The Stranger (The Outsider), Nausea, and Death on the Installment Plan :: comparison compare contrast essays

The Stranger (The Outsider), Nausea, and Death on the Installment Plan      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Stranger, by Albert Camus, Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre, and Death on the Installment Plan, by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, all contrast themselves with internal texts that fail to represent the world competently. The Stranger includes the prosecutor's narrative of the murders as an incompetent text by refusing to support the motives he assigns. It contrasts itself with the prosecutor's narrative in view of the excessive language of the prosecutor versus the simple reporting of Meursault. The Stranger similarly positions comments by Marie and Raymond as incompetent by contrasting their pity with the text's own view that no event is truly pitiable. Nausea positions a text by Balzac as incompetent because it assigns cause to events by using psychology and past time. The novel includes paintings of a wayward bachelor and bourgeois grandfather as incompetent texts. Nausea also positions the Self-Taught Man's description of adventure as incompetent by arguing t hat adventure is a social construct. Death on the Installment Plan marks an effusive letter to Courtial as incompetent, in contrast with Ferdinand's stance of reporting. It also positions Courtial's pamphlets promoting an outdoor education as incompetent by showing that they misrepresent Courtial's intentions and ability. Death also uses Auguste's letter to Ferdinand as an attempt to bend Ferdinand to the values of the bourgeoisie, which he questions. Each of the three texts increase its own verisimilitude through its implicit comparison with inadequate internal texts.    The Stranger contrasts its narrative of the murder of the Arab with the prosecutor's narrative, in terms of the faulty motives that the prosecutor ascribes to Meursault. The prosecutor provides a cause for each of Meursault's actions. Meursault summarizes the prosecutor's case: "I had asked [Raymond] to give me his gun. I had gone back alone intending to use it. I had shot the Arab as I planned . . . And to make sure I had done the job right, I fired four more shots" (99). However, the text does not assign these causes to the murder. As Meursault approaches the Arab, he realizes that "[as] far as I was concerned, the whole thing was over, and I'd gone there without even thinking about it" (58).