Today in AP Senior English

1. Today in AP Senior English Assign Short Story Technique Analysis Paper Overview of Analysis Background on Albert Camus Existentialism Discuss “The Guest”

2. Homework • Read “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor (486) & complete a story card • Work on Technique Analysis topic selection • Continue reviewing Short Story unit – the end is in sight 

3. Short Story Technique Analysis Paper • Select an interpretive short story from the unit as the focus for your analysis. • Identify a question from the AP open question list you feel best relates to your story. • Write an analytical article using relevant textual examples to answer the selected question. • Formal tone, scholarly style, MLA citations • Suggested length: 3-4 pages

4. Analysis • Link to analysis ppt

5. Albert Camus (1913-1960) • Raised in Algeria by semi-proletarian parents • Interest in philosophy (majored in it in college, intended to teach), revolution • Moved to France @ 25 after writing essay on state of Muslims in Algeria & losing his job

6. Joined resistance movement during Nazi occupation of France • Columnist for underground newspaper Combat after liberation • Developed concept of the absurd: “human life is rendered ultimately meaningless by the fact of death and that the individual cannot make rational sense of his experience” • 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature • 1960 died in car wreck

7. “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942) • Expounds Camus's notion of the absurd and of its acceptance with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction".

8. The Stranger (1942) • A young Algerian, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing an Arabian man. The trial's proceedings are absurd so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous and inevitable. • Fun Fact: The Cure’s song, “Killing an Arab” is based on this novel.

9. The Plague (1947) • The plague's takeover of Oran, the port city in northern Algeria where the story is set, is an allegory for the spread of fascism .

10. In his own words: • “More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.” • “In a universe suddenly divested of illusion and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land.”

11. Existentialism • 1st used as term by Søren Kierkegaard • Explicitly adopted as a self-description by Jean-Paul Sartre • Influenced Albert Camus, although they broke in the 1940’s • Existentialism attempts to describe our desire to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. • Unfortunately, life might be without inherent meaning (existential atheists) or it might be without a meaning we can understand (existential theists). • human desires for logic and immortality are futile • The Individual Defines Everything.

12. More on Existentialism • Emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and choice. • Existence precedes essence. By this, existentialism states that man exists and in that existence man defines himself and the world in his own subjectivity, and wanders between choice, freedom, and existential angst • We choose, and in choosing (in good or bad faith) we define ourselves. Choice is a definition of an existence in the world, towards an object outside of itself. • Angst results from doubting our acts • Without clear moral indicators, doubt is inevitable Socrates Sartre Sinatra

13. People associated with Existentialism • Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber in Germany • Nineteenth century philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, came to be seen as precursors of the movement • In literature: Dostoevsky, Ibsen, and Kafka , Jean Genet, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco • In art: Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman were understood in existential terms

14. Works Cited • http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-bio.html • http://www.levity.com/corduroy/camus.htm • http://www.mindpleasures.com/Quotes/Philosophy/Camus/Camus5.shtml • http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~pwillen1/lit/indexa.htm • http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/ • http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/ • http://www.thecry.com/existentialism/ • http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Albert-Camus/dp/0679720200 • http://www.bookrags.com/notes/pla/ • http://batr.org/solitary/102203.html