Acknowledgments My writing of this thesis has smoothly come to an end, and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to following people who have given me generous help and support in the course of writing. 23812
Firstly, my profound gratitude first goes to Associate Prof. Wang Min, my supervisor, for her constant guidance and encouragement in the process of my writing, guiding me through this long-term work step by step with numerous inspiring advices and crucial instructions. Just under her careful and patient guidance, I begin to get a clear idea of the paper and fully frame it out. Without her support and help, the completion of the present thesis is impossible.
I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the teachers who have ever taught me throughout my college years, especially Yuan Bing, my British and American Culture course teacher. Her profound knowledge of western cultures led me into the world of culture, and also inspired me to make efforts in English learning. I am also very grateful to all other teachers of the School of Foreign Languages who gave me direct or indirect help during my study in the college.
I am also grateful to my classmates and roommates for their encouragement, support, comments and wise advice. Last, I wish to devote this paper to my parents for their everlasting dedication that they have shown since I was just a little child.
Abstract
The Outsider or The Stranger (French: L’Étranger) is a novel by Albert Camus published in 1942. Its theme and outlook are often cited as exemplars of Camus's philosophy of the absurdism and existentialism, though Camus personally rejected the latter label
Based on the theory of utilitarianism proposed by Kierkegaard, Søren, the thesis expounds destructive influence of absurdism on humanity by means of case study. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the realistic influence of absurdism in The Outsider. This thesis will focus on four aspects. The first part is a brief introduction of philosophy of absurdism, an important theoretical foundation of the entire thesis. Through analyzing typical absurdism and related main characters in The Outsider, the second part is to explore how absurdism affects human nature and leads to the tragedies of characters. In the third part, the thesis will focus on a reflection on absurdity in the real life. In the final analysis, a conclusion will be drawn about the research subject. In a word, it was absurd moral principle that distorts children's innocent hearts in that time and made them loss much born humanity, such as, imagination, romance, sentiment and benevolence. In reality, absurdism is also prevailing in our values. Many people don’t care about the things around them. Everyone only mind his own business. Therefore, a study of the influence of absurdity upon human nature is also of great realistic significance. Nevertheless, the analyses in this thesis are limited to some aspects, and in-depth analyses need to be explored in further study.
Key Words: Absurdity, humanity, existence, death.