True Self

In the Stanger Mersault becomes what externalists would call true self when he understands the theory that life is meaningless. Everyone is born to die and the death is the only thing that is certain for everybody. When he truly understands this is when Mersault is finally able to be happy he lived his whole life in a struggle to be happy and now that he finally realizes that there is no point to life other than to die he can actually become content with his life!

Walt Whitman Poem Number 3

Walt Whitman Poem Number 3

"I have heard the talk...of the beginning and end,

But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

 

There was never any more inception than there is now,

Nor any more youth or age than there is now;

And will never be any more perfection than there is now,

Now any more heaven or hell than there is now.

 

...Clear and sweet is my soul...and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

 

...Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,

That they turn from gazing after and down the road,

And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,

Exactly the contents of one, and exactly the contents of two, and which is ahead?"

This poem is a string of counterparts. Its filled with paradoxes and opposites. It says one thing but means another. It shows uncertainty, for example it talks about hearing about the beginning and end but never talking of it. I feel like it can be seen as an attempt to show what he is thinking or how feels, but how he is too afraid to actually say what is on his mind.