Paul Stacy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjbRampe4qE&app=desktop

Existential

The Stranger and “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” share existential themes including absurdity and anxiety. The jovial chorus of the song contrasts wells with the anxious tone, while the absurd lyrics connect well with the absurdity of The Stranger. Both Meursault’s existential behaviors and emotions, as well as Geto Boys lyrics, demonstrate anxious and absurd trends that compare well. Camus writes about a young man who views things in a negative way because he is unable to express his emotions. While Geto Boys writes about Scarface’s unease with his life and his paranoia of everything from being stuck in the drug game; Camus writes about not having the ability to express joy or any other emotion towards anything. The two people, for different reasons, are unable to display any positive emotions.

The song “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” has an optimistic chorus that contrasts well with the anxious tone and lyrics of the song. The focus of the song is of Scarface trying to escape the drug game because he’s so paranoid that everyone is out to kill him. At night Scarface can’t sleep because every time he closes his eyes, he sees someone, who later disappears when he awakes. He’s paranoid of every sound, “I’m popping in my clip when the wind blows, every twenty seconds got me peeping out my window.” No matter what the sound is, he feels as though he needs to protect himself because it could be someone who’s after him. Likewise, in The Stranger Meursault is asked by his boss if he would like to go to Paris to work there as well as travel for part of the year. After Meursault told him that it “was all the same” to him, his boss asked if he was interested in a change of life. Meursault responded by saying, “that people never change their lives, that in any case one life is as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfiedwith mine here at all.” Meursault is demonstrating anxious actions by stating that life has no meaning because everyone’s life is pre-determined. Similar to Meursault’s thoughts on people never changing their lives, Scarface isn’t getting out of the drug game, even though his life is in danger due to him staying in it. Similar to his anxious tones throughout the song, Scarface also writes about the absurdity he was going through.

Scarface went through many absurd moments when his mind was playing tricks on him, as did Meursault throughout the book. Almost every line in “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” refers to something absurd happening, but the final verse of the song really summarizes what Scarface was feeling. The final verse, rapped by Bushwick Bill, tells a story of the Geto Boys trick-or-treating. While robbing little kids for bags, an officer caught them and began chasing them. Bushwick decides to fight the officer. After punching him in the mouth, the other Geto Boys joined him on beating up the man. All of a sudden everyone disappears and Bushwick Bill is by himself, punching the concrete. This scene displays absurdity beautifully in that Bushwickimagines that it’s Halloween and he and Geto Boys are triple-teaming on an officer, when in reality he was punching concrete and “it wasn’t even close to Halloween”. Scarface’s paranoia of being killed is very similar to Meursault’s physical actions brought upon by inability to express emotions. On page 9 in The Stranger Meursault dozes off while attending his mother’s wake. When he awakens, it was his eyes that hurt rather than his heart. Rather than emotionally mourning the loss of his mother, the lighting in the room caused his eyes to hurt. In both cases, the narrator has problems coping with reality. In “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” Scarface is paranoid that someone is out to kill him causing him to hallucinate things. While in The Stranger, Meursault is unable to feel emotions causing him to physically display how he feels.

Scarface writes a song explaining his difficulties of living a normal life because of the need to peep out his window every twenty seconds. His decision to stay in the game causes him to live an anxious-filled life. Albert Camus creates an existential character who is unable to express any emotions he feels, but rather physically expresses them. Because of this, both men live existential lives in which they are separate from society, making their own decision. Their lives are filled with both anxious and absurd moments that are caused by their actions and behavior, which ultimately make it impossible for the two to deal with other people in a habitual manner.