A Nietzschean Reading of The Stranger Madeline Burleson College

The philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus confront the meaninglessness of existence in unique fashions. Nietzsche’s The Gay Science utilizes short paragraphs discussing particular existentialist themes such as the death of god and the upending of all values, while Camus’s The Stranger is a fictional narrative. As a result, Nietzsche’s philosophy may be used to build on central notions within The Stranger, to better understand the individual’s response to nihilism. In this paper, I will first lay out Nietzsche’s existentialist philosophy in which he argues that through a process of forgetting, one may abandon meaningless moral promises and turn away from the herd mentality in pursuit of life on earth worth eternally repeating. Next, I will introduce Camus’s work The Stranger, and highlight its existentialist themes.I will then argue that Nietzsche’s philosophy may be used as a roadmap to analyze the evolution of Meursault’s character in The Stranger and his struggle to embrace with the absurdity of life.

Perhaps the most critical notion found within Nietzsche’s philosophy is his argument for the meaninglessness of life. In true existentialist fashion, Nietzsche argues that God is dead and with his death comes the...