Tolstoy VS Camus - Essay Example

?Confessions & L'Exil et le Royaume "Our vocation in life as is to teach humanity. People of our statue do not adhere religious doctrine or any doctrine of self improvement which is the start of my futility of my despair" (26 years of age). Tolstoy and priests were teachers. He "realized faith was a fraud and most writers were frauds". Those who taught did not know the difference between good and "evil". He compared it to an insane asylum. They were judged by how much they wrote as this was the gauge of culture. Faith was expressed in progress and perfection (p7) There was no attempt in finding the love of life as all was hidden behind the desire to improve one's standing and position. The materialistic aspect of life was the most important. Worst for all, the intellectual circle considered themselves the profound teachers of humanity and were grouped with priest in which neither knew what or how to teach. He decided to teach one year in a country school to be able to experience the real life of the peasant class. This is a common theme with Camus. At 50 years old, Tolstoy had a emotional breakdown. His literary genius was such that we should use the word as a breakthrough as the whole 57 pages are contributed to a monologue to the meaning of life and to his finding of his truth. "The Truth was that life is meaningless." Tolstoy's quest for spiritual peace went from emotional self doubting returning to intellectual reasoning then returning back to the emotional understanding that the "search for God had no reasoning, as it was a feeling. "Search proceeded not from the course of my thought..but proceeded from the heart." This religious journey was far more intricate than the comparison of the love a child has towards his mother and the betrayal that happens at a certain age when he realizes that his mother is a person. Tolstoy just didn't have the common lapse in faith upon realizing that life was absurd. A Confession was a complete analysis of the journey through these three stages in his life. Tolstoy lived the first 50 years of his life is relative peace , constructing his outer world. At one moment, he realized that ".. [his] life is stupid and spiteful joke someone has played on me. .. someone had played an evil and stupid joke on me by placing me in the world. L'Exil et le Royaume of Albert Camus is a collection of short stories where they are each connected either by common themes or that the main character is on a physical and or a metaphysical journey. As Camus considered religion absurd and a form of suicide, each journey in each story has an antagonist character. The epiphany that accompanies life does not come from reason, as reason does not exist. Tolstoy claims that reason did not exist in explaining the purpose of life. Each story represent a conflict between man and nature. Tolstoy's was a learned man. He realized that his ignorance of science was no longer a love of knowledge, but a betrayal in the analysis of finding the utility of life which had become life threatening to his existence. He did not have the knowledge to analyze the reason for life. He no longer used the religious doctrine since he had started studying philosophy as a young boy. This religious doctrine was called faith. This faith no longer worked for him. This betrayal had to be replaced. He looked towards the sciences Camus was also in a similar turmoil. Each story is a journey where the antagonist becomes empowered or empowers a group of people. He considered religion absurd without reason and reason cannot be used to analyse religion. In the "The Rock which Grows", D'Arrast, the priest takes the rock to the sacred shack of the people and not to the Church. The similar themes are church doctrine, betrayal of that doctrine, and acquisition of a new knowledge. Tolstoy proves that sciences cannot prove life's existence and returns as D'Arrast to the faith of the working class (people). In beginning his analysis of science, Tolstoy goes through several steps. Human knowledge is divided into two poles or direct opposites: the experimental sciences and the abstract sciences. The Experimental Sciences are governed by consequential laws thus leading to perfection. "There is no law of endless development, there is only law leading to infinite space" "The less the applicability to the question of life, the more exact and clear they are, while the more they try to reply to the question of life, the more obscure and unattractive they become." It answers only specific questions but does not look at the whole picture. Abstract Science: "all humanity lives and develops on the basis of ultimate casual effect of spiritual principles and ideals which guide it." He was not too convinced. Only the questions can be stated according to philosophical reasoning. Good questions do not give the right answers. He felt betrayed by his not being able to find the reason for life in science, he started to look among the people of his entourage. He still had an incredible desire to commit suicide. Four types of people at his social level, those who ignore that life is evil and an absurdity. The second are those who realize life is hopelessness but decide to make the best of it. The third who understand that life is a stupid joke take things into their own hands and terminate the situation. The last category which represents Tolstoy, know that life is a contradiction. Death is the answer but it is contrary to rational or religious belief. When he compared these categories to the working class, he found that none of them were acceptable. The peasants accepted their fate. "It appeared that reasonable knowledge does not give the meaning of life". "It denies the meaning of life." The human race survives on the irrational which is another word for faith. Rational knowledge gives a different perception of life than does irrational knowledge. Tolstoy claims that in order to understand that life is not evil, one must give up reasoning. He was not prepared to do so and suddenly goes off on a tangent which possibly solves the puzzle. Irrational knowledge is faith which answers the question of the meaning of life beyond time..." Rational knowledge cannot answer the question of the meaning of life within time...." These two revelations add another concept into the puzzle that finite can answer with infinite responses. Another way of saying that there is faith. He was not talking about organized religion of the elite which Tolstoy detested. He returned to the source. For two years, he lived with those who lived within religion. "I came to love good people" Real life is the life of the masses. "Search for God was a feeling and not a reasoning." It came from the heart. Look at the various characters of l'Exil et le royaume? Who were the most at peace: those of the lower classes who had accepted their fate. The lack of satisfaction with life was present in each story. The feeling of solitude was omnipresent. In the Adulteress Woman,"she felt so alone". In the Guest, Camus shows us how Daru thought he was giving the Arab an opportunity to chose between prison or freedom. He was utterly surprised to see he chose prison. Daru naively thought that the Arab would have been free in Algeria after having killed a man under French occupation. Seeing written on the blackboard "You gave up our brother, you will pay for it" had a metamorphic sense. France would pay dearly for the war in Algeria or would Daru pay for thinking he was acting out of religious kindness. The last line in the story "In this wide country, that he loved so much, he was alone. It continues as though each story is a different element of dissatisfaction of one's' life. The silence of being alone at death is an agony that Tolstoy was trying to figure out. "I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life," he said. "Death comes to us all and my writings will be forgotten and I will cease to exist. The value of life as we currently saw it was futile and a deception. He was terrorized of this deception of darkness that current life presented that death represented a body in a tomb. Camus' Yvars," Men find what they want in terms of their physical beauty" He no longer looks at the sea as it represents death which approaches. Read More