A Comparison of the Representation of Oppression in The Lost Honour of

Oppression is a theme often found in works that discuss our humanity, mortality and (of course) our freedoms. The binary of freedom and oppression bequeath come into play in most narratives which reflect upon ethics, but we recall this theme most prevalently in stories which examine the nature of law and justice, in addition to those which explore the distinguishing features of our humanity. Both the texts feature protagonists who ar put on trail for crimes that they were, in one way or another, unaware that they had committed. Meursault in The Outsider shoots an Arab man on a beach in a haze of sensory turmoil, while Katharina in The Lost abide by of Katharina Blum has the tough luck to fall for a convicted murderer and is accused first of helping him get down his escape and later of being involved with his criminal offences. Also frequent to both books is the corruption of facts, either because social powers (such as the law courts or the media) are unable to understand what our characters did, or do not pauperism to either out of fear, or out of a dark craving for the events to become a sordid tale. In these cases we are face not only with the oppression of the victims of the story, but also the public in general, denied by their own desire access to the virtue, and of course the warping and controlling of the truth itself. When we talk about oppression, we are most often referring to unjust preaching exerted by some kind of authority. Though that particular definition of the news does feature heavily in both The Outsider and The Lost take note of Katharina Blum, we can also find the theme of oppression in the mind of mental pressure or distress . Both books, though to a greater extent prominently The Outsider, discuss freedom in a philosophical se... ...pression manifests itself in both of the stories in similar and familiar ways. Both of our protagonists are faced with the physical oppression of law and its power over their freedo ms, and proceed to draft in an absurd struggle against the forces of law, social expectancies and falsehood. Also similar in both books is the human fear of absolute rationality, something which grants Katharina and Meursault a great sell of personal strength and freedom, but which ultimately proves to be their downfall when they are in need of appearing sympathetic or vulnerable in order to survive the judgement passed upon them. Works CitedBll, Heinrich. The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, Harmondsworth Penguin, 1978.Camus, Albert. The Outsider. London etc. Penguin Books, 1983.Camus, Albert. The myth of Sisyphus, and other essays. New York Vintage Books, 1991.