When Individuality Becomes a Plight in Richard Wright’s Black Boy and Albert Camus’ The Stranger

Ghada S. Sasa, Malek K. BenLahcene

Abstract


This paper portrays both Richard Wright's and Albert Camus' depiction, within Black Boy and The Outsider, of man's struggle against their biased societies. More precisely, it sheds light on the state of Meursault and Richard as individuals seeking individuality in the face of their rigid social milieu. Making distinctiveness their main purpose, each protagonist approaches it differently. While Meursault alienates himself, neglects his society, defies it, and dies for his belief in honesty as well as the universal absurdity of the society, Richard decides firmly to leave his racist community, attempts to adapt himself to his society, alienates himself, defies all sorts of authority, uses words and stories to empower him, and heads to the North where he believes he can have a full meaning of selfhood.
Key words: Absurdity; Alienation; The individual; Society; Individuality; Honesty; Racism; Oppression; Struggle

Résumé: Cet article décrit la représentation de Richard Wright et Albert Camus, au sein de Black Boy et The Outsider, la lutte des étre humains contre leurs sociétés biaisée. Plus précisément, il considere l'état de Meursault et Richard en tant que des personnes qui cherchent l'individualité dans de leur milieu social rigide. Considéré la spécificité comme leur but principal, chacun des protagonistes l'approche différemment. Pendant que, Meursault s'aliène, néglige sa société, la défie, et meurt pour preserver son honnêteté, Richard décide fermement de quitter sa communauté raciste, s'adapter artificiellement à sa société, s'alièner, défier toutes les sortes de pouvoir, et se diriger vers le Nord où il croit qu'il peut avoir un sens d' individualité.
Mots-clés: Absurdité; L'aliénation; L'individu; La Société; L'individualité; L'honnêteté; Le Racisme; L'oppression; La Lutte

Keywords


Absurdity; Alienation; The individual; Society; Individuality; Honesty; Racism; Oppression; Struggle; Absurdité; L'aliénation; L'individu; La Société; L'individualité; L'honnêteté; Le Racisme; L'oppression; La Lutte

Full Text:

PDF

References


Becknell, T. (1989). Black Boy. Masterplots II: Nonfiction Series. Literary Reference Center 1-4. Retrieved April 7th, 2011, from EBSCO.

Bluefarb, S. (1972). The Escape Motif in the American Novel: Mark Twain to Richard Wright. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Camus, A. (1979). The Outsider. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Cappetti, C. (1993). Sociology of an Existence. In H.L. Gates and K. A. Appiah (Eds.), Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1995). The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Penguin Group.

Ellison, R. (2009). Richard Wright’s Blues: Shadow and Act. In H. Bloom and B. Hobby (Eds.), Literary Themes: Alienation. Philadelphia: Bloom's Literary Criticism.

Hakutani, Y. (2006). Creation of the self in Richard Wright's Black Boy. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Harold Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretation: Richard Wright's Black Boy. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers.

Kellman, S. G. (2009). The Stranger. Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Literary Reference Center. Retrieved April 7th, 2011, from EBSCO.

Kinammin, K. (1995). Call and Response: Intertexuality in two Autobiographical Works by Richard Wright and Maya Angelou. In A. Rampersad (Ed.), Richard Wright: a Collection of Critical Essays. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

King, A. (1980). L' étranger. London: Longman.

McCall, D. (2006). An American Life. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Harold Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretation: Richard Wright's Black Boy. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers.

Mihe, I. M. (2009). Literary Movements for Students. Gale: Cengage Learning.

Ronston, M. (2001). The Search for Selfhood in Modern Literature. NewYork: Polgrav.

Sartre, J.P. (1957). Existentialism and Human Emotions. NewYork: Philosophical Library.

Sherman, D. (2009). Camus. Oxford: Wiley- Blackwell.

Solomon, R. C. (1974). Existentialism. New York: The Modern Library.

Spanos, W. V. (1976). Existentialism 2: A casebook. New York: Harper & Row.

Sprintzen, D. (1998, July). A Tragic Vision for a New Millenium: The Contemporary Relevance of Albert Camus. Paper presented at Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Boston.

Tardon, R. (1993). Richard Wright Tells Us: the White Problem in the United States. In K. Kinnamon and M. Fabr (Eds.), Conversations with Richard Wright. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Tate, C. C. (2006). Black Boy: Richard's Wright Tragic Sense of Life. In H. Bloom (Ed.), Harold Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretation: Richard Wright's Black Boy. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers.

Tuhkanam, M. (2009). The American Optic: Psychoanalysis, Critical Race Theory, and Richard Wright. New York: State University of New York Press.

Wahl, J. (1949). A Short History of Existentialism. New York: Philosophical Library.

Wolfrey, J., Robbins, R., & Womack, K. (2006). Key Concepts in Literary Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Wright, R. (1945). Black Boy. NewYork: Harper & Row.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/j.css.1923669720110703.005

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c)



Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

  • Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/css/submission/wizard

  • Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.
  • We only use four mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net; ccc@cscanada.net; ccc@cscanada.org

 Articles published in Canadian Social Science are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

 

Canadian Social Science Editorial Office

Address: 1020 Bouvier Street, Suite 400, Quebec City, Quebec, G2K 0K9, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail:caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net

Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture