About the outsider and socialism

Human interaction and socialism are essential components of growth. It contains insights from experiences that loosen up one’s mind, allowing them to make critical decisions about life and society. These are simple to do because of the psychological developments represented by the strange man in the novel, The Stranger (Schweitzer, 2012). In most stories like this, authors mix real-life encounters with virtual pictures and people to create a narrative for readers. The literary styles and writing structure in the details elicit memories of the scene, provokes contemplation about the events of a single life, and then incorporates logic into the demands of plural life. Writers do not achieve these styles easily but spend time thinking and putting everything on paper, before filtering what goes in a story or book. This paper analyses the story, The Outsider, for a better understanding. It provides a summary, explains the themes concerning psychological development, reviews the literary skills, presents the character traits and reflects on individual perception about the story.

Lovecraft captures the imaginations of the readers when he brings to light a man who stayed in solitude for long. Life in the castle becomes dull, dark, and lonely. He hungers to move out and seek human contact and light as other people (Lovercraft, 2015). His period of stay in the castle is unknown. Memories of the origin of the man are unclear as he stays. Though he had not come out to see the outside world, he has a little knowledge of is features from the vintage stories he read. In his mind, he sees himself in prison and yearns to be free. The only route to get out through is the roof. Upon coming out, he is full of ecstasy as he gathers the strength to contextualize the environmental appearance to fit in the stories he read before (Lovercraft, 2015). In the end, he meets a creature and touches; he is horrified but moves on with his existence in the new world amidst more fear and confusion.

Theme about Psychology

Horror is a prominent theme in the story. Images drawn by the writer are gory and horrifying to readers. When he touched the other creature, most probably a monster, he felt dismayed, and ignited external memories in the episode he described as “most terrible of all.” The monster was frightening to eat his fingers before he withdrew them (Bevinn, 2011). In this situation, the narrator begins to explore, albeit unknowingly, the reactions one has when in torture. Threats and horror either are like post-traumas that people heard of before, causing a psychological response to like or dislike their site.

Isolation and aspiration for associations are other outstanding issues in the story. The narrator is living all alone in a ghastly environment but reads about a new environment, which he desires to have experience of (Bevinn, 2011). Psychologically, a passionate disconnection for his case served as the primary reason to want for other people as company and light as an alternative to darkness. Bevinn (2011) adds that such a desire is to experience something different in the world, which narrows to interactions with others. As the experiences in the castle hit the narrator, he felt colder and noticed the cage to be darker than before, this time drawing the wish to see the light for the first time. It is not extraordinary for people who stay together to have such feelings, but one can acknowledge their magnification within a single individual.

Literary Skills

Writing in fiction has comprehensive models and freedoms to work on. Dancygier and Sweetser, (2014) confirm that writers have a variety of styles to hook the attention of the reader. In the story, Outsider, the author attracts more reading because of the unfortunate situation he faces in the castle. Imagery, hyperbole, and personification are evident in the story. Hyperbole is the exaggeration of a situation than the usual. Imagery is drawing of an imaginary picture to a writer about a situation (Dancygier & Sweetser, 2014). In the story, imagery appears frequently. Some instances where description comes with imagery are: “Wretched is he who…lone hours…vast and dismal chambers…brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, …twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, …vine-encumbered trees….” and “I climbed the worn and aged stone stairs till I reached the level where they ceased, and thereafter clung perilously to small footholds leading upward” (Lovercraft, 2015). These are descriptions of different situations of an environment and the climbing of a roof respectively to come out of the castle. One can afford to imagine the environment and their looks as the writer tell the story.

Hyperbolic nature of the writer is evident when he indicates that: “after an infinity of awesome.” It is unimaginable to quantify awesomeness as infinite. Infinity is an enormously larger number. Its use, in this case, is to make the story interesting and keep the readers glued to the book. Finally, personification is giving of non-human characters the roles of doing what human beings can do (Dancygier & Sweetser, 2014). An example is the trees in the story, depicted to be waving in the wind. In reality, trees do not wave, but swing because of the effects of wind. These literary skills are helpful in expressing a situation to the reader for natural imagination and understanding.

Character traits are important concepts in every story. One of the ways to understand a story is to consider the character spoken about frequently in the story. In the story, the major character is the narrator. The story is in the first person with one individual dominating most scenes. The narrator had two distinct traits, first is being explorative and courageous (Schweitzer, 2012). Exploration is in his abilities to find out new things for himself. He read and understood a lot about the outside world, which he was moving to find more about. Staying in the castle alone, and leaving it to explore more in the offensive environment is not for the faint-hearted. Experiences because of curiosity expose the narrator to risks over his life (Schweitzer, 2012). He tries to move from one threat to the other, with the most derailing being the monster he touches with the hands.

Individual opinions from the story depend on the perception one has after reading. Reactions cannot be to like the state of the narrator. Human beings love interacting with others, exploring new things and fulfilling their emotional and sociological demands. From the story, reactions also depend on the psychological changes of the endeavors within. Horror and loneliness are not what human beings will love to come across. One gets frightened after reading the story, bears the same hatred for the environment and figures their past concerning the issues herein. It is easy to hate or love the story depending on what it reminds them of, and the extent to which the narration influences their lives.

Conclusion

The story, The Outsider, is written in an extreme environment of fear and discomfort. A man who stayed lonely for a long time demands to come out and experience something different. The struggles to find solace from a new environment and interact with other people take a turn when he comes through several experiences, most of which are horrible. Memory loss denies the narrator ability to tell the kinds of human beings he met then. When he sets the journey to look for other people, he lands in another castle, similar to the first and later has an experience with a different animal. He experiences more fear with the animal but maneuvers his ways out of the scary world.

The writer has a message to pass and uses the theme of horror and loneliness throughout the story, and the man is walking and coming across horrible scenes. He is lonely and thirsty to meet other people for the benefit of his emotional satisfactions. These are psychological and social influences he is imagining and desires to have an experience. Literature skills are noticeable throughout the story, from imagery, hyperbole, and personification. These freedoms from writers enable the understanding of the information in a different way, to make sure the story sinks to the reader. To an individual, the story has an emotional attachment and reminds them of an experience in their life. Depending on the experience one had in the past, it becomes difficult to foretell what each reader comes out with from the story.

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References

Bevinn, S. (2011). Psychology of Loneliness. New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Dancygier, B., Sweetser, E. (2014). Figurative language. Cambridge, MA. Cambridge UniversityPress.

Lovercraft P. (2015). The Outsider. New York, NY: Bookclassic.

Schweitzer, D. (2012). Discovering H.P. Lovecraft. Rockville, DC: Wildside Press LLC.