¶ … Song of Solomon," by Toni Morrison, "The Stranger," by Albert Camus, and "Siddhartha," by Hermann Hesse. Specifically, it asks fundamental questions about the meaning of guilt and responsibility.
Using these three stories, show the difference between guilt and responsibility.
GUILT AND RESPONSIBILITY
The Stranger" is probably the most unsettling of the three novels, and Meursault is the most interesting and controversial character. Some people see him as simply cold and unfeeling. Others see him as a symbol; he stands for truth, because he will not cover up his feelings in order to conform to what society wants or thinks. He is a 30-year-old shipping clerk in the city of Algiers, during the 1930s. His main interests are swimming, his work, and watching the people of Algiers from his balcony.
In the first part of the story, his mother has died, and he attends the funeral, but is so unemotional about it, that the doorkeeper and warden of the nursing home where she lived are aghast at his indifference. This will come back to haunt him later in the story. He says, "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know," and that pretty much sums up his feelings (or lack of them). He reacts the same way with the other characters in the story. There is no love, passion, or caring about them, he interacts with them simply because they are there, and he has nothing better to do. Before he kills the Arab on the beach, he says to himself, "To go or to stay, amount to the same thing." That is how he looks at everything around him, with great indifference, and this is the key to his total lack of guilt and remorse. He feels nothing, and so he has no reason to feel guilty or responsible for anything.
Now we know that he has looked...
Meursault is an interesting and unsettling character. He really is a "Stranger" to himself, and to those around him, until he embraces the absurdity of life.
By the end of the novel, he becomes an existentialist hero. He has discovered the meaning of life, and it is the indifference of the world, which means there really is no meaning to our lives. If our lives are to mean anything, we have to create the meaning in ourselves. When he finally realizes this, he knows he has been happy in his odd life, and does not want to die, but it is too late for him. For him, guilt and responsibility have no meaning, and this is one of the reasons he is such a tragic character. Guilt and remorse exist when one feels something, and Meursault feels nothing, he is empty and therefore he is nothing.
Toni Morrison's novel "Song of Solomon" follows a character with the incongruous name of Macon (Milkman) Dead III. He is the total opposite of Meursault, for he is as responsible as Meursault is not.
Milkman's ultimate task is to achieve "a strong and centered sense of self, a self that accepts responsibility for his past and reaches out in love for others." As Morrison told Mel Watkins, "If there is any consistent theme in my fiction, I guess that is it - how and why we learn to live this life intensely and well" (Morrison and Bloom 6).
Morrison's entire book is about responsibility and guilt. Milkman has it, but his father does not, and he is the "villain" in the piece, placed there to show the opposite side of responsibility, total apathy. In one scene, he is collecting rent, and totally unconcerned his tenant wants to commit suicide. "Put [the gun] down and throw me my goddam money!' he…
