essay about the stranger in my life

The Stranger Essay

The Stranger is one of the most famous novels by Albert Camus. The novel tells the story of Meursault, a man who is seemingly indifferent to the death of his mother and the trial that follows her death. The book has been praised for its exploration of freedom and death, two central themes in Camus’s philosophy. In The Stranger, Camus challenges our notions of what it means to be free and whether or not we can truly control our own destiny. The book is a powerful reminder that life is unpredictable and often meaningless, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t live it to the fullest.

The idea that individuals are free when they die is taken from The Stranger by Camus, as it is in all of his works. One dependent on the other, freedom and death are major themes in Camus’s view. For Camus, freedom springs from a sense of ones life; it is an intense magnificent existence that does not need to be redeemed or regretted. Death is unjustified and ridiculous; it simply represents a return to the cosmos for a liberated individual.

The key to this awareness is lucidity, seeing things as they are without illusions. The stranger is the character in The Stranger who most fully embodies and experiences these ideas. The novel also dramatizes the confrontation of the individual with an unjust, absurd world. The central problem of the novel is whether or not the stranger can maintain his freedom and integrity in the face of a hostile and indifferent universe. The answer to this question is ambiguous, and its ambiguity is one of the chief sources of the novels power.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus explores the idea that life may have no inherent meaning but that it can be lived fully in accordance with ones own values. The title refers to the ancient Greek legend of Sisyphus, a man condemned by the gods to roll a heavy rock up a hill, only to have it roll back down again each time he nears the top.

The point of the story is that Sisyphus chooses to continue his task even though it is pointless; in so doing, he affirms life and gives it meaning. The character of Meursault in The Stranger may be seen as a modern-day Sisyphus. Like Sisyphus, Meursault is an individual who feels no connection to the world around him and who experiences life as meaningless. Yet he persists in living, despite the futility of existence. In this way, he too affirms life.

In a nutshell, The Stranger is a Camusian parable about the necessity of what is necessary for freedom. Meursault, the protagonist of The Stranger, is not a person one would encounter in real life in this regard; until the novel’s conclusion, Meursault was unable to attain enlightenment and freedom from Camus philosophy.

The Stranger begins with Meursault receiving a telegram informing him of his mother death. The first act that Meursault does is to go and inform his employer, for which he is reprimanded. From the very beginning, then, we see that Meursault is indifferent to the social conventions that most people live by. This indifference toward social conventions continues when Meursault attends his mother funeral. He shows no emotion whatsoever during the funeral, which shocks and upsets everyone else in attendance.

The only thing that Meursault seems to be concerned about is whether or not the funeral will interfere with his plans for the weekend.

After the funeral, Meursault goes on vacation with a friend named Raymond. While on vacation, they meet some Arabs, and Raymond gets into a fight with one of them. The next day, Meursault goes for a walk on the beach with Raymond and the Arabs. The Arabs spot them and start following them.

Meursault and Raymond eventually lose them, but when they go back to where they are staying, they see the Arabs again. The Arabs start throwing rocks at them, and one of the rocks hits Raymond in the face. The two men then go back to town to get a gun, and they go back to the beach and kill the Arabs.

Back in court, Meursault is found guilty of murder. The prosecutor tries to get him to show some regret or emotion for what he has done, but Meursault remains indifferent. The only thing that matters to him is whether or not he will be executed. In the end, Meursault is sentenced to death, and he accepts it without any regrets.

Camus’s philosophy is based on the idea that there is no inherent meaning in life, but that we can create our own meaning by living in accordance with our own values. This is what Camus calls “the absurd” – the recognition that life is ultimately meaningless, but that we can choose to live in a way that makes our life meaningful. The goal of Camus’s philosophy is to achieve a “state of freedom” in which we are able to live authentically, according to our own values, despite the absurdity of life.

Meursault is not able to achieve this state of freedom until the end of the book, but he is still living in accordance with Camus’s philosophy even though he is not aware of it. The fact that Meursault is indifferent to social conventions and does not care about anything except his own interests shows that he is living authentically, in accordance with his own values. The fact that he is willing to accept death without any regrets shows that he has achieved a state of freedom in which he is not afraid of death or of the absurd.

An irreligious person from a nation that has never heard of Christianity is an example of his counterpart in the Christian worldview. Having it explained to him by a missionary, he understands he has never sinned, which represents the morality and characteristics needed for liberty in this case. What was Meursault’s underlying moral value? His foremost character trait is his dedication to absolute knowledge. While Meursault’s truth of being and feeling takes this form, it remains true for the conquest of the self or the world.

The absolute, according to Camus, liberates. The second trait is Meursault’s courage in the face of death. The hero is he who faces death without flinching and thereby affirms life. To be sure, Meursault does not so much confront death as accept it as a natural phenomenon; but this is tantamount to the same thing. For Camus, life and death are two aspects of the same reality. The third quality is Meursault’s detachment or indifference to opinion. He does not care what people think of him; he lives for himself alone”

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The Time a Complete Stranger Saved My Life

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How A Stranger Saved My Life

A stranger saved my life last week . I was walking through a park with my husband, when a woman wouldn’t let us go any further down the path. She told us that a few kids had knocked down a bee hive further down the trail, and the bees were angry, aggressive, and stinging people. Her husband was on the other side of the path, calling city maintenance and preventing people from entering the park on the other side.

To most people this wouldn’t be a huge deal, however I’m severely allergic to bees. In that moment I was so grateful for this couple who cared enough to take time out of their evening to keep people from getting hurt. Acts of kindness like this are sometimes rare in big cities, where people are often busy and self-absorbed. My evening could have been drastically different if that couple hadn’t been there.

The experience made me wonder, why aren’t we kind more often?

There are many times throughout my day when I could be more kind. But I’m often in a rush, self-absorbed, and focusing on my own needs. “I need to get home by 8pm,” “I need my lunch right now,” “I need this lineup to move faster.” If I’d come across a nest of angry bees (and wasn’t allergic to them), I doubt I would have taken time out of my schedule to call the city and keep people from walking down the path.

This bothers me. I want to be a person who generously gives their time to help others.

Some meditation masters consider a particular form of meditation, metta or lovingkindness meditation , to be the highest form of spiritual practice. In metta meditation, you focus on giving love to yourself, to your loved ones, to your enemies, and eventually to all beings everywhere. The practice typically involves repeating variations of the following words to yourself:

May I be safe.

May I be peaceful.

May I be healthy.

May I live with ease.

You can also practice by saying these words while thinking of someone else – an enemy or friend – and all beings everywhere. The Dalai Lama is a huge advocate of this form of meditation, and research suggests that it may have several beneficial effects.

If I had to wager a bet, however, I’d guess that this form of meditation is not particularly popular among North Americans. Our society teaches us to be so individualistic that we don’t often think it’s necessary to focus on the well-being of others. But what if we were raised differently?

What if compassion was seen as an essential skill that was taught to us not only by our parents, but also by our education system?

Some organizations, such as the Mind & Life Institute’s initiative on secular ethics , are trying to start a dialogue about the importance of teaching compassion to our children. Similarly, from an evolutionary perspective, some scientists have argued that because humans are social beings, we developed traits such as altruism to help ourselves survive.

Personally, I would like to bring more lovingkindness into my life. Even something as simple as making eye contact with people on the street and saying “good morning” would be a nice start. You never know what effects your kindness might have. Perhaps your greeting reflects just enough love to bring someone off the brink of suicide. The couple who helped me in the park probably didn’t think they were going to save someone’s life that night. But they very well might have.

Remember that every act of kindness, no matter how small, can have monumental effects. @BethanyButzer (Click to Tweet!)

Whose life might you save today?

Bethany Butzer, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, researcher, and yoga teacher who helps people create a life they love. Check out her book, The Antidepressant Antidote , follow her on Facebook and Twitter , and join her whole-self health revolution .

If you’d like tips on how to create a life you love, plus some personal instruction from Bethany, check out her online course, Creating A Life You Love: Find Your Passion, Live Your Purpose and Create Financial Freedom.

Image courtesy of Anna Dziubinska via Unsplash.com

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“The Stranger” by Albert Camus: Literary Analysis Essay

Literary analysis of the stranger by albert camus.

Literature has always been reflecting major trends in various spheres of social and political life at a certain period. Philosophical views also have an immense impact on the development of literary works which represent the core ideas of the epoch. The philosophy of existentialism emerged in Europe, sharing the ideas of individuality and freedom based on which people make decisions. Albert Camus is considered as existentialist, but he acknowledges his contributions to absurdism the basic principles of which are highlighted in his novel The Stranger .

Albert Camus is a famous author and philosopher who was born in the family of French expatriates in Algiers. He studied philosophy at the university so that after obtaining a degree he explored the concepts of existentialism in the middle of the 1930s and examined the principles of the absurdity of human existence several years later. Based on the analysis of the newly acquired philosophical ideas, Camus started to work on his first novel The Stranger .

It incorporates the ideas of absurdity which question the value and sense of human life depicted throughout the subjective experiences of the protagonist. He acts based on his prejudices and choices but realizes what he is doing and knows the value of words (Camus 100). In general, the literary works of the writer explore a search for justice, liberty, and faith in human dignity, disregarding the external factors and neglect of personal identity. Nevertheless, the philosophy of Camus states that people have enough opportunities to determine destiny by making deliberate choices but not chances determined by fate.

The themes of existentialism and absurdism are discussed in The Stranger , a novel about the man who considers the universe is pointless. Meursault, the protagonist, obviously lacks remorse when his mother dies so that his behavior is not typical during the funeral. When the caretaker invites him to the room, he drinks some coffee with milk and smokes (Camus 12). Such behavior is perceived as disrespectful and inadequate because people are usually upset when their family members pass away, while the main character remains unflappable.

Indeed, society is formed based on some ideological principles the neglection of which may lead to the disruptions and uncertainties in the system (Camus 101). Subsequently, the ideas of absurdism affect the audience because they define uncommon values associated with a differentiating behavior that expresses the inner self of the person rather than masks one’s true feelings and motivation for actions. In this case, the existentialism dogma questions the freedom of choice and juxtaposition of subjective and objective values.

The inner struggle between personal values and external expectations are clearly illustrated in the actions and thoughts of the protagonist. Camus admits that human beings form themselves based on their values and freedom of choice. Thus, Mersault takes his chance to fight with Arab and shoot him five times (Camus 59). This case proves that he is a man of a free will that is essential to support one’s human dignity.

Throughout the novel, the protagonist often refers to the power of the sun as the agent that usually provokes Meursault to lose temper and commit some unreasonable actions. Even during the examination when he is asked about the pause between the first and the second shot, the protagonist only reminds of the power of the burning sun on his forehead but could not explain anything (Camus 67).

The life of the main character is the sequence of random and impulsive choices that form his individuality. His values and preferences contradict the external social environment and identify him as a man with no remorse, lack of emotions, and moral premises. The concept of the stranger in the novel symbolizes an enemy of society who ignores fundamental rules (Camus 102). It means that the value of the freedom of choice and action is undermined by justice, ideologies, and moral principles that regulate social order.

Apart from the inability of the individual to resist the power of social regulations, and understanding of the role of religion constitutes another problem of existentialism discussed in The Stranger . The protagonist of this novel breaks the rules, declines the power of religion, questions the sense of life, but his mother said that happiness can be found in any aspect of life (Camus 113). Meursault is happy even before his death which makes him a respected hero of the existentialist philosophy.

Furthermore, he does not change his principles before execution so that during the last chaplain’s visit the protagonist confidently affirms that he still envisions no sense in religion (Camus 117). Despite rejecting the existence of God, Camus acknowledges that a world with no religion will be full of chaos so that everything would be uncontrolled due to no restrictions or moral regulations.

Overall, the themes of existentialism covered in The Stranger affect the audience by the irrationality of life and the inconsistency of the moral principles. The writer’s philosophy implies that people have enough freedom to determine their destiny by making deliberate choices. These actions form a particular individual through the evolvement of personal values that sometimes contradict social regulations and moral principles. Thus, the protagonist neglects the truth of religion, rebels against the rules, and lives an irrational life but declares himself happy, which makes him a respected existentialist hero.

Works Cited

Camus, Albert. The Stranger . Translated by Matthew Ward, Vintage, 1989.

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Bibliography

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How a stranger saved my life

This article was published more than 11 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

DANIEL ZENDER/The Globe and Mail

The Essay is a daily personal piece submitted by a reader. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide .

My Gran, Sidney Tebbutt, once gave me a cartoon she'd clipped from a newspaper. It showed a group of grinning sheep walking toward the edge of a cliff, and one sheep, a black one, heading in the opposite direction.

I'd always felt like an outsider in my family, and I guess this was Granny's way of saying it was okay. I'd thought something was wrong with me because I could never make my father happy.

Granny wasn't related to me biologically. She was a married white woman who lived in Canada when she began to write to my father. He was then in his 20s, a single father of four living in a refugee camp in Kenya in the early 1980s. We'd fled the civil war in Uganda following the end of Idi Amin's regime.

Granny and my father connected when he applied for Canadian citizenship. Her church was doing outreach work at the camp, and with its help Granny eventually sponsored our family to come to Canada.

I was 9, and the second-eldest of the children, when we boarded the flight. None of us had flown before. My younger sister Pam couldn't believe all the in-flight meals were for us. Ketchup had been a luxury in our years in the camp, and when she saw it she proceeded to pour it on everything, including the chocolate cake.

We were going to "America." Our uncles had told us money grew on trees there. My sisters and brother were excited about getting a chance to eat apples and see snow. We didn't know what it would be like where we were going, but knew it would be better than where we had been.

When our plane landed, we saw a tall white woman with grey hair and large glasses. She had flowers in her hands, and as she walked toward us she grinned a warm, wide smile. Right away I loved her.

She took us apple picking in the summer and tobogganing in the winter. When we were baptized she became our godmother, and she never forgot a birthday. Every Sunday, Granny picked us up from our apartment and took us to her house. She made sandwiches and lemonade while we played in the backyard. Eventually, we moved next door, into a house she owned.

After school, we'd run over to Granny's house. She'd peel potatoes and make chicken stew for us while my big sister played the piano in the den. Whenever we were at Granny's we felt protected. I dreaded leaving her house, because as soon as we stepped on the sidewalk life became noisy and unpredictable.

Soon after we moved to Canada, my father had begun to drink uncontrollably. Physical and emotional abuse followed. Once, when I came home from a birthday party, he smashed my head against the drywall so hard, it left a hole. My crime: I'd worn a headband in my hair. He then punched me in the face, and when I ran away toward the basement he pushed me down the stairs.

I feared hearing the key turn in the lock whenever my father came home, knowing that yelling and hitting would soon follow.

At school, my teachers would ask me about the bruises. But I never trusted them. Instead I would go see Granny. She told me she loved me and that everything would be all right. No one else had ever told me they loved me.

At night, I cried into my pillow because I didn't know what I was doing to upset my father. But when I thought about taking my life to get away from him, I imagined how Granny would feel.

Years later, I found out that my father used to visit her as well and confide in her. My grandmother never judged him, but tried to help him. She knew what he had been through during the civil war in Uganda. As I became older, I realized my father probably had post-traumatic stress disorder. He had never been violent toward us before.

Granny never had kids of her own. She'd lived with cancer since she was a young woman. Seven years after we came to Canada, the cancer came back, and this time it killed her.

The day she died, I was watching The Simpsons when the phone rang. I don't remember who gave me the news, but I didn't cry. I dropped the phone and knelt on the carpet of my basement apartment. A few weeks earlier, dad had kicked my sister and me out of the house. Granny had co-signed our lease. Her death meant we now had no one to turn to. I was 16.

It rained the day of Granny's funeral. It was Remembrance Day. The church was so full of mourners that loudspeakers had been placed outside on the lawn. It had been three days since she had died and I still hadn't cried.

I watched her friend Tom bent over in the pew. He was at least 20 years older than Granny, and recovering from a stroke. Granny used to take care of him. As I watched his body shaking with sobs, I realized I had never seen a man cry.

After the funeral, I went for a walk in the rain. I saw a tree and began to punch it with my bare hands. That's when the tears came. I felt guilty for not having cried sooner: I'd loved Granny more than anything in the world, yet I hadn't been able to cry for her.

I don't know how it happened that Granny became friends with my father. I don't know how we came to matter to her. I often wonder about that small detail.

What would have happened to my family if she hadn't cared for us and decided to help us get out of the camp? How long would we have stayed there? Would any of us be alive now?

Granny's kindness saved us. I owe my life, that of my siblings and our children, to a stranger who became blood.

Nam Kiwanuka lives in Toronto.

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The Stranger Essays

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Clothing and Social Constructs in The Stranger Anonymous 12th Grade

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When I met a stranger in my Life

Published by syedabuthahir in category Social and Moral with tag Memories | stranger | train | travel

Life is always full of surprises. We never know what is next, it’s much better by that way. I got placed in one of the major IT company in India. I used to travel a lot in fact I love to travel. I like to visit places unfortunately I was bounded by family all the time means wherever I go somewhere, someone closely associated to my family will directly or indirectly keep a watch for my wellbeing. I promised myself to jump out of this boundary. I managed somehow and moved to Chennai. There were lot of ups and downs but I was very sportive and adopted any kind of life style.

When there was an option to work in North India my HR refused to transfer me to Noida. She simply stated that I don’t know Hindi and it will be horrible to survive in there without any assistance. But fortune was by myside, team don’t have any alternative and they accepted. My intuition says that it is going to be a quest. Within three days myself and another five from my team were travelling in Tamil Nadu Express. At last a long-awaited journey started. I never know that it is going to change my lifestyle.

This was the first time I am travelling in an AC coach. Within an hour, I felt bored when people around me inside that compartment were busy with their mobile phones and books. Except me all my colleagues speak Hindi well and they start to chit chat all I can give them is a dry smile whether I understand or not. When I walked within the compartment people start to stare as if I am a thief and I don’t want to have a glance back like that so I came back to my seat. The compartment was so chill without any fresh air so I want to get out of that place.

When I reached the door, here comes our stranger. I saw a middle-aged woman standing next to the door. She was little bit bulgier so she doesn’t need her hands to hold herself against the door. We both made an eye contact and soon she judged that I was there to have a smoke try to move away from there. But I signaled her to stay there so I can reach and occupy the next door. When I opened the door it creeped of course she was annoyed. I smiled and start to view the Deccan plateaus. She passed a chewing gum to me I forget the basic protocol of travel (Never ever get take any eatables from your neighbor). I grabbed one and she introduced herself as Shashi.

We both chit chatted for another ten minutes, mostly whereabouts the travel and she gave a dry run about herself. She was an entrepreneur and an explorer then she moved on to her seat. By the time my colleagues start to search me to get my hard disk. I moved on and introduced her to my mates. She starts to speak about her explorations especially about the visit to Ladakh. I am the only one to make nuisance there asking about how she planned and about the amenities. She shared most of her experiences both good and bad.

Before boarding on to this train she visited to lot of temples in Tamil Nadu. She mentions about the care and support she received from the locals and talks a lot about the architecture of the olden temples in Tamil Nadu. After all this I start to realize that I visited to most of these places but never mind about its worth. “Distance lends enchantment to the view” I read it in my school but I realized the fact once reached. She gave lot of tips for my wellbeing.

By the time, I am typing this boring page she might be wandering somewhere in the north-east of India.

–END–

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Essay on A Stranger

Students are often asked to write an essay on A Stranger in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on A Stranger

Who is a stranger.

A stranger is a person we do not know. We meet strangers every day. They could be in the park, at the store, or on the street. It’s normal to feel curious about them. We might wonder about their lives, their jobs, or where they come from.

Interacting with Strangers

It’s okay to talk to strangers in safe places. Always be polite and kind. But remember, it’s important to keep personal details private. Don’t share your name, address, or phone number. It’s best to talk about simple things like the weather or a favorite sport.

Strangers and Safety

Safety is crucial when dealing with strangers. Always stay in public areas. If a stranger makes you feel uncomfortable, it’s okay to walk away. Tell a trusted adult if something feels wrong. Remember, your safety comes first.

Strangers Can Become Friends

Sometimes, strangers become friends. You might meet someone at school or a club who starts as a stranger. Over time, as you get to know them, they might become a good friend. It’s a beautiful part of life.

250 Words Essay on A Stranger

A stranger is a person who is unknown or unfamiliar to you. This person could be someone you see in a park, at the bus stop, or in a store. You don’t know their name, where they live, or anything about their life. They are just like a book you haven’t read yet.

Meeting a Stranger

Meeting a stranger can be an interesting experience. You might feel curious about them. You might wonder about their life, their interests, and their story. Every person has a unique story, and a stranger is no different.

It’s important to remember that not all strangers are friendly. Some might mean harm. This is why it’s crucial to be careful. When you’re a kid, you should always stay near trusted adults and never go anywhere with a stranger.

Sometimes, strangers can become friends. Think about your best friend. There was a time when you didn’t know them, right? They were a stranger to you. But then, you got to know each other. You shared laughs, stories, and maybe even secrets. And just like that, a stranger became a friend.

The Beauty of Diversity

Strangers show us the beauty of diversity. They come from different places, have different cultures, and different ideas. This diversity makes our world more vibrant and exciting.

In conclusion, a stranger is someone unknown to us. While we should be careful around them for safety, they can also become our friends. They help us appreciate the diversity in our world.

500 Words Essay on A Stranger

Introduction.

A stranger is a person we do not know or recognize. We often meet strangers in public places like parks, buses, schools, and markets. Some strangers may become our friends, while others remain unknown. This essay will explore the concept of a stranger in a simple and easy-to-understand manner.

When we meet a stranger, we usually feel a mix of curiosity and caution. Curiosity because we want to know more about the person, and caution because we are unsure about their intentions. It’s natural to feel this way. We should always be careful when dealing with strangers, especially if they approach us in a way that makes us uncomfortable.

The Stranger’s Role

Strangers play an important role in our lives. They can teach us new things and introduce us to different cultures, ideas, and perspectives. For example, a stranger from a different country can tell us about their traditions, food, and way of life. This helps us learn about the world outside our own experiences.

While strangers can be interesting, we also need to remember safety. Children are often taught about “stranger danger”. This means they should be careful around people they don’t know. They should never go anywhere with a stranger or take anything from them. It’s good advice for everyone, not just children. We should always trust our instincts. If something doesn’t feel right, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Strangers Becoming Friends

Every friend was once a stranger. It’s a strange thought, isn’t it? But it’s true. We meet new people, get to know them, and over time, some of them become our friends. This is one of the most exciting parts about meeting strangers. You never know who might end up being an important part of your life.

Strangers in the Digital World

In today’s digital world, we meet more strangers online than in person. We should be just as careful online as we are in real life. It’s easy for people to pretend to be someone they’re not on the internet. Always remember to protect your personal information and never share it with strangers online.

In conclusion, strangers are a part of our daily lives. They can offer new insights and perspectives, but we should always be careful and prioritize our safety. Remember, every friend was once a stranger, and who knows, the next stranger you meet could end up being a good friend. But always remember to be safe, whether you’re meeting strangers in person or online.

This essay has explored the concept of a stranger in a simple way. We learned about meeting strangers, their role in our lives, safety considerations, and the possibility of strangers becoming friends. We also discussed the role of strangers in the digital world. Remember, it’s okay to be curious, but it’s also important to stay safe!

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — The Stranger — Meursault’s Understanding of Life in The Stranger

Meursault's Understanding of Life in The Stranger

• Categories: The Stranger

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Published: Jun 29, 2018

Words: 2951 | Pages: 6.5 | 15 min read

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"Guardian angel" drives strangers in need

An internet post that brought together strangers is reminding people of how much good there is in the world.

Lyn Story is a retiree in Fort Worth, Texas. The 64-year-old had a lot of free time on her hands until she met Apryl Goodwin, 46, who had been diagnosed with uterine cancer.

"I had no transportation and I didn't know what to do," Goodwin said. She found help on the community app Nextdoor.

"Someone spoke up and said, 'I'll take you to your appointments,' and I kind of ignored it cause it's a stranger. What do you do? So she messaged me again and said, 'I'll take you. I mean it. I'm honest. I, you know, I'm sincere.'"

That stranger was Story, and over the last year, she has taken Goodwin to more than 25 radiation appointments, six chemotherapy treatments and countless doctor visits.

"One time her car broke down and she goes and flags down somebody in the middle of traffic to get me to my chemo," Goodwin said.

Story's kindness doesn't stop there. Months after meeting Goodwin, she was on the Nextdoor app again when she noticed a post from Kevin Horrigan, who is legally blind.

"Lyn's like a little angel," said Horrigan. "She really is, because I can't drive."

Hard times drove Horrigan out of retirement. Now Story lessens his burdens.

"Lyn drives me to work or she picks me up from work. It helps tremendously, very big help," he said.

Story said she started thinking of herself as a "bad weather friend." 

"You know, fair weather friends are only there when everything's good for you," she said. "But a bad weather friend is there to help you in times of need."

They were strangers just a year ago and have now developed a life-changing friendship.

"The best way for me to feel good is to help other people feel good, just to make it easier for them," Story said.

For Story, it's her history that helped shape who she is today: She was arrested for shoplifting 45 years ago.

"I learned to stop it, to be better. I went into therapy and kind of got a feel for why I felt the need to, for the high, for shoplifting and that helped. And then many years later I was finally diagnosed as bipolar. And that helped because I got on medication to make me even instead of the highs and the lows. And so that's made a big difference," she said.

Determined to be better, Story was 31 when she donated her healthy bone marrow to a critically ill patient she didn't even know. So, it should come as no surprise that when she was recently asked to foster a dog named Sully who is disabled with three legs, she was eager to sign up.

Filled with love, Story's own story is life changing for so many.

"She's my guardian angel," Goodwin said.

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Guest Essay

How the SAT Changed My Life

By Emi Nietfeld

Ms. Nietfeld is the author of the memoir “Acceptance.”

This month, the University of Texas, Austin, joined the wave of selective schools reversing Covid-era test-optional admissions policies, once again requiring applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores.

Many colleges have embraced the test-optional rule under the assumption that it bolsters equity and diversity, since higher scores are correlated with privilege. But it turns out that these policies harmed the teenagers they were supposed to help. Many low-income and minority applicants withheld scores that could have gotten them in, wrongly assuming that their scores were too low, according to an analysis by Dartmouth. More top universities are sure to join the reversal. This is a good thing.

I was one of the disadvantaged youths who are often failed by test-optional policies, striving to get into college while in foster care and homeless. We hear a lot about the efforts of these elite schools to attract diverse student bodies and about debates around the best way to assemble a class. What these conversations overlook is the hope these tests offer students who are in difficult situations.

For many of us, standardized tests provided our one shot to prove our potential, despite the obstacles in our lives or the untidy pasts we had. We found solace in the objectivity of a hard number and a process that — unlike many things in our lives — we could control. I will always feel tenderness toward the Scantron sheets that unlocked higher education and a better life.

Growing up, I fantasized about escaping the chaos of my family for the peace of a grassy quad. Both my parents had mental health issues. My adolescence was its own mess. Over two years I took a dozen psychiatric drugs while attending four different high school programs. At 14, I was sent to a locked facility where my education consisted of work sheets and reading aloud in an on-site classroom. In a life skills class, we learned how to get our G.E.D.s. My college dreams began to seem like delusions.

Then one afternoon a staff member handed me a library copy of “Barron’s Guide to the ACT .” I leafed through the onionskin pages and felt a thunderclap of possibility. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without permission, let alone take Advanced Placement Latin or play water polo or do something else that would impress elite colleges. But I could teach myself the years of math I’d missed while switching schools and improve my life in this one specific way.

After nine months in the institution, I entered foster care. I started my sophomore year at yet another high school, only to have my foster parents shuffle my course load at midyear, when they decided Advanced Placement classes were bad for me. In part because of academic instability like this, only 3 percent to 4 percent of former foster youth get a four-year college degree.

Later I bounced between friends’ sofas and the back seat of my rusty Corolla, using my new-to-me SAT prep book as a pillow. I had no idea when I’d next shower, but I could crack open practice problems and dip into a meditative trance. For those moments, everything was still, the terror of my daily life softened by the fantasy that my efforts might land me in a dorm room of my own, with endless hot water and an extra-long twin bed.

Standardized tests allowed me to look forward, even as every other part of college applications focused on the past. The song and dance of personal statements required me to demonstrate all the obstacles I’d overcome while I was still in the middle of them. When shilling my trauma left me gutted and raw, researching answer elimination strategies was a balm. I could focus on equations and readings, like the scholar I wanted to be, rather than the desperate teenager that I was.

Test-optional policies would have confounded me, but in the 2009-10 admissions cycle, I had to submit my scores; my fellow hopefuls and I were all in this together, slogging through multiple-choice questions until our backs ached and our eyes crossed.

The hope these exams instilled in me wasn’t abstract: It manifested in hundreds of glossy brochures. After I took the PSAT in my junior year, universities that had received my score flooded me with letters urging me to apply. For once, I felt wanted. These marketing materials informed me that the top universities offered generous financial aid that would allow me to attend free. I set my sights higher, despite my guidance counselor’s lack of faith.

When I took the actual SAT, I was ashamed of my score. Had submitting it been optional, I most likely wouldn’t have done it, because I suspected my score was lower than the prep-school applicants I was up against (exactly what Dartmouth found in the analysis that led it to reinstate testing requirements). When you grow up the way I did, it’s difficult to believe that you are ever good enough.

When I got into Harvard, it felt like a miracle splitting my life into a before and after. My exam preparation paid off on campus — it was the only reason I knew geometry or grammar — and it motivated me to tackle new, difficult topics. I majored in computer science, having never written a line of code. Though a career as a software engineer seemed far-fetched, I used my SAT study strategies to prepare for technical interviews (in which you’re given one or more problems to solve) that landed me the stable, lucrative Google job that catapulted me out of financial insecurity.

I’m not the only one who feels affection for these tests. At Harvard, I met other students who saw these exams as the one door they could unlock that opened into a new future. I was lucky that the tests offered me hope all along, that I could cling to the promise that one day I could bubble in a test form and find myself transported into a better life — the one I lead today.

Emi Nietfeld is the author of the memoir “ Acceptance .” Previously, she was a software engineer at Google and Facebook.

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The Case for Marrying an Older Man

A woman’s life is all work and little rest. an age gap relationship can help..

In the summer, in the south of France, my husband and I like to play, rather badly, the lottery. We take long, scorching walks to the village — gratuitous beauty, gratuitous heat — kicking up dust and languid debates over how we’d spend such an influx. I purchase scratch-offs, jackpot tickets, scraping the former with euro coins in restaurants too fine for that. I never cash them in, nor do I check the winning numbers. For I already won something like the lotto, with its gifts and its curses, when he married me.

He is ten years older than I am. I chose him on purpose, not by chance. As far as life decisions go, on balance, I recommend it.

When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me. I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting. I shared it with the average, idle young woman shrugging down the street. The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective, the way a falling leaf can make you look up: I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. Or I could just marry it early.

So naturally I began to lug a heavy suitcase of books each Saturday to the Harvard Business School to work on my Nabokov paper. In one cavernous, well-appointed room sat approximately 50 of the planet’s most suitable bachelors. I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out. Apologies to Progress, but older men still desired those things.

I could not understand why my female classmates did not join me, given their intelligence. Each time I reconsidered the project, it struck me as more reasonable. Why ignore our youth when it amounted to a superpower? Why assume the burdens of womanhood, its too-quick-to-vanish upper hand, but not its brief benefits at least? Perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic wholesale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power, and reason enough to take advantage of that fact while they can. As for me, I liked history, Victorian novels, knew of imminent female pitfalls from all the books I’d read: vampiric boyfriends; labor, at the office and in the hospital, expected simultaneously; a decline in status as we aged, like a looming eclipse. I’d have disliked being called calculating, but I had, like all women, a calculator in my head. I thought it silly to ignore its answers when they pointed to an unfairness for which we really ought to have been preparing.

I was competitive by nature, an English-literature student with all the corresponding major ambitions and minor prospects (Great American novel; email job). A little Bovarist , frantic for new places and ideas; to travel here, to travel there, to be in the room where things happened. I resented the callow boys in my class, who lusted after a particular, socially sanctioned type on campus: thin and sexless, emotionally detached and socially connected, the opposite of me. Restless one Saturday night, I slipped on a red dress and snuck into a graduate-school event, coiling an HDMI cord around my wrist as proof of some technical duty. I danced. I drank for free, until one of the organizers asked me to leave. I called and climbed into an Uber. Then I promptly climbed out of it. For there he was, emerging from the revolving doors. Brown eyes, curved lips, immaculate jacket. I went to him, asked him for a cigarette. A date, days later. A second one, where I discovered he was a person, potentially my favorite kind: funny, clear-eyed, brilliant, on intimate terms with the universe.

I used to love men like men love women — that is, not very well, and with a hunger driven only by my own inadequacies. Not him. In those early days, I spoke fondly of my family, stocked the fridge with his favorite pasta, folded his clothes more neatly than I ever have since. I wrote his mother a thank-you note for hosting me in his native France, something befitting a daughter-in-law. It worked; I meant it. After graduation and my fellowship at Oxford, I stayed in Europe for his career and married him at 23.

Of course I just fell in love. Romances have a setting; I had only intervened to place myself well. Mainly, I spotted the precise trouble of being a woman ahead of time, tried to surf it instead of letting it drown me on principle. I had grown bored of discussions of fair and unfair, equal or unequal , and preferred instead to consider a thing called ease.

The reception of a particular age-gap relationship depends on its obviousness. The greater and more visible the difference in years and status between a man and a woman, the more it strikes others as transactional. Transactional thinking in relationships is both as American as it gets and the least kosher subject in the American romantic lexicon. When a 50-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walk down the street, the questions form themselves inside of you; they make you feel cynical and obscene: How good of a deal is that? Which party is getting the better one? Would I take it? He is older. Income rises with age, so we assume he has money, at least relative to her; at minimum, more connections and experience. She has supple skin. Energy. Sex. Maybe she gets a Birkin. Maybe he gets a baby long after his prime. The sight of their entwined hands throws a lucid light on the calculations each of us makes, in love, to varying degrees of denial. You could get married in the most romantic place in the world, like I did, and you would still have to sign a contract.

Twenty and 30 is not like 30 and 40; some freshness to my features back then, some clumsiness in my bearing, warped our decade, in the eyes of others, to an uncrossable gulf. Perhaps this explains the anger we felt directed at us at the start of our relationship. People seemed to take us very, very personally. I recall a hellish car ride with a friend of his who began to castigate me in the backseat, in tones so low that only I could hear him. He told me, You wanted a rich boyfriend. You chased and snuck into parties . He spared me the insult of gold digger, but he drew, with other words, the outline for it. Most offended were the single older women, my husband’s classmates. They discussed me in the bathroom at parties when I was in the stall. What does he see in her? What do they talk about? They were concerned about me. They wielded their concern like a bludgeon. They paraphrased without meaning to my favorite line from Nabokov’s Lolita : “You took advantage of my disadvantage,” suspecting me of some weakness he in turn mined. It did not disturb them, so much, to consider that all relationships were trades. The trouble was the trade I’d made struck them as a bad one.

The truth is you can fall in love with someone for all sorts of reasons, tiny transactions, pluses and minuses, whose sum is your affection for each other, your loyalty, your commitment. The way someone picks up your favorite croissant. Their habit of listening hard. What they do for you on your anniversary and your reciprocal gesture, wrapped thoughtfully. The serenity they inspire; your happiness, enlivening it. When someone says they feel unappreciated, what they really mean is you’re in debt to them.

When I think of same-age, same-stage relationships, what I tend to picture is a woman who is doing too much for too little.

I’m 27 now, and most women my age have “partners.” These days, girls become partners quite young. A partner is supposed to be a modern answer to the oppression of marriage, the terrible feeling of someone looming over you, head of a household to which you can only ever be the neck. Necks are vulnerable. The problem with a partner, however, is if you’re equal in all things, you compromise in all things. And men are too skilled at taking .

There is a boy out there who knows how to floss because my friend taught him. Now he kisses college girls with fresh breath. A boy married to my friend who doesn’t know how to pack his own suitcase. She “likes to do it for him.” A million boys who know how to touch a woman, who go to therapy because they were pushed, who learned fidelity, boundaries, decency, manners, to use a top sheet and act humanely beneath it, to call their mothers, match colors, bring flowers to a funeral and inhale, exhale in the face of rage, because some girl, some girl we know, some girl they probably don’t speak to and will never, ever credit, took the time to teach him. All while she was working, raising herself, clawing up the cliff-face of adulthood. Hauling him at her own expense.

I find a post on Reddit where five thousand men try to define “ a woman’s touch .” They describe raised flower beds, blankets, photographs of their loved ones, not hers, sprouting on the mantel overnight. Candles, coasters, side tables. Someone remembering to take lint out of the dryer. To give compliments. I wonder what these women are getting back. I imagine them like Cinderella’s mice, scurrying around, their sole proof of life their contributions to a more central character. On occasion I meet a nice couple, who grew up together. They know each other with a fraternalism tender and alien to me.  But I think of all my friends who failed at this, were failed at this, and I think, No, absolutely not, too risky . Riskier, sometimes, than an age gap.

My younger brother is in his early 20s, handsome, successful, but in many ways: an endearing disaster. By his age, I had long since wisened up. He leaves his clothes in the dryer, takes out a single shirt, steams it for three minutes. His towel on the floor, for someone else to retrieve. His lovely, same-age girlfriend is aching to fix these tendencies, among others. She is capable beyond words. Statistically, they will not end up together. He moved into his first place recently, and she, the girlfriend, supplied him with a long, detailed list of things he needed for his apartment: sheets, towels, hangers, a colander, which made me laugh. She picked out his couch. I will bet you anything she will fix his laundry habits, and if so, they will impress the next girl. If they break up, she will never see that couch again, and he will forget its story. I tell her when I visit because I like her, though I get in trouble for it: You shouldn’t do so much for him, not for someone who is not stuck with you, not for any boy, not even for my wonderful brother.

Too much work had left my husband, by 30, jaded and uninspired. He’d burned out — but I could reenchant things. I danced at restaurants when they played a song I liked. I turned grocery shopping into an adventure, pleased by what I provided. Ambitious, hungry, he needed someone smart enough to sustain his interest, but flexible enough in her habits to build them around his hours. I could. I do: read myself occupied, make myself free, materialize beside him when he calls for me. In exchange, I left a lucrative but deadening spreadsheet job to write full-time, without having to live like a writer. I learned to cook, a little, and decorate, somewhat poorly. Mostly I get to read, to walk central London and Miami and think in delicious circles, to work hard, when necessary, for free, and write stories for far less than minimum wage when I tally all the hours I take to write them.

At 20, I had felt daunted by the project of becoming my ideal self, couldn’t imagine doing it in tandem with someone, two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse. I’d go on dates with boys my age and leave with the impression they were telling me not about themselves but some person who didn’t exist yet and on whom I was meant to bet regardless. My husband struck me instead as so finished, formed. Analyzable for compatibility. He bore the traces of other women who’d improved him, small but crucial basics like use a coaster ; listen, don’t give advice. Young egos mellow into patience and generosity.

My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic. By opting out of partnership in my 20s, I granted myself a kind of compartmentalized, liberating selfishness none of my friends have managed. I am the work in progress, the party we worry about, a surprising dominance. When I searched for my first job, at 21, we combined our efforts, for my sake. He had wisdom to impart, contacts with whom he arranged coffees; we spent an afternoon, laughing, drawing up earnest lists of my pros and cons (highly sociable; sloppy math). Meanwhile, I took calls from a dear friend who had a boyfriend her age. Both savagely ambitious, hyperclose and entwined in each other’s projects. If each was a start-up , the other was the first hire, an intense dedication I found riveting. Yet every time she called me, I hung up with the distinct feeling that too much was happening at the same time: both learning to please a boss; to forge more adult relationships with their families; to pay bills and taxes and hang prints on the wall. Neither had any advice to give and certainly no stability. I pictured a three-legged race, two people tied together and hobbling toward every milestone.

I don’t fool myself. My marriage has its cons. There are only so many times one can say “thank you” — for splendid scenes, fine dinners — before the phrase starts to grate. I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that shapes the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him. He doesn’t have to hold it over my head. It just floats there, complicating usual shorthands to explain dissatisfaction like, You aren’t being supportive lately . It’s a Frenchism to say, “Take a decision,” and from time to time I joke: from whom? Occasionally I find myself in some fabulous country at some fabulous party and I think what a long way I have traveled, like a lucky cloud, and it is frightening to think of oneself as vapor.

Mostly I worry that if he ever betrayed me and I had to move on, I would survive, but would find in my humor, preferences, the way I make coffee or the bed nothing that he did not teach, change, mold, recompose, stamp with his initials, the way Renaissance painters hid in their paintings their faces among a crowd. I wonder if when they looked at their paintings, they saw their own faces first. But this is the wrong question, if our aim is happiness. Like the other question on which I’m expected to dwell: Who is in charge, the man who drives or the woman who put him there so she could enjoy herself? I sit in the car, in the painting it would have taken me a corporate job and 20 years to paint alone, and my concern over who has the upper hand becomes as distant as the horizon, the one he and I made so wide for me.

To be a woman is to race against the clock, in several ways, until there is nothing left to be but run ragged.

We try to put it off, but it will hit us at some point: that we live in a world in which our power has a different shape from that of men, a different distribution of advantage, ours a funnel and theirs an expanding cone. A woman at 20 rarely has to earn her welcome; a boy at 20 will be turned away at the door. A woman at 30 may find a younger woman has taken her seat; a man at 30 will have invited her. I think back to the women in the bathroom, my husband’s classmates. What was my relationship if not an inconvertible sign of this unfairness? What was I doing, in marrying older, if not endorsing it? I had taken advantage of their disadvantage. I had preempted my own. After all, principled women are meant to defy unfairness, to show some integrity or denial, not plan around it, like I had. These were driven women, successful, beautiful, capable. I merely possessed the one thing they had already lost. In getting ahead of the problem, had I pushed them down? If I hadn’t, would it really have made any difference?

When we decided we wanted to be equal to men, we got on men’s time. We worked when they worked, retired when they retired, had to squeeze pregnancy, children, menopause somewhere impossibly in the margins. I have a friend, in her late 20s, who wears a mood ring; these days it is often red, flickering in the air like a siren when she explains her predicament to me. She has raised her fair share of same-age boyfriends. She has put her head down, worked laboriously alongside them, too. At last she is beginning to reap the dividends, earning the income to finally enjoy herself. But it is now, exactly at this precipice of freedom and pleasure, that a time problem comes closing in. If she would like to have children before 35, she must begin her next profession, motherhood, rather soon, compromising inevitably her original one. The same-age partner, equally unsettled in his career, will take only the minimum time off, she guesses, or else pay some cost which will come back to bite her. Everything unfailingly does. If she freezes her eggs to buy time, the decision and its logistics will burden her singly — and perhaps it will not work. Overlay the years a woman is supposed to establish herself in her career and her fertility window and it’s a perfect, miserable circle. By midlife women report feeling invisible, undervalued; it is a telling cliché, that after all this, some husbands leave for a younger girl. So when is her time, exactly? For leisure, ease, liberty? There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest. If women’s problem in the ’50s was a paralyzing malaise, now it is that they are too active, too capable, never permitted a vacation they didn’t plan. It’s not that our efforts to have it all were fated for failure. They simply weren’t imaginative enough.

For me, my relationship, with its age gap, has alleviated this rush , permitted me to massage the clock, shift its hands to my benefit. Very soon, we will decide to have children, and I don’t panic over last gasps of fun, because I took so many big breaths of it early: on the holidays of someone who had worked a decade longer than I had, in beautiful places when I was young and beautiful, a symmetry I recommend. If such a thing as maternal energy exists, mine was never depleted. I spent the last nearly seven years supported more than I support and I am still not as old as my husband was when he met me. When I have a child, I will expect more help from him than I would if he were younger, for what does professional tenure earn you if not the right to set more limits on work demands — or, if not, to secure some child care, at the very least? When I return to work after maternal upheaval, he will aid me, as he’s always had, with his ability to put himself aside, as younger men are rarely able.

Above all, the great gift of my marriage is flexibility. A chance to live my life before I become responsible for someone else’s — a lover’s, or a child’s. A chance to write. A chance at a destiny that doesn’t adhere rigidly to the routines and timelines of men, but lends itself instead to roomy accommodation, to the very fluidity Betty Friedan dreamed of in 1963 in The Feminine Mystique , but we’ve largely forgotten: some career or style of life that “permits year-to-year variation — a full-time paid job in one community, part-time in another, exercise of the professional skill in serious volunteer work or a period of study during pregnancy or early motherhood when a full-time job is not feasible.” Some things are just not feasible in our current structures. Somewhere along the way we stopped admitting that, and all we did was make women feel like personal failures. I dream of new structures, a world in which women have entry-level jobs in their 30s; alternate avenues for promotion; corporate ladders with balconies on which they can stand still, have a smoke, take a break, make a baby, enjoy themselves, before they keep climbing. Perhaps men long for this in their own way. Actually I am sure of that.

Once, when we first fell in love, I put my head in his lap on a long car ride; I remember his hands on my face, the sun, the twisting turns of a mountain road, surprising and not surprising us like our romance, and his voice, telling me that it was his biggest regret that I was so young, he feared he would lose me. Last week, we looked back at old photos and agreed we’d given each other our respective best years. Sometimes real equality is not so obvious, sometimes it takes turns, sometimes it takes almost a decade to reveal itself.

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