Societal Power and How It Affects You!

     I thought about this question. The question "Do I have power?". Do I need power? I mean, regardless of my life's actions, we all end up dying anyway. So might as well lean back. Might as well take the easy path.

...Wait. You're telling me that I don't have any say in my future? ...oh well. Right? Er. Well, hmm.


Anyway, in Albert Camus' novel, the protagonist Meusault is helpless to the tides of societal power. He is so passive, so not aggressive that the days fly by for him, he "accidentally" kills a guy and even tells a woman that he will marry her because "why not?". He goes to the beach and gets a girlfriend, goes to a comedy movie with her all the day after his mother dying. He didn't cry at her funeral, accepted coffee on her grave and in essence, is strange. Stranger than the rest of society. And that is purely why he has no power in the system, because everyone looks down on him, seeing the worst in themselves in him, and shunning him for it.

Camus wrote the other article on the Sisyphus and the absurd hero. How the absurd hero is aware of problems inherent in the system, but rather than changing them or fighting one way or the other, an absurd hero just steps back. Observes. Meusault is an absurd hero. He knows what's up in society and disregards it, choosing to take his own path instead of following blindly. However, he doesn't step far enough back, and his inaction is what gets him in trouble. Not just in the trial, where his morals are brought onto the stage as improper character evidence, but in his shooting of the Arab, where his inaction, his inability to tell himself to go back to the house, ended with a death.

Meursault, in his infinite indifference, his absence of action and his passive performance are perceived negatively by society, and his process of stepping back causes society to end up controlling his ultimate fate. Mersault tries, oh does he try to have power over himself, but to no avail. Oh well.

Invisible man with Invisible power

     An invisible man only has as much power as he is, and how he thinks of himself. I say this because throughout this novel, the eponymous narrator struggles with his invisibility, seeking power in it. When he is not invisible, however, he becomes part of an oppressive collective of people, losing his power.

    The college and the Brotherhood were the two main places in which the narrator strives to be visible, to be recognized as an individual, recognized as a person. However, in both cases, the exact opposite occurs, leaving the narrator used and abuse. The group attempted to assimilate him, but to no avail. As much as the narrator wished to be a part of the group, he never could allow his identity to be crushed.

   But when the narrator is left to his, own devices, he had the power to move crowds, to stop fights. Most easily demonstrated in his curbside speech, where he essentially controls the crowd, captivating them when he wishes, yet allowing them to do what they want when he wants them to. This leads to the run in with the brotherhood, etc.

   The invisible man's power is there, it always was. What stopped him was himself, and to an, extent, the corporations and groups controlling him. No, he needed to be alone to vinyl his fate.