Every man is an island

Boyoun Chung
Nov 4 · 2 min read

Living alone makes me feel as if I am living on my own island. Most of the times I think this island of mine is a sanctuary, but often times it also makes me feel completely isolated from the rest of the world.

When I say isolation, I mean indifference. I feel indifferent because it seems life is too personal to say that anything I do is in common with others’. When I’m alone, sometimes it makes me wonder how much of my subjectivity will be genuinely understood by other people. The deeper I delve into the thought, the hazier it gets. At the end of the darkness, I always think of Meursault.

I first read “The Stranger” by Albert Camus about 10 years ago and reread it almost every fall. To me, Meursault is the most poignant fictional character.

Meursault is a man who speaks truthfully, without regards to what others might think. Towards the end of the story when he is accused of a crime, he shows no regrets nor defends himself.

Sometimes (in fact, quite often) I related myself to Meursault’s character yet it was always hard to explain the resemblance I found in words. Then I found a review of “The Stranger” from way back in 1946 by Nicola Charomonte who interprets Maursault’s indifference in a comprehensive extent.

“… everybody acts as if he knew why things happen to men. As for himself, he[Meursault] does not know either, and that is why he does not defend himself. His only advantage, if any, is that he knows that he does not know anything except the succession of events that was his life. This certainty he cannot betray,” writes Charomonte.

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