Viva La Resistance!

Le Royal, me and the New Jersey now New York favorite hoes of mine.


So things finally exploded between my roommate Jess and I. I just lost it. I havent had a violent rage fit in about 3 years, and now its just all started all over again. I was punching doors and walls, Hulk tossed a chair. And now I just feel it, I feel this rage bubbling up in me over and over again, where I dont want to stop. Theirs this heat you feel before your about to knock someone out, this just like warm wave and then you get really light headed, its like some kind of drug.

Its fightening that I know I could really hurt someone, I need to find a way to control this deep heat in me. Thus Ive totally stoped talking to Jess all together, because I fear not just for her but for myself.

Im basically all done with school and it feels awesome. As soon as I handed in my last paper I went to the woodshop and worked up a storm plaster casting and cutting out of this obnoxious mustard yellow plexi glass a victorian style shaped frame, its bangin.

I also finished this AMAZING ply wood silk screened Jesus mess I did and its fucking awesome, pictures soon.

So I leave for Norway in 6 days! FUCK!

Im also in the process of figuring out where this package went. Alumni sent me a bunch of stuff to model for them but its lost in the system somewhere and it sucks. So Im fustrated and bummed.

And now my epic paper on how Albert Camus writing for the French Resistance paper "Combat" helped shape his philosophy of existentialism and all his writings there after...hehe. Learn something :]



Scarlett Dancer
WC II

Camus and the Fight for the Absurd


In 1940 Germany defeated France and held it under its thumb. The country of France was then divided into two parts, this was done physically and metaphorically. I say this because yes their was the north and the west but their was also the fallen and the radicals. Due to the time period the newspaper was an all known propaganda machine and because of Germanys watchful eye the voice of freedom of speech was silenced. Thus the revolution of the radicals became a war not of guns and bombs but of words. Secret underground news papers were created to inform readers of the true happenings within the country and other important necessary information which the newspaper was originally used for.

This all brings me to the brave writers who took the chance and still gave a word to the people. Albert Camus was a famous existential writer of this time and took part in a series of underground resistance papers. Though most famous for his books such as "The Stranger" and "The Myth of Sisyphus" the influence of his writing during this time period in these papers is far more effective to the heart of his war wearier readers. We will examine his writings in Combat during WWII and how his writings their would affect his existential works for the rest of his life.

Existentialism itself is a philosophical belief said to have been started by Kierkegaard and Pascal in the early nineteenth century but was truly popularized by Camus, Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Berauvoir. The belief behind existentialism is that we live in a world of the absurd, a Godless universe. Due to the lack of a transcendent force it is left to man to make his own choices and is responsible. This in turn means that we as individuals create the purpose for our lives, thus throwing away thoughts of fate and destiny because we are to determine those paths on our own. Such terms as the absurd, hopelessness is meaninglessness and nothingness are all important fundamentals to the ideals of existential thinking.

Albert Camus was born in Mondovi Algeria and lived in Algeria most of his life. It would not be till 1938 he would move to France to pursue more writing. In Algeria he was raised by his mother, a cleaning woman who suffered from being not only illiterate but partially blind, had a speech impairment due to a stroke and was partially deaf. Before Albert could turn one his father a agricultural laborer died of infected wounds in the nineteen fourteen Battle of Marne.

"In 1923 Camus won a scholarship to Lycce in Algiers where he would study from 1924 to 1932. Later he got his diploma in Philosophy from the University of Algiers in 1936." ( Todd 54) Soon after his time in school he already had a well known reputation for being a leading writer in Algeria and his reputation was still growing. It was around this time he moved to France and divorced his wife Simone who was a morphine addict. While living in France from 1938 to 1940 he worked for the Alger-REpublican reviewing books by Sartre and other various authors. In 1940 he remarried to a mathematician and pianist Francine Faure and then wrote for Paris-Soir.

This brings us to 1943 where during WWII Camus was a member of the French resistance. Sartre brought Camus into the fold and became an editor for the resistance paper Combat. In 1947 Camus resigned from Combat and published his third novel.

Combat was founded in 1942 for the underground intelligence and sabotage. "Camus carried false papers for traveling in occupied territory and adopted the false identity 'Beauchard'."( Issac 200) He also added in the resistance by smuggling news of the war to the Parisian public through copies of Combat. Camus writings in Combat often called for action in accordance to strong moral principals and it was during this period of his life that he formalized his philosophy: " that no matter how inexplicable existence might be, human life remains sacred. "( Camus, Cruickshank 304) During the occupation in France the paper was printed in Lyon, and then moved to Paris after the Liberation in the summer of 1944. The first Paris edition editorial was written by Camus.

"The Blood of Freedom" is one of the many articles written by Camus in Combat and was the first to be written when the paper moved to Paris. In it Camus explains to readers the importance of action and revolution. This is an excerpt of the article,

"We know this fight too well, we are too involved through our flesh and our hearts to accept this dreadful condition without bitterness. But we also know too well what is at stake to refuse the difficult fate that we must endure alone.
Time will bear witness to the fact that the men of France did not want to kill and that their hands were clean when they entered a war they had not chosen. Their reasons must then have been overwhelming for them suddenly to seize the guns and shoot steadily, in the night, at those soldiers who for two years thought that war was easy.
Yes, their reasons were overwhelming. They are as big as hope and as deep as revolt. " (Camus)

Camus uses ideals of existentialism through this part of the article. His constant reiterations of such things as "we must endure alone", "men of France did not want to" , Their reasons must then have been overwhelming", all are well related to ideals of existentialism. The fact that he talks about the loneliness of man and the choices men have to man in order to sustain life and not leaving things to chance. That these men chose their paths instead of just being drafted and forced to defend their country.

He then later in the article state that,

"And this is why, despite men's suffering, despite the blood and wrath, despite the dead who can never be replaced, the unjust wounds, and the wild bullets, we must utter, not words of regret, but words of hope, of the dreadful hope of men isolated with their fate." (Camus)

Here he begins to go into the perseverance of the human spirit. That through times of adversity we as people can band together and give each other strength. In these times most of them did not share the ideals and views of the existential nor understand them. But this part of the article brings to light once again the ideals of hope and fate not being of an unearthly presence or of some Godly belief but that of the human hope, in not something unworldly but in other people.

While writing for Combat he published two novels The Stranger and The Myth of Sysiphysus and published his third novel La Peste(The Plague), "an allegory of the Nazi occupation of France. His work at Combat greatly influenced his writing for years as a revolutionary and distaste for authority rule." (Todd 302) He also wrote L'Homme Revolet in 1951 which "explores the theories of humanity's revolt against authority." which was inspired by his earlier works at the resistance paper.

The Stranger was to be taken as one of his best and most well known works and been critically examined by many authors. This book went into the main character Mersaults struggle with society and its standards. The book opens with Mersault about to attend his mothers funeral. while there he does not cry and is given strange looks by other people present at the service. This later would greatly affect him in further chapters of the book when he shoots an Arab man and kills him. During his trial the defense and council constantly brings up the fact that he did not show any emotion towards the death of his mother, making him a social outcast. Thus this out casting became their honest intentions for putting Mersault to death not the fact that he did indeed kill another man. This topic of the absurd of existence and man against authority inspired by his Combat writings now becomes a more then ever present theme in his works.

Soon after he then wrote the Myth of Sysiphysus a book of essays devoted to the absurdity of man and suicide. It is here that he begins to explain these points of the absurd and his philosophy behind it all. Then he beings to answer the question which arises in ones self when coming to these realizations "does this realization of the absurd require suicide" and Camus answers these questions with "No, it requires revolt". Which he then compares to the Myth of Sysiphysus a man cursed to push a rock up a mountain for the rest of his life. Camus explains that we should be happy for Sysiphysus because unlike us he has a reason to live.

We now come to The Plague which was published in 1947 which was soon after he left Combat. The writing is about medical workers trapped in finding a cure that is ravaging the Algerian city of Oran. The book constantly brings up the nature of the human condition and the struggle of man. Using this apocalyptic theme he relates back to the war and also its said that the book was inspired by a plague that ravaged Oran in 18494. The novel is also believed to be in relation to the treatment of the French resistance to Nazi occupation in World War II. Thus making is greatly related to his time spent during the war effort.

And finally the last published book written before he died, The Fall. This book is unlike any book Camus had written before. He tells the story of a man whom witnessed a random woman jumping off a bridge committing suicide. This throws his life into a tail spin and he begins to question all life. This leads him into stumbling into a bar, where he sits next to a man who begins to narrate the rest of the book. This character begins to explore these thoughts of the absurdity of man in all forms of life. Such things as the question of friendship come into place such and man does not appreciate anything until he is dead, "Maybe, after all, it doesn't want it enough? Maybe we dont love life enough? Have you ever noticed that death alone awakens our feelings? How we love the friends who have just left us? How we admire their mouths filled with earth!" ( Camus 126)

It was soon after in 1960 Camus died in a car crash. The funny thing about this accident is the story behind it all. Camus was traveling with a friend back to Paris and wanted to take a train because he didn't like cars and felt unsafe in them. His traveling friend convinced him a car would be the best route to go and soon after they were killed in an accident. This just goes to show that Camus not only created existentialism but died in an existential conundrum, he did not go with her personal choice of the train and went against his personal ideals thus lead to his death.

Thus in conclusion I feel as if Camus works in during the French Revolution greatly affected his works their after and the rest of his life. We can see through looking at these works each of them as an underlying theme of the absurdity of man and the need for revolt and revolution in our ever so meaningless existence.