Nostalgia Forever

Albert Camus was born in Mondovi,Algeria.As a French born in Algeria,Camus began to receive French education when he was young,but his growing up in Algeria made Camus sentimentally attached to this land of North Africa.At the same time,Camus lived in constant wars in the 20 th century,experienced two world wars and witnessed the increasingly fierce conflict between the French colonial government and the independent forces of Algeria.Camus is extremely painful in this irreconcilable hatred and dispute between his home country and his hometown.On the surface,Camus’ s complex cultural identity leads to an identity crisis of not knowing who I am.In fact,as a humanitarian writer with a great sense of responsibility,Camus is trying to explore the spiritual antidote to cure the western world in the 20 th century.In this exploration,Camus took the peaceful "French Algeria" as the starting point and pursued the "beautiful home" with the ancient Greek civilization as the core.However,this search for a sense of belonging is not stable.At the same time,the background of frequent wars at that time hindered the realization of this utopia.Therefore,Camus can only wander in the modern city and North Africa with nostalgia for his spiritual home.The paper is divided into three chapters.The first chapter is "alienation-the exile in modern society".Combined with many works,this chapter points out Camus’ s aversion to modern cities through the analysis of Camus’ s modern cities.Among them,The Notes of Camus focus on Camus’ s bitter satire on the bleak city of Paris;the La Peste shows Camus’ s aversion to Oran,which lacks natural scenery;and Amsterdam in La Chute is the bottom of hell full of human atrocities.Camus’ portrayal of modern urban agglomeration full of negative emotions reflects his rejection of the modern value system,including religious values,moral values and so on.In the process of resisting the erosion of modern civilization,Camus changed from a spiritual fighter in the original L’étranger to a tired artist in Jonas ou l’artiste au travail.It was the dissatisfaction with modern civilization that pushed Camus to the search for his own national cultural identity,so Camus turned his attention to the place of growth and became the Le premier homme to set foot on the land of Algeria to find the past Jacques.The second chapter,"seeking-embarking on the Journey to search for Roots",mainly focuses on the novel Le premier homme and the prose in Les Noces,and expounds Camus’ s exploration of the national and cultural identity of himself and the "Pieds noirs" group.The first section discusses the efforts made by Jacques,the incarnation of Camus,to find his own national identity in the Le premier homme.Jacques tries to piece together a "complete father" through memory fragments.Behind the search for his father,Camus hides Camus’ s construction of his French citizen and Algerian national identity.The second section discusses the cultural attribution of Camus in spirit.Although Camus has dual identity with France and Algeria,they have different weights in Camus’ s heart.For Camus,France corresponds more to modern civilization,while Algeria is connected to ancient times,and he has deeper feelings for some of the ancient cultures represented by Algeria.Furthermore,Camus’ s feelings for ancient times are consistent with his yearning for the ancient world represented by the ancient Greek civilization.The third chapter,"hesitation-everlasting homesickness",analyzes Camus’ s identity of "Algerian nation" and the instability of "Southern thought" based on ancient Greek culture.First,the identity of the "Algerian nation" was shattered under the volatile political situation and the national hatred caused by the colonial policy.Secondly,the attack on political issues made Camus understand that the ancient Greek spiritual civilization home he sought for mankind can only become a beautiful utopian ideal.The third section discusses the metaphysical sadness behind Camus’ s national cultural identity.in the pursuit of the value system,Camus and his predecessor Nietzsche always have the nostalgia of pursuing the "road home".