Like a Stone

A happy death and the search for knowledge

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8856499
AutoresAndrew Gibbons (0000-0002-0847-5639, Auckland University of Technology, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen45
Número11
Páginas1092-1103
Fecha de publicación2013-03-12
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEducational Philosophy and Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-1857 • E-ISSN: 1469-5812
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00131857.2013.772703
OpenAlexW2078876842
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas14

This article explores the story of ‘the other Mersault’ whose narrative is published in the posthumous and arguably incomplete work A happy death. That this work is incomplete and that it appears (particularly through a reading of Camus’ notebooks) to be a precursor to The outsider, has arguably limited scholarly analysis of its character and plot. However, the themes that are explored in A happy death are significant in their distinction to those themes that are experienced by the other, younger, Meursault. In A happy death the world must be conquered by the will of a young man to find his happiness. He is not an outsider, and he is not content with his lot. Given an opportunity to address this latter concern, he acts upon his life in a search for happiness and in so doing engages in an ultimately frustrating, yet in some way enlightening, quest. In this article Mersault’s search for happiness is plotted in relation to his thinking about time, childhood, happiness and death. His journey is considered in relation to other stories of the search for some greater human condition. It is argued that his will to be happy reveals the absurdity of searching or not searching. This absurdity is considered in relation to the nature and purpose of school in the sense that such a relation to the search for knowledge might free school from its disciplinary tasks ... and frees the learner, the child, the teacher, from the violence of having to want to know

Absurdity · Aesthetics · Art · Character (mathematics · Epistemology · Happiness · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Reading (process · Relation (database · Sociology · Critical and Liberation Pedagogy · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology · Social Psychology