Camus, The Nobel Prize & Algerian War (documentary)

During our discussion of Beckett, we looked at the historical context after World War 2. The loss of faith in human progress, a greater skepticism about the innate goodness of human beings and for some a belief that democracy itself was flawed.

 After the defeat of Hitler and Japan, some intellectuals rejected democracy and capitalism and looked to the Soviet Union and Marxism as a way to build a better world. Camus offended some of these intellectuals with his insistence that he was a socialist but not a Marxist. In fact he argued that communism led to murder and repression, just like fascism. He was wary of 'utopian' ideas which claimed to fix the human condition. Life was absurd and had to be lived as best one could.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/

Beckett and Camus reveal a small group of characters struggling with personal lives, the human condition, relationship, identity and meaning.
 Meursalt  is man whose life consists of a kind of emotional paralysis, a sense of alienation, an inability to express his feelings, he is disconnected from his mother, his boss, the people he meets. He seems apolitical and to have no view on the fact that he is an intruder or the son of an intruder, a product of French colonialism and imperialism in Algeria.    You should read Camus' note at the end of the book to get a glimpse of his own views on Meursalt.Of course, Meursalt did not ask to be born there and that too is part of his tragic or absurd situation. A European constantly overwhelmed by the glare of the sun and the heat of the climate.
(You can also look at the controversy between Sartre and Camus.)
                                             
How can we understand the emergence of post colonial theory and the historical and intellectual context after World War 2?
Read Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth".

After 1945, most French intellectuals looked to Communism and the Soviet Union as a model for a utopian society. A reaction to Hitler and the political right wing, a distrust of capitalism and a general ignorance of Stalin's crimes contributed to a flawed left-wing view of the world. Some Marxists distrusted Stalin and therefore embraced the ideas of Trotsky. There was a feeling that the bourgeois middle class had brought Hitler to power and also supported the collaborationist Vichy Government in France. Stalin was seen by some in the west as a hero who stopped Hitler.
Many also idealised Mao's China before his crimes (Cultural Revolution) became widely known.
Progressive voices saw the retention of colonies in Asia or Africa as akin to Hitler's imperialistic expansion in Poland and Russia. Colonialism was denounced as 'regressive and reactionary' and French intellectuals favoured a French withdrawal from Algeria where a war of liberation was being fought in the 1950s.
We can see a certain intellectual alignment in Marxist theory, feminist theory and post-colonial theory.
In the far east Britain was leaving India, Malaysia, Singapore but the French held on in Vietnam and even the Dutch only left Indonesia after America exerted pressure. Paradoxically, the Americans then supported the French in Vietnam as their fear of communism out-weighed their dislike of 'colonial intervention'. Read Graham Greene's "The Quiet American" and look up the Domino Theory in US Foreign Policy if you want to explore these historical aspects of the Cold War.

• Note Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" is a dramatic response to the Salem Witches Trial. However, it is also a response to American anti-communist paranoia in the 1950s when Senator Joe McCarthy led a 'witchunt' to find 'secret communist spies' he claimed had infiltrated all areas of American political and cultural life. * You can look up the "Hollywood 10" who were blacklisted and lost their jobs and many other people had their lives ruined during this ugly chapter in American history.