tent with walking back down to the spring unaware that he is going to end up destroying his happiness by shooting the Arab. This is a very unpredictable event because Meursault is just so happy and content with the sun shining on him, then all of a sudden something unexpected happens and his happiness is gone. “I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I’d been happy.” (Page 59). The fifth theme is individuality. An individual is a single unique member of a collectivity. Meursault lives out his individuality. The strongest display of individuality is at the very end of the novel when Meursault wants a large crowd of people to witness his death, and he also wants them to greet him with cries of hate. “I had only wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.” (Page 123). By being hated Meursault retains his individuality, because if Meursault goes out there begging for forgiveness he would just become a member of a collectivity. The final theme is reflection. The term Reflection refers to the capacity to bring that which we are unaware of into awareness. Meursault leads a pre-reflective life. He goes through his day to day events and is so absorbed in each moment that he never reflects on them. Meursault does this until he looks at a reflection of himself for the first time in prison. Meursault looking at himself shows his transition from pre-reflective to reflective. He begins to become aware of what he was unaware of. Now we move to the four existential “givens” and how Meursault utilizes these. The four “givens” can be summed up as being particularly relevant to the existential psychotherapeutic experience. Mortality is the first given. Death is inevitable, our own death and the death of those whom we love. This “given” is perhaps the most evident, and i...
