The critics have long since demonstrated that while Camus was not an existentialist, Sartrian or otherwise, there are nevertheless existential elements in his thought. I am not interested here in assessing how few or how many of his ideas are existential and certainly I have no intention of making of Camus an existentialist in the face of his own express statement to the contrary. Nor am I occupied by the unlikely problem of the possible influence of Sartre on Camus. I should like to show, however, how Sartre's ontology, which evolved simultaneously with the early writings of Camus, can be used to illuminate Camus's major literary works. (p. 124)
Obviously the various characters of Camus do not live and think in a static world or in the same emotional, geographical, chronological world. My point of departure is, therefore, the relationship between being-for-itself and the death of the other since it supplies us with the central idea necessary for a unifying interpretation…. This is not to say that Camus's plays and novels can be reduced to a single concept. Such an oversimplification would deny Camus's literary output one of its most significant aspects, its evolution. Nevertheless when Camus speaks in his essay 'Réflexions sur la guillotine,' a determined and passionate plea for the abolition of capital punishment … we realize that the rupture of … solidarity by the death of the other provides the primary impetus for the action of most of Camus's works. An interpretation of the effects of the death of the other in the light of Sartre's remarks could give added meaning to these already meaningful works.
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