Assign Short Story Technique Analysis Paper
Overview of Analysis
Background on Albert Camus
Existentialism
Discuss “The Guest”
Homework
 Read “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor (486) &
complete a story card
 Work on Technique Analysis topic selection
 Continue reviewing Short Story unit – the end is in
sight 
Short Story Technique Analysis
Paper
 Select an interpretive short story from the unit as the
focus for your analysis.
 Identify a question from the AP open question list you
feel best relates to your story.
 Write an analytical article using relevant textual
examples to answer the selected question.
 Formal tone, scholarly style, MLA citations
 Suggested length: 3-4 pages
Analysis
 Link to analysis ppt
Albert Camus (1913-1960)
 Raised in Algeria by semi-
proletarian parents
 Interest in philosophy
(majored in it in college,
intended to teach), revolution
 Moved to France @ 25 after
writing essay on state of
Muslims in Algeria & losing
his job
 Joined resistance movement




during Nazi occupation of
France
Columnist for underground
newspaper Combat after
liberation
Developed concept of the
absurd: “human life is
rendered ultimately
meaningless by the fact of
death and that the individual
cannot make rational sense of
his experience”
1957 Nobel Prize for Literature
1960 died in car wreck
“The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942)
 Expounds Camus's notion of
the absurd and of its
acceptance with "the total
absence of hope, which has
nothing to do with despair, a
continual refusal, which must
not be confused with
renouncement - and a
conscious dissatisfaction".
The Stranger (1942)
 A young Algerian, becomes
embroiled in the petty intrigues of
a local pimp and, somewhat
inexplicably, ends up killing an
Arabian man. The trial's
proceedings are absurd so that the
eventual sentence the jury issues is
both ridiculous and inevitable.
 Fun Fact: The Cure’s song, “Killing
an Arab” is based on this novel.
The Plague (1947)
 The plague's takeover of Oran,
the port city in northern Algeria
where the story is set, is an
allegory for the spread of
fascism .
In his own words:
 “More and more, when faced with
the world of men, the only reaction
is one of individualism. Man alone
is an end unto himself. Everything
one tries to do for the common
good ends in failure.”
 “In a universe suddenly divested of
illusion and lights, man feels an
alien, a stranger. His exile is without
remedy since he is deprived of the
memory of a lost home or the hope
of a promised land.”
Existentialism
 1st used as term by Søren Kierkegaard
 Explicitly adopted as a self-description by Jean-Paul Sartre
 Influenced Albert Camus, although they broke in the
1940’s
 Existentialism attempts to describe our desire to make
rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe.
 Unfortunately, life might be without inherent meaning
(existential atheists) or it might be without a meaning we
can understand (existential theists).
 human desires for logic and immortality are futile
 The Individual Defines Everything.
More on Existentialism
 Emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and
choice.
 Existence precedes essence. By this, existentialism states
that man exists and in that existence man defines
himself and the world in his own subjectivity, and
wanders between choice, freedom, and existential angst
 We choose, and in choosing (in good or bad faith) we define
ourselves. Choice is a definition of an existence in the world,
towards an object outside of itself.
Socrates
Sartre
 Angst results from doubting our acts

Without clear moral indicators, doubt is inevitable
Sinatra
People associated
with Existentialism
 Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, and Martin Buber in
Germany
 Nineteenth century philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard
and Friedrich Nietzsche, came to be seen as precursors
of the movement
 In literature: Dostoevsky, Ibsen, and Kafka , Jean Genet,
Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco
 In art: Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and
filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman were understood in
existential terms
Works Cited
 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus








bio.html
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/camus.htm
http://www.mindpleasures.com/Quotes/Philosophy/Camus/Camus5.shtml
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/~pwillen1/lit/indexa.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/
http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/
http://www.thecry.com/existentialism/
http://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Albert-Camus/dp/0679720200
http://www.bookrags.com/notes/pla/
http://batr.org/solitary/102203.html