this point, I feel like I should start giving Salinger credit. It seems that there were an abundance of authors trying to reach the same sort of ideas during the 20th century. I would have to say that he did the best job of summing them up.


This brings me to my discovery. Over the past year, I have completed 32 books from my list. The main thing I have gotten out of this is that I really like novels written before the 20th century.



It seems to me that these novels were able to bring into focus the flaws of "morality" as defined by society. Here are a few examples:

Huckleberry Finn: An unschooled child is the only one in the novel who seems to understand what is right.

The Scarlet Letter: "It was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged—not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode—the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they known of it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter."

A Tale of Two Cities: The French revolters are as oppressive and amoral as the leadership they overthrow.

20th century novels, on the other hand, seem to me to take this idea one step further. It seems that following conclusion is drawn:

Society's morals are relative and incorrect. Therefore, all morals must be relative.

I do not agree with this conclusion at all. The one exception I have found is To Kill a Mockingbird, which was written in the 20th century. Lee once again points out that morals as dictated by society are often wrong, but shows that morality is a very real and absolute truth.




View all my reviews