Why do we Fall?

        "As for the dog, he's sort of taken on his master's stooped look, muzzle down, neck straining. They look as if they belong to the same species, and yet they hate each other. Twice a day, at eleven and six, the old man takes the dog out for a walk. They haven't changed their routine in eight years. You can see them in the rue de Lyon, the dog pulling the man along until Salamano stumbles. Then he beats the dog and swears at it. The dog cowers and trails behind. Then it's the old man who pulls the dog. Once the dog has forgotten, it starts dragging its master along again, and again gets beaten and sworn at. Then they both stand there on the sidewalk and stare at each other, the dog in terror the man in hatred. It's the same thing every day." (page. 27)

        Existential philosophies sought to build one's character throughout individual experiences. In Camus's The Myth of the Sisyphus man's pointless search for meaning or explanations and the absurdity this brought upon mankind were exposed. Like Sisyphus going up a hill with his boulder and never succeeding at it, Camus argues men repeat meaningless and absurd tasks because in the end these tasks satisfy people. Similarly to Sisyphus, Meursault's neighbor Salamano, has been attached to a futile relationship with his dog. He hates him, but that is part of his life. It has an incomprehensible meaning to Salamano. The "stinking bastard" was essential for Salamano's sanity: "They're not going to take him away from me, are they, Monsieur Meursault? They'll give him back to me. Otherwise, what's going to happen to me?" (page 39).

        "He told me that he'd done what he wanted to do but that she'd slapped him and so he'd beaten her up. I' seen the rest. I told him it seemed to me that she'd gotten her punishment now and he ought to be happy. He thought so too, and he pointed out that the cop could do anything he wanted, it wouldn't change the fact that she'd gotten her beating. He added that he knew all about cops and how to handle them. Then he asked me if I'd expect him to hit the cop back. I said I wasn't expecting anything, and besides I didn't like cops." (page. 37)

        Meursault reserves judgement from Raymond's immoralities and is careless about what he does. He helped Raymond for no reason at all by writing the letter, but he expects nothing of this. He rather concentrates on whatever happens to him and not others. Meursault has no standards of himself or others and rather simply does what he feels he should do. This is a very existential behavior since his "essence" or who he is is only affected by his own experiences. His mother's death did not affect him much, what he saw around his home either, but his encounters with other women did. Meursault is being defined as who he is as he progressively lives new encounters, experiences and events, but his in unaffected by others lives.

The Blunt Intermediate

 "This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcen- dent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.

But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust…" (p.23)

In F. Scott Fiztgerald's The Great Gatsby the color gray symbolizes the ethical, moral, social and even economic deterioration in America. All the ashes and residues from the wealthy industry have come to rest upon the Valley of Ashes making it gray. People selfishly sought great wealth and were careless about the repercussions of their ambitions and the poor ended up covered by their wastes. In the Valley of Ashes even people look gray and are covered by gray dust: most of them poor. There was nothing worthwhile in the Valley of Ashes all along the novel. Just lust, death, loneliness and as its color suggest's, darkness. Two characters are presented to live in this dark area and both of them ended up losing everything. Myrtle Wilson was killed in the valley after she tried to walk away from her husband because he discovered she was unfaithful and he committed suicide after killing his wife's supposed killer. The desolate, gray valley was unremembered by everyone because they found no interest (money) in it, just darkness.