The Research On Camus’s Construction Of Literary Space

As the youngest French Nobel laureate in literature,Camus worked tirelessly in his short creative career,producing many literary works.His novels such as The Outsider and The Plague have earned him worldwide fame.People often label this writer with a complex identity as “Existentialism” or “Absurd Philosophy”,for which he repeatedly declares that he is not a philosopher and opposes critics classifying him into a certain philosophical school.However,despite Camus’ s repeated rejection of the philosopher’s identity,Camus never stopped thinking about the absurd nature of the world,and The Outsider,The Myth of Sisyphus,and Caligula are the carriers he used to reveal the absurd nature of the world.In fact,it is not its ultimate goal to reveal the absurdity and Camus,starting from the absurdity,Camus proposes a way to combat the absurdity,expressing his ultimate pursuit of love and freedom,and this idea is developmental,making his work take on a holistic character.This wholeness also indicates that Camus constructed an organic literary space,specifically,the literary space constructed by Camus presents both the integrity of internal structure and the interaction with the real world.This paper takes Camus’ s novella as the main research object,supplemented by a close reading of Camus’ s independent texts of plays,essays and criticism,and strives to explore the elements of the literary space constructed by Camus under the guidance of “literary space theory”,and restore the many subspaces involved in this literary space.At the same time,with the help of Lefebvre’s “Space Theory” and Said’s “Orientalism”,the interaction between Camus’ s constructed literary space and real space is discussed,and Camus’ s political thought and his design scheme for ideal real space are explored.In addition,this paper combines the theory of narratology to explore the spatial generation path of Camus’ s works.Finally,the aesthetic value and contemporary value of Camus’ s constructed literary space are analyzed.The paper is divided into four chapters.The first chapter sorts out the elements that make up Camus’ s constructed literary space.In his works,Camus uses murder as a vehicle to reveal the absurd nature of the world,and a metaphor for disease as a carrier to fight absurdity.Together,murder and disease constitute the operational elements of Camus’ s constructed literary space.In the literary space constructed by Camus,family affection is an important support for showing the space of the family,and the ocean is given the dual connotation of “Natural Space” and “Trial Space” by Camus.Camus’ s political identity and religious identity influenced his shaping of the characters in his works,and his choice of political identity and religious identity became the political elements of the literary space constructed by Camus.The second chapter examines the relationship between Camus’ s constructed literary space and real space.Camus lived in the shadow of war almost always after three major wars,and he experienced the enormous damage that war caused to mankind,so anti-war became the core of Camus’ s political position.Camus emphasized that the nature of war is absurd,that the outbreak of war means that violence is legitimized,that human society will fall into disorder,and that humanity will enter an era of terror triggered by the spread of violence,in which man loses his core values as human beings: Equality and Freedom.In this regard,Camus advocated the elimination of the harm caused by war violence to mankind by restoring justice and freedom,using reform rather than war as a means of revolution,and building an equal international order.Camus used metaphors for war such as disease and the death penalty in the literary space he constructed,and it should be clear that the politics that Camus focused on were fundamentally different from the politics of politicians,and he always criticized war violence and hegemonism from a humanitarian standpoint,so his literary space and its realpolitik expression showed an escape from the “Politics of Politicians” on the one hand,and the “Politicization” of humanism on the other.Chapter three examines Camus’ s means of constructing literary space.Camus’ s concealment of the narrator inside and outside the story in his works makes the structure of the work appear blank,this gap is the “summoning structure” emphasized by Isel,the existence of this “summoning structure” makes the reader and the narrator in the story,and the distance between the text becomes blurred,and it is this ambiguity that makes it possible for the reader to “Intervene” in the text,so that the distance between the reader and the text becomes dynamic and changeable,and it is in this change that the interaction between the“Formal Space” and the “Space of Existence” of literary works is produced.Corresponding to this is the writer’s concealment and the pseudo-intervention of the narrator set up by Camus in his works,on the one hand,Camus emphasizes that the writer should hide himself in the work,on the other hand,he shows the interaction of different narrative layers in his novels and the intervention of the narrator of the previous narrative level to the next narrative level,and it is in this “Interaction” and “Intervention” that the internal space of literature is generated,and at the same time,Camus’ s literary works also have plot interaction,material sharing,etc.,thus,Camus’ s literary space is thus presented in its entirety.In terms of timing,Camus’ s works present two forms of “Center-Dispersion” and “Reality-memory Reciprocation”,which provide space for Camus to show the theme of his works.Chapter four focuses on the aesthetic and contemporary value of Camus’ s constructed literary space.Camus has expressed his love for theater many times,and he has never stopped pursuing ideal tragedy.Camus’ s exploration of ideal tragedy is not limited to the genre of“Drama”,in fact,he integrates his tragic ideal into the entire process of constructing literary space.Camus emphasized that tragedy arises only when order is in a state of dynamic equilibrium,and in terms of the internal space of literature,this dynamic order is also expressed in his novels,so that Camus’ s exploration of ideal tragedy is expressed in his literary space as a tragic display.In addition to order,Camus’ s literary space presents a sense of the sublime,and in this sense of sublimity,there is a respect for the value of human life.At the same time,Camus’ s political expression through literary space shows its contemporary value in the post-epidemic era,specifically,Camus’ s “Concept of Freedom” has enlightening value for individual action choices,and Camus’ s cosmopolitanism ideals provide ideas for the development of international politics in the post-epidemic era.