Camus’ Absurdity and Psychoanalysis: A Return to “The Stranger” upon Reading Haber’s “Intimate Strangers”

Abstract

I begin with a not so empathic inquiry into Camus’ fictional character Mersault, examining the extent to which I think it is primarily the character’s Absurdist (and therefore amoral) philosophy that moves him to take another man’s life, or whether Mersault’s actions could also be understood in terms of a history of personal trauma and loss even though not spelled out in the novel itself. I then discuss the paper “Intimate Strangers” (published in this issue of the journal), the reading of which is what sent me back in 2019 to reconsider the 1942 Camus novel. I end with some thoughts about the relationship between Kohut’s theory and Absurdist philosophy plus some general musings about psychoanalysis, Camus and Mersault.

Keywords:

• mortality
• absurdity
• meaninglessness
• love
• ideals

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Judith Guss Teicholz

Judith Guss Teicholz, Ed.D., was on the clinical faculty of Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1977 to 1999 and on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis from 1992 to 2017. She is the author of Kohut Loewald & the Postmoderns as well as dozens of articles on diverse psychoanalytic topics.