Within Temptations Empty Eyes, sung by Sharon den Adel, describes the existentialist search by a woman for meaning after a particularly bad event has befallen her at the hands of someone, it is implied, she cared deeply for. While the initial event that caused the feelings of confusion and betrayal are never mentioned, it is obvious that they hurt deeply and have caused a permanent rift between Sharon and the subject of the song, who also remains unnamed. Sharon’s anxiety at suddenly being thrown into a world where nothing makes sense anymore is a nice counter-point to Camus’s existentialist characters in The Stranger.
When the Recipient committed the act or acts that caused this feeling of betrayal, it caused Sharon to reconsider her relationship with the recipient, now she feels that the recipient’s presence is only harming her. This evident from the first lines of the song, “Determined by your faith, you attempt to make up, You lay out your case like the enemy, but all that you got through your dirty white lies, You’ll find the damn correct way to blame me for your crimes”. It appears that the recipient of the song felt compelled to try to mend the relationship, but instead of facing the problem instead chose to foist the blame onto their partner. That they are harmful is almost stated outright in the third stanza, “You’re like a ghost within me, Who’s draining my life”, the last two words, “my life” have great emotion placed in them, drawing attention to them, and reinforcing Sharon’s plight. While both Meursault and the Recipient were obviously the wrong match for their partners, Meursault was never outright malicious, he just didn’t care. “A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything, but I didn’t think so” While Meursault is very blunt and to the point, he doesn’t mean to hurt Marie, he just doesn’t care as long as he can get physical pleasure from her. There is another character relationship that clearly is a mirror of the type depicted in the song. Raymond’s relationship with his girlfriend is not a pleasant one, characterized by beatings and mistrust on both sides. And while the relationship is viewed through the eyes of a character who has only a passing interest in the strife, and genuinely does not care, or endeavor to find out more, this song could very well be said to be from the point of Raymond’s mistress. A girl, in love, broken and betrayed, who now searches for meaning behind the acts that have been committed against her.
Throughout the song, the pursuit of meaning features heavily. This comes to head in the chorus, which is repeated three times throughout the song. “I don’t know where I’m going, in search for answers, I don’t know who I’m fighting, I stand with empty eyes”, while she wants, she needs, to find the answers to the questions that have been plaguing her; she knows not where to start. The discovery of the web of lies and deceit around her have left her confused and reeling. Great emphasis is placed, on the last line, “I stand with Empty Eyes”, which is echoed numerous times throughout the song. Eye’s that no longer can see could be referencing Sharon’s blindness to the impending event, or more likely, it represents her fruitless search for meaning to what has happened. She cannot see what she is searching for, or even how to search for it. While Meursault does not spend much time in contemplation while he is living his normal life, he spends much of the second act alone with his thoughts in his cell. Unlike Sharon in the song, his search bears fruit, at least for him. His realizations lead to his belief that it truly does not matter when he dies, for he can do nothing to halt his eventual death. Sharon cannot allow herself to come to that realization , searching for meaning to her suffering is literally the only thing she has left, and if she gives up and lets go, she has nothing.
Anxiety pervades the song; Sharon search for answers may well turn out to be fruitless, that what happened was just a senseless act of absurdity. She herself acknowledges this when she states, “I’m about to give in, Got nowhere to go, Afraid of my sense, I’m holding on, There’s no other way, No doubt in the end, But I ain’t got a thing to lose, Nothing to defend”. Her search has so far proved fruitless, and Sharon is beginning to get the sense that she might never find the answers she is looking for. This does not deter her though, she has nothing to lose by continuing her search, she’s already been dealt a deadly blow, and she has to keep moving forward. Meursault, on the other hand, let’s the search go once he comes to the realization that Sharon has been avoiding. He truly believes that it matters not when he dies, whether the next day as criminal, or twenty years in the future, he still will die. “”Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living…Whether it was it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying”(Camus 114). While Meursault has given up on hoping for a continued existence and come to the conclusion is was all meaningless and not worth it, Sharon continues to strive for the meaning in life, because that is all she can do.
The song ends before any kind of resolution can be found to Sharon’s search for meaning. It ends with “It’s like my soul is see through, right through my empty eyes…”.With the second line being repeated as it fades into the guitar and drums until they too fade out as the song ends. This itself is a repetition of a stanza uttered earlier in the song. Sharon receives no resolution to her search, remaining stuck in the same state she began in, lost and confused on how to move forward, still sightless to what her life has truly meant. The Stranger, conversely, does provide a resolution with Monsieur Meursault. He, in his final days leading up to his execution, becomes an existentialist, under the sway that his life has no meaning even as his head is literally on the chopping block. This is an outcome that Sharon refuses to except, continuing a search for meaning that might never be found and may not even exist anymore, if it existed at all.
World Studies World Literature 