Formal response to Albert Camus' The Stranger Essay

Formal response to Albert Camus' The Stranger - Essay Example Meursault’s incapability to find any hope in life gives birth to the meaninglessness of his world. Indeed Camus’ hero does not find any meaning and joy in life, simply because he is an inertia-affected person; and because he cannot muster the quantum of joy and pleasure from life. Meursault’s lack of hope and, at least, his failure to extract it from life evolves from a sense of inevitability and inescapability of the reality of this world. This reality is either the inescapable reality of death or the reality of any ordeal situation. Meursault’s lack of hope and his failure to extract any meaning from life are the consequences of his obsession with inevitability of death. He realizes that since all men will die inevitably, they are all alike. But this realization makes him more passive and inert both mentally and physically. He cannot feel the necessity of a mother as well as a lover. Therefore he does not have any emotional attachment to his mother and also lover Marie. This lack of emotion is vivid in his reaction to his mother death. Even the telegram bearing the message of his mother death is not worthy of much attention. This disinterestedness to his mother’s is revealed in his indifferent description, as he says, â€Å"Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: â€Å"Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow, Faithfully yours† That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.† (Chapter 1, Part 1) Indeed this lack of hope evolves also from Meursault’s incapability to reason. Meursault kills Raymond’s mistress’s brother without thinking of what death means to others. He cannot think of others in his world because he is extremely self-oriented. This self-orientation or self obsession can also be perceived in his sexual activities that are void of any emotion like love. His

China after World War II Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

China after World War II - Essay Example World War II erased the distinction between civil and military resources and saw the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial and scientific capabilities for the purposes of war effort; nearly two-thirds of those killed in the war were civilians. This period was the brunt period for the Chinese people. They agonized misery, separations, and dislocations. There had been fret about food, clothes and about myriad things. No matter the story begins but it has an elated ending. But until it comes, the Chinese had the potential to smile in the face of hardships and to carry on--a spirit that had fostered them through the affliction of the seven years of this war as it sustained them through the catastrophe of the past. The Chinese rose after each calamity, not only unbeaten but also stronger through the discipline of hardships, which, down the centuries, they. China was under the influence of civil war. Across the plains of Manchuria troops of Chiang Kai-shek's central govern ment were combating for supremacy against the military forces of the Chinese Stalinists. With the generous help of American imperialism, Chiang Kai-shek was succeeded in capturing the strategic town of Szepingkai. Next, the Stalinists were expelled from Changchun, the Manchurian capital. Chiang's forces were being deployed for the stabbing of Harbin, the last important Manchurian urban center in Stalinist hands. The Stalinists had endowed all these cities when they swept into Manchuria from North China in the wake of withdrawing Soviet troops. Despite the detriment of the predominant cities, Stalinists had corporeal dominant of Manchuria and retained at least three-quarters of this vast area with its 30 million population. Chiang's control scarcely extended beyond the railroad zones. This was the picture in Manchuria, north of the Great Wall. Meanwhile, fighting between Chiang's troops and Stalinist forces was also under way in the extra-mural province of Jehol, which the Stalinists took over by disarming Japanese forces at the time of Japan's surrender. There were half-a-dozen fighting fronts around; the great northern metropolis of Peeping and Tientsin. There had been battles in the neighboring seaboard province of Shantung. Sporadic skirmishing had been taking place in the central China domains of Kiangsu, Chekiang, Anhwei and Hupeh. This is an old struggle, which has been going on with different degrees of intensity for 18 years. The Stalinists had corroborated a double power in the inner region of China and had mobilized a great number of the peasantry to their flag. This amplification and broadening of the conflicts resulted into the imperialist war. In the early stages of the Sino-Japanese war the big coastal cities were lost to Japan after bombs and artillery fire had granulated their industries. This was a meticulous clout to the working class. At the end of 1937, after Shanghai had been withdrawn by Chinese troops, the number of factory workers in that city dropped by 90 per cent - from 300,000 to 30,000. The extent of economic restitution emerged under the Japanese occupation results into the drastic increase in the number of industrial workers and the number of industrial workers had risen to about 250,000. But from then on, as the China coast pointed to American encirclement, industry was short off the raw materials and foreign markets, power output was decreased, and the internal market dwindle hastily. The manpower of the industrial labor was again declined greatly. Shanghai was China's