The Stranger

Marie Cardona is a fictional character from The Stranger.

Existentialism is the philosophical and cultural movement which holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be the individual and... the experiences of the individual, that moral thinking and scientific thinking together do not suffice to understand human existence, and, therefore, that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to understand human existence. Existentialism began in the mid-19th century as a reaction against then-dominant systematic philosophies, with Søren Kierkegaard generally considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. Opposed to Hegelianism and Kantianism, he posited that it is the individual who is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and for living life passionately and sincerely, even in view of its many existential obstacles and distractions. After World War II existentialism became a popular movement, attracting supporters and influencing a range of disciplines besides philosophy, including theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology.
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Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalises crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from... mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred. It has several sub-genres, including detective fiction , legal thriller, courtroom drama and hard-boiled fiction. While the archetype for a murder mystery dates back to "The Three Apples" in the One Thousand and One Nights, crime fiction began to be considered as a serious genre only around 1900. The earliest known crime novel is "The Rector of Veilbye" by the Danish author Steen Steensen Blicher, published in 1829. Better known are the earlier dark works of Edgar Allan Poe , " The Mystery of Marie Roget " , and "The Purloined Letter" . Wilkie Collins' epistolary novel The Woman in White was published in 1860, while The Moonstone is often thought to be his masterpiece. French author Émile Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq laid the groundwork for the methodical, scientifically minded detective.
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Absurdist fiction is a genre of literature, most often employed in novels, plays or poems, that focuses on the experiences of characters in a... situation where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events. Common elements in absurdist fiction include satire, dark humour, incongruity, the abasement of reason, and controversy regarding the philosophical condition of being "nothing." Works of absurdist fiction often explore agnostic or nihilistic topics. While a great deal of absurdist fiction may be humorous or irrational in nature, the hallmark of the genre is neither comedy nor nonsense, but rather, the study of human behavior under circumstances that appear to be purposeless and philosophically absurd. Absurdist fiction posits little judgment about characters or their actions; that task is left to the reader. Also, the "moral" of the story is generally not explicit, and the themes or characters' realizations—if any —are often ambiguous in nature. Additionally, unlike many other forms of fiction, absurdist works will not necessarily have a traditional plot structure (i.e.
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Suspense is a feeling of uncertainty and anxiety about the outcome of certain actions, most often referring to an audience's perceptions in a... dramatic work. Suspense is not exclusive to fiction, though. Suspense may operate in any situation where there is a lead-up to a big event or dramatic moment, with tension being a primary emotion felt as part of the situation. In the kind of suspense described by film director Alfred Hitchcock, an audience experiences suspense when they expect something bad to happen and have a superior perspective on events in the drama's hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless to intervene to prevent it from happening. In broader definitions of suspense, this emotion arises when someone is aware of his lack of knowledge about the development of a meaningful event; thus, suspense is a combination of anticipation and uncertainty dealing with the obscurity of the future. In terms of narrative expectations, it may be contrasted with mystery or curiosity and surprise. Suspense could however be some small event in a person's life, such as a child anticipating an answer to a request they've made, e.g., "May I get the kitty?".
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