Misfits. Unit4

7/30/2019 Misfits. Unit4

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NAME : LEE JIA TONGENGLISH LITERATUREUNIT 4 COURSEWORK

Misfits in society : are they victims of willful choiceor social dictates ?

an exploration of 3 texts

According to Aristotle, man is by nature,

animal designed for living in states. One who

by nature, does not belong to a union is either

an inferior creature or better than mere

human being.Like criticized by Homer, misfits

are people " without a clan, without law, and

without a home ". Such a person also has an

indignation for war ; he is on his own, being at

war with the society he is in. (432) Such man

cannot conform to societal norms - to


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sublimation, duty and structure. So where do

misfits stand ? On their own grounds of

isolation, creating their own troop of army out

of their own fortitude , defending themselves

through ego defense mechanisms - by

projecting negative self-concepts towards

others to avoid facing negative self-concepts

about their own behaviors. This self conflict

within themselves make them a misfit. As

defined by the Oxford dictionary, a misfit is a

person whose behavior or attitude sets them

apart from others in an uncomfortably

conspicuous way : a motley collection of

social misfits. In this essay, I am going to


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explore towards these points, where misfits fit

into their category by willful choice, and later,

man become misfits through social rejection

(________) and lastly, I am going to explore

into the sentiment of an outsider trying to get

into the society and the insider trying to get

out of it. With this, I am going to discuss in

relation of two texts - Animal's People by Indra

Sinha and The Stranger, by Albert Camus and

The Outsider by Colin Wilson will set as my

literary criticism.

By nature, misfits will willfully distance

themselves from the soccer because they are too

painfully aware of their freakishness. People may


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become a misfit through a paradoxical sense of

superiority which in the first place arises from deep

seated feeling of inferiority. This may be cultivated

through the sense of personal dignity, where they

want to feel that they have power in their own

hands, and reject society before they are rejected

by the society. Take 'The Stranger' as an example,

Meursault, our main character, has an established

societal role, where he is well employed and is very

much within the society physically, but however,

his spirit is not. For instance, the death of his

mother did not affect him at all, like how it would

have affected normal people. The text began with ,

' MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I cant

be sure. ' - this shows how ignorant he is towards


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the news ; he is so very much psychologically

detached from the world around him that major

events of life mean nothing to him. He seems to be

psychologically eccentric, by displaying this

indifferences, he challenges society accepted

moral standards, which dictate that one should

grieve over death (1) . As a juxtapose, Animal from

the book Animal's People is different from

Meursault in the sense that he is a misfit in the

society because of his physical deformities, where

he walks on all fours. He goes around doing odd

jobs and finds it difficult to conform to societal

roles, where this animalistic nature is internalized

within him, which I think is very true of when

Aristotle spoke of humans as political


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animals - [[ we are the only animals with freedom

of speech. where man, when he is at the goal of his

development, is the best of all animals : but he is

the worst of all when he is detached from customs

and justices. (433) ]] We all have that animal

instinct in us and this is very much exemplified in

Animal because this instinct seems to dominate his

human nature. " Let me be as I am, My name is

Animal. I'm not a fucking human being, I've no

wish to be one. " - this shows how Animal feels he

is not a part of the society because he looked

different and as a self defense mechanism, he

rejects the society before they get the chance to

judge him. The title of the book, ' Animal's People' :

which means generally, that humans belong to


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animals, is of total opposite in the social order .

This title presents how 'animals' in this book

dominates human being, how the sense of

superiority is erected through how Animal sees the

society, that he is one step ahead of them - he

rejects them before they even have the chance to

scrutinize for themselves. Man, as Aristotle sees,

are the only animals with freedom of speech.

[[ Where man, when at the goal of his

development, is the best of all animals : but he is

the worst of all when detached from customs and

nature ]].

are there conditions that humans couldnt adapt to because it would be contraryto their nature?Fromm comes down in favour of the second view. Humans aresocial animals, and we need each other not only practically so as to collectivelyproduce the material things we need to live but also psychologicallywe need tofeel part of a group, of a community. From which it follows that any society whichdoes not satisfy this psychological need, or which actively works to prevent itbeing satisfied, is incompatible with human nature.


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Man has been called the "social animal." By this is meantthat he must meet advances from and make advances tohis fellowman. "No man liveth to himself alone," the

scriptures tell us. If you are habitually unsocial, inclined tobe a bit self-righteous, you will find yourself to be a misfitwherever you are.

What are societal norms, really? Do we perceivepeople by who they are ? or by what they are ? Thetexts ' The Outsider ' by Colin Wilson and an essay by

Albert Camus, ' The Stranger ', explores into theinsights of characters that could not find a place in thesociety they are in. It deals with the struggles andendurances the characters went through just to be apart of the society , and also deals with the limitationsthe characters face due to their '' differences '' . Also,do we grow up and get prepared to face the societybeforehand, or do we get 'prepared' by the societylater on ? In this essay, we are going to explore inrelations of these three texts, of what it means to be amisfit, and is it internal, or just external. Is it them thatmentally categorize themselves as different or do theyfeel so because people treated them differently in thefirst place? Do the misfits actually refuse to be a partof the society, or they are forced to shun away by

society's will ?

Acceptance of self has been a stigma among

us, as the saying goes, if you do not love yourself,


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how do you expect others to love you ? This inevitably

apply to our main text,Animal's People. Animal, the

main protagonist, introduced himself as 'Animal ' to

everyone because he walks on all fours, and just so

that people do not call him that behind his back. His

self acceptance divulges from scorn towards the

society, his anger towards the society - because they

looked at him differently and he has none to blame for

his deformities, but at the same time, he blames

everything and everyone. Fact is, he despises

everyone else because they are the same, they are

humans, and they are normal - " I'm not fucking

human being, I've no wish to be one" : he clearly

states here he does not wish to be among them, more

like because he looked different because the others

walked on two feet. As a juxtapose, Colin Wilson


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defined an Outsider as a man who knows he is sick in

a civilization that does not know it is infected. He

simply has more self-awareness about the human

condition as opposed to the vast majorette of

humanity, who is not even aware that they're trapped

under limiting circumstances.

This raises the question to whether is

the society at wrong for not being accepting enough

or it is the individual that protrudes a self defense

mechanism to hold their heads above the water, when

dealing with the community they are in. We grow up

learning to deal with the society that we are about to

face when the future comes, it is been ingrained in us,

that one has to conform to the society, to 'fit in'. But

is it really about fitting in, or just being apart of

everyone, like parasites, who lives on the hospitality


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of others. If say, every individual in the society was

different, was special, it would not be called a society

anymore, as the saying goes, a society is one where

the condition of those living in companionship with

others, or in community, rather than in isolation. I

would not conclude that everyone in the society is the

same, but rather, we do the similar things to be alike.

The Outsider has his mind set that he is too special to

be in the common -"...the Outsider is a man who cannot live in

the comfortable, insulated world of the bourgeois, accepting what he

sees and touches as reality. He sees too deep and too much, and what

he sees is essentially chaos." .This chaos, which later leads

to insanity, led the individual to believe he does not

belong, and hence the ejection. They see so much of

the filth, that they'd rather not be apart of it. Misfits

usually regard themselves as geniuses, or rather,

geniuses freaks - they conclude they know more about


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the society than the members in it does, talk about

mothers who see much more in their daughters than

the daughters see in themselves. " People see the

outside, but it's the inside where the real things

happen, no one looks in there, maybe they don't dare.

" ( 11 ) - true enough, the common looks at the

society on its surface : socializing, conforming to

morals and ethics, pretty much doing things that

everyone else does. The society is so comfortable with

the dictate they grew up in that they do not intend to

enter the "danger zone" - where they look at the

society from a different perspective and alienate

themselves. For a society to exist and function, the

members must abide and conform to its norms,

internalizing social norms and values that dictate what

is "normal" for the society. If this internalization and


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socialization were to fail to produce conformity, the

individual is automatically categorized as a misfit, an

outsider. In Camus' 'The Stranger', he portrayed a

protagonist, namely Meursault, who at the same time,

seems totally ignorant towards the community he is

in. Psychologically and emotionally isolated from the

world around him, he implicitly challenges society's

accepted moral standards : and that caused the

society to see him as an outsider, a threat, where at

major events such as his mother's funeral, he does

not shed a tear or when threatened to be hanged for a

crime, he does not flick and go along with it. But

really, what he thinks is that being indifferent is just

not making the distinction between good and bad : he

simply practices amorality. His refusal to conform to

the social moral dictates makes him a misfit, and thus,


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over these courses, we unfold characters that exclude

themselves from the society, making a misfit out of

their own accord.

Animal stand aloof from his community, he

goes to places where no one dares go, he roams in

places where there's not a soul - " Gone are city

noises, horns of trucks and autos, voices of women in

the Nutcracker, kids shouting, all erased by the high

wall . " ( 29 ) Animal prefers to be somewhere else , or

anywhere for that matter, away from two-legged

humans : so he is not constantly reminded that he is

in fact, different. " For I don't think I can bear to go on

being an animal in a world of human beings. " This

further proves that Animal feel differently because the

society , in the first place, freak at his presence, a

creature who looked like human but has a bent back


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and walk on all fours ; what would you make out of

that ? This escape puts his mind at peace, the

absence of normality puts him at ease. T.S Eliot once

said of the Outsider that he sees the world as a static

place, where trivialities assumed importance as they

would in a dull country village, and how he now sees

the world as a battleground of immense forces. The

presence of self in the universe is on its own a burden

to misfits, where the only true escape is death : but

taking away your own life is considered sinful, and

thus misfits remove themselves fro the society. It

could be that as a misfit, knowing that we do not

belong in the society, survive better on our own, an

escapade to protect ourselves from the harm the

society has blindly thrown at us. Like the Stranger, we

live in our own minds to prevent from being 'common'


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like the society already is - because common is

nowhere near appealing, and is in fact, quite

disdainful, where the realization that the society is

composed of filth, a social dictate, we are merely

puppets of puppets. Cliche always goes with 'freedom

as the release from reality', but Wilson argued that

freedom is in truth, release from unreality. The

unreality we deal with

Bruce Lee famously quoted, ' As you think,

so shall you become ' . This raises the question to

whether do misfits think they are so because they tell

themselves so? Are they to be blamed for their absurd

thoughts that the society is either not good enough

for them, or they are not good enough for the

society ? " When I say I'm an Animal, it's not just what

I look like but what I feel. " ( 87 ) , here is a boy who


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looks down on himself before the society even has the

chance to judge him, he already feels different

because of his deformities. His inner feelings of low

self esteem made him the part, he labeled himself

before anyone has the chance to do so. We may

think , from his prudent language that he is ignorant

of how others see him, his ill humor showed so, but

his thoughts say otherwise. Likewise, misfits, like the

Outsider and the Stranger know themselves and the

scorns of the society so well that they build a solid

wall disembodying societal norms against their own

likes. Meursault's idea of isolation arose as he

concluded that human life has no redeeming meaning

or purpose, other than death - we live to die. It was

not until the end that he realizes that as much as the

universe is indifferent to him, so is he indifferent to


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the universe too. It's much like the saying where men

comes from clay, and shall go back to the earth.

These realizations pull him away from the community,

where he finds the idea of living to be absurd, and the

societal norm is to live. On the other side of the book,

the Outsider however cites that " The man who is

interested to know how he should live instead of

merely taking life as it comes, is automatically an

Outsider." This totally juxtaposed Camus' idea of

people who has no interest in life, ' taking life as it

comes ' is a misfit : where Meursault is unlike the

people around him who is constantly searching for the

truth in life, he simply lives life without much thought

in it. Wilson stresses on that the interest to engage life

makes one a misfit , he simply cannot settle with the

methodical way of life. He commented on Van Gogh's


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painting as having an Outsider's characteristic : it is a

laboratory refuse of a man who treated his own life as

an experiment in living; faithfully records moods and

developments of vision on the manner of a

Bildungsroman, while commenting that Cezanne's

painting is strictly pairing : removing him from the

Outsider's category. Wilson sees an Outsider as one

who seeks more to life, questions life and wants to get

more out of it, unlike the Stranger and even Animal,

who thought life was merely one of the stages of

being in the universe. While the Outsider and the

Stranger deals with worldly issues of life and death,

Animal simply deals with the society he is thrown into,

being caught in between his own world and reality.

" A grim animal living without hope, that's

how I saw myself. I asked nothing, expected less and


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was filled with anger at the world. "

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Misfits. Unit4