Eco- Anxiety and “The Myth of Apathy” in Albert Camus’s The Stranger (1942)

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of English Language, Faculty of Arts, Delta University for science and technology, Gamasa, Egypt

Abstract

The paper deals with the way man psychologically receives the ecological crisis and its Psychoterratic disorders spotting on eco-anxiety as the most overwhelming. It traces man’s related defensive attitude of apathy that is backed up with an obsession with human mortality and guilt feeling. The paper proposes an interdisciplinary approach based on Freud’s primal horde myth, notions of Deep Ecology and Felix Guattari’s Three Ecologies of mind, society and nature. Its objective is to suggest a therapeutic strategy that pursues the suggested methodology to overcome man’s apathetic attitude and help him to better response to environmental crisis. The paper’s suggested approach is to be applied on Albert Camus’s The Stranger to highlight whether Camus’s protagonists have successfully overcome apathy in light of the varied concepts of potential hope suggested by Freud’s psychoanalysis, Deep Ecology and Guattari’s theory of Three Ecologies.

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