Bohemian Rhapsody and The Stranger

In class last week, during the first few days, we began discussing Meursault's passive approach to life. The phrases "nothing really matters to him" and "he doesn't care at all" kept coming up, and I walked out of class with Bohemian Rhapsody (by Queen, released in the 1975 album A Night at the Opera) stuck in my head. After searching for a reason to have this particular song running through my mind, I realized that the phrase we used to describe Meursault's attitude was a popular lyric in the song stuck in my head. After further thought, I began to realize that Bohemian Rhapsody and The Stranger had many similarities, and after deeper consideration I began to conclude that Bohemian Rhapsody may have been written about Camus' The Stranger, which was published more than thirty years before. Throughout the entire song, there are similarities to The Stranger that you wouldn't expect upon listening to it.

To start off, the ballad (the second part to this song after the intro) begins with the line "Mama, just killed a man; Put a gun against his head; Pulled my trigger, now he's dead" comparable to the scene where Meursault kills the Arab man. The passive voice used to describe this terrible act completely corresponds to Meursault's thoughts and voice in this book, and while the rest of the ballad seems remorseful, the lyrics suggest that the person who has committed this crime only feels regret because "life had just begun, But now [he's] gone and thrown it all away". The lyrics imply that he regrets his actions simply because he'll miss his life and it's pleasures, not because he took the life of another. This parallels Meursault's thought process as he sits in jail, missing his human impulses, craving sex and cigarettes. He thinks of little else, and never of the Arab man he has just killed. This connection opens up the floodgates for the rest of the connections between both revolutionary cultural pieces.

In the operatic section of Bohemian Rhapsody, Mercury uses the lyrics "I'm just a poor boy nobody loves me; He's just a poor boy from a poor family; Spare him his life from this monstrosity". It is briefly mentioned by Meursault that his father died before he could even remember him. Many people believe that this missing piece in his life may have caused Meursault to have resulting emotional damage from an absent father figure (thus, nobody loves him). It can be assumed that Meursault comes from a poor family because his father died so early and his mother had to work her entire life to provide for them. Before her death, Meursault puts his mother in a nursing home because he cannot provide for her, but she seems to find happiness there. Nevertheless, Meursault comes from a poor family. The last portion of this lyric seems to reflect the attitudes of the court in Meursault's trial, who really don't want to convict him of murder, but are still appalled by his actions at his mother's funeral. Meursault could have a way out but instead must "leave [his friends] behind and face the truth", a lyric from the earlier ballad section.  The most obscure connection between Bohemian Rhapsody and The Stranger comes at the end of the operatic section, where Mercury uses the word "bismallah" in a debate whether or not to "let him (the character) go". Bismallah is defined as an exclamation in the name of Allah, a Muslim invocation used at the beginning of any undertaking. The use of this word draws a connection to the Arab man who Meursault has killed, although it is in a strange position, juxtaposed between arguments to potentially let the character (Meursault) go.

Both Meursault and the character in Bohemian Rhapsody seem to share the same indifferent approach to life. Throughout the entire song, a similar line keeps appearing: "Any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me", "Carry on, as if nothing really matters", "Nothing really matters, anyone can see, nothing really matters to me.". These lines have a strong flavor of Meursault's way of life. He's an extremely passive character, particularly when he interacts with those around him, and goes along with nearly everything. The only act of activeness occurs when Meursault doesn't want to die by guillotine. He racks his brain for any other options, and would even prefer being shot while running away than to be decapitated. This is similar to the lyrics "I don't want to die". "Let me go", and "Just got to get outta here", all of which are repeated multiple times. While Meursault seems ultimately resigned to his fate and the Bohemian Rhapsody character just doesn't want to die, both have rebellious attitudes to their approaching demises.

I could continue on with nit-picking similarities between The Stranger and Bohemian Rhapsody, but it is evident to me that Bohemian Rhapsody is based on The Stranger. Freddie Mercury never gave an explicit reasoning behind this song, but he certainly wouldn't be the only person to draw on literary inspiration from The Stranger to write music. Robert Smith of The Cure once said in an interview that their song "Killing an Arab", released in 1980, was based on Camus' The Stranger, and lyrics from the song clearly describe the scene in which Meursault kills the Arab man. In the end, I find the strange number of similarities between The Stranger and Bohemian Rhapsody too many to be just coincidence,  Queen must have written their most popular song based on this novel.

Lions and tigers and vermin! Oh my!

We've been reading The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka in the last few weeks, and every time I open the book or discuss it, I can't help but wonder how different the story would be if Kafka had chosen some other animal for Gregor to transform into.While never explicitly stating what kind of insect Gregor is, Kafka implies that he is some sort of cockroach or beetle. Gregor's tendency to eat spoiled food though, makes me think that he is a cockroach. Nevertheless, Kafka intends for Gregor to be some sort of verminous insect, the lowest of the low.

I believe he purposely chose an insect whose thoughts/actions/abilities we never consider, in order to create drama in the story. Only we, the readers, know Gregor's thoughts and last bits of humanity. The rest of his family sees him as a disgusting creature, and I'm sure we would think so also if we saw such an insect in real life. It seems like a creature from a bad science fiction movie, a giant hissing cockroach that chases people around.

Now imagine if Gregor was, say, a more palatable kind of vermin like a mouse. While a mouse in the house is still somewhat appalling, it is much cuter than an encroaching roach. It's still alarming, yes, to find one of your family members an insect or animal, but a mouse is much higher up on our hierarchy of vermin than a cockroach is, and I'm sure his family would have a different reaction. For instance, we could look at the scene where Gregor is pleading for his manager to let him go on working, but all the manager hears is a sub-human hissing. Let's replace in this instance, the cockroach with a mouse. The soft squeaking of a mouse is much less threatening than the hissing of a cockroach, and it's appearance is less foreboding.  While probably still being very alarmed, the manager and Gregor's family would not be as terrified, so much as bewildered.

So, in choosing for Gregor to transform into a cockroach instead of any other animal, I believe that Kafka used the disgust Gregor received from his surroundings to create more sympathy in the reader. Gregor's family has a logical reaction to an enormous cockroach replacing their son, and I don't believe that we would have had the same level of disgust and drama to drive the plot if Gregor had been another animal.