Pied-Noir in Algeria

Camus and the Death Penalty

Emma Alcántar, Fabian Ardaya, Alec Heikkala, David Howman, Jonathan

Warren

● Pied-Noir is French for Black Foot● It was a term used for Europeans that

lived in French North Africa (like Algeria)● Also used for people who returned to

France once Algeria gained its independence

Pied-Noir in Algeria

•Algeria was a French colony

• Europeans arrived in Algeria as immigrants from all over the western Mediterranean area

• Pied-Noirs had a strained relationship with mainland Frenchies, considered to be alienated from them

Pied-Noir in Algeria

• Camus was born into a Pied-Noir family and likely experienced a sense of alienation, leading to existentialism

• Muslims were even more alienated in Algeriao They had no political representation, could not

own land despite being the majority, and were required to renounce their religion to gain citizenship

Pied-Noir in Algeria

• War broke out for Algerian independence due to continuous unfair treatment of Muslims (7:1 vote)

• Algeria won her independence in a referendum

• Independence was celebrated by a near purge of Pied-Noirs from the nation

Pied-Noirs in Algeria

• Over 800,00 Pied-Noirs left Algeria and returned to France after independence

• France wasn’t ready and it led to overpopulation and anti-Pied-Noir sentiment

• This led to Pied-Noirs feeling “disaffected” from French society #existentialism

Pied-Noirs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz2dTyDfNAw

Video

• From a young age, Camus’s father told revolting stories concerning the death penalty

• This skewed Camus’s view and from then on had a strong dislike for it.

• Camus began a vocal and lifelong opposition to the death penalty

• Executions by guillotine were a common public spectacle in Algeria during his lifetime

• Refused to attend them and recoiled bitterly at their mention

Camus and the Death Penalty

• Camus expressed his dislike for public executions and the death penalty in his writings

• He does this by relaying the concept of condemnation of capital punishment as both explicit and implicit text in his writings

Camus and the Death Penalty

“But what then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.”

A Quote from Monsieur Camus

• Showed Camus’ opposition to the death penalty

• Believes it to be a more barbaric act than any criminal’s action and that nothing can warrant it

• Says that no one is deserving of such a fate

• Believes the factor that carries out the punishment is worse than the criminal

Quote Analysis

• In The Stranger, Meursault’s long confinement during his trial and his eventual execution are presented as part of an elaborate, ceremonial ritual involving both public and religious authorities

• In the Myth of Sisyphus, the would-be suicide is contrasted with his fatal opposite, the man condemned to death, and we are continually reminded that a sentence of death is our common fate in an absurd universe

Camus Works and the Death Penalty

• Camus’ essay “Reflections on the Guillotine” supplies a detailed examination of the issue

• “It is an act of vengeance aimed primarily at the poor and oppressed, and is given religious sanction, which makes it even more hideous and indefensible”

• A direct rebuttal to traditional retributionist arguments in favor of capital punishment (such as Kant’s claim that death is the legally appropriate, indeed morally required, penalty for murder)

Camus and the Death Penalty

• Argued that at the very least, France should transition into a more humane phase of capital punishment such as lethal injection

• Hoped that capital punishment should be done away with altogether

• Did not live to see the abolition of capital punishment

• Is now an essential prerequisite for membership in the European Union

Camus and the Death Penalty

• Now read the passage we passed out from chapter six of the novel. Then write a thesis statement while keeping the following questions in mind:

- How does this scene embody the relations between the pied-noirs and the Arabs?

-Does Camus condemn this violence and the death penalty with this scene?

-Why does Camus end the chapter with this scene?

Close Read

• http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/world/europe/05iht-kimmel.4.20622745.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

• http://www.iep.utm.edu/camus/#SSH5c.viii

• http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/439038-but-what-then-is-capital-punishment-but-the-most-premeditated

• http://www.mrbauld.com/camuscp.html

• http://www.shmoop.com/the-stranger/mortality-quotes-3.html

• http://www.macobo.com/essays/epdf/CAMUS,%20Albert%20-%20The%20Stranger.pdf

Works Cited