Jashan Takhar 20th Century Novel

Most people reading The Stranger for the first time might be put off by Meursault's strange behavior. He always acts outside of typical societal expectations. He has little reaction to life-changing events, like the death of his mother and Marie's marriage proposal to him. However, he snaps at specific points, like when he kills the Arab on the beach without much apparent thought. He has no regard for the consequences of his decisions and actions. He is truly a "stranger" to society. Like many other readers, I first thought Meursault was a detached sociopath and expected the book to go deeper into his mental "derangement," perhaps explaining why he was that way. However, the book mostly leaves Meursault alone, leaving it up to the reader to decide whether he is insane.  After thinking about Meursault more, I believe that Camus intended the character to be just different than most, but not in a wrong way. Maybe he isn't suppressing any feelings about his ...

     As we follow Jake Barnes through The Sun Also Rises , it becomes increasingly apparent that he never quite has his life on track. He constantly struggles with feelings of love, personal insecurity, and a general lack of tranquility. The reader can see this through specific scenes and general trends in the book. For example, Hemingway gives us a closer look at Jake's state of mind when he suddenly breaks down crying in his bedroom one night after putting off sitting alone with his thoughts. However, other factors, like the desultory manner in which he follows his peers through Spain, also contribute to the general aimlessness that attributes to his character.       He is thirty-four during the book's main events, but it still seems like he is caught in a postwar period where he has no clear idea of what to do with his life and still has intense internal turmoils that he needs to address outright. His narration style clearly favors indirectness and ...