Psychology of Meursault and Zoya

        Zoya from Playing Metal Gear V and Meursault from The Stranger have very different ways of dealing with their problems. However, the coping mechanisms they use to do so are very similar. Zoya’s coping mechanism of sublimation and denial results negatively for his conscience while those exact mechanisms result positively for Meursault’s conscience. The two different outcomes show how much other conditions can affect someone’s conscience despite doing the same actions.
Coping mechanisms are methods the human mind uses to decrease stress. If you are stressed, anxious, or mad about something, you may throw things across the room or express your emotions by painting or writing. You might even choose to block out your stress by completely ignoring the fact that it exists, which, creates more underlying stress for most people. The coping mechanisms mentioned in this analysis are sublimation, and denial. One thing to note about coping mechanisms is that it is much easier to understand them through examples of the behavior than it is to understand the definition of the mechanism.
Sublimation is using an action that is socially acceptable in order to relieve stress. Examples of this include painting, cleaning, working out, or writing about feelings. Sublimation sometimes results in an altered mental state as well, on the very rare occasions when I reorganize or clean my room, I unwillingly get into “a zone” and focus almost entirely on the task at hand. That is how sublimation works, it takes your mind off the stress factor and places it in a different place so that you can later process ideas in a calmer state of mind.
        Denial is almost exactly as it sounds, denying the fact that there is something painful, causing you stress. Some examples are refusing to believe someone has passed away, an addict refusing the fact that they have an addiction, or refusing to believe the magnitude of a problem is as big as it really is. Denial is one of the more harmful coping mechanisms, you can disregard reality until it grows large enough that it comes back to bite you, when dealing with it earlier wouldn’t have done any harm.
Different conditions can result in different ways someone uses coping mechanisms like the intensity of the action, the result of the coping mechanism, how conscious the action is, and the response of other people in the environment. 
Zoya is in the more unstable part of his life where he is still figuring out where he belongs and where he is needed. At this point, it’s very easy to get mixed up and prioritize the wrong things. He knows that his life would be a lot better if his relationship with his father was good, he also thinks it’s almost impossible to make that happen because the only thing that can fix it is to erase what happened to him and his brother in Afghanistan. In this case, employing sublimation seems like the right path since he can’t deny the past, since it is the reason for his problem
When Zoya starts playing the game, it seems like any other experience you would have with a game, but he goes into that “altered state” of mind where nothing else matters, not even his family yelling at the door trying to get him to come out. This is where his denial is, Zoya is denying his ability to help the situation by going out to be with his family. When his father finally knocks, he says “‘Zoya?’ …when there was nothing to do but wait for the aching to ebb, and your father was there, maybe in the orchard, maybe on the veranda, and he was holding you in his lap, running his fingers through your hair, and saying your name” (Kochai 53). Zoya himself admitted the affection his father showed him when he was a kid, his father does love him and wants the best for him, even though Zoya expressed dislike of his nature earlier. The least Zoya could do in this situation is greciprocate his father’s affection, but he keeps playing the game, denying the love his father has for him. 
This could be in a psychiatry textbook as an example of how denial can hurt conscience, Zoya lost himself by trying to fix the wrong part of the problem.
Meursault doesn’t let many outside stimuli affect him on a conscious or subconscious level, this is why he is much more immune to stress than an average person. His sublimation is much more healthier as well, right after the fight with the Arab, he “just shut up, smoked a cigarette, and looked at the sea.” (Camus 54) whereas Zoya was glued to the game for hours. Meursault doesn’t go into the “altered state” as much either, he stays in the moment and wastes no time to directly process his thoughts. There are very dark parts in the novel where Meursault doesn’t show the slightest hesitation or break in composure which show just how much more mature he is with challenging situations. 
The most notable time Meursault uses denial is when he says he wishes the people hate him when he is being hanged. He says this with a clear mind and solid rationalization, it is not normal in human nature to reject society because we have always been a species that has relied on each other for resources. Meursault rejects this and thinks only about what would satisfy him, because at the end of the day that is what life is, making sure you thrive - with or without others acceptance. Neither of these instances result negatively for Meursault, and there are good reasons as to why. 
        There seems to be no concrete reason for the different results between the two characters. The motive for Meursault to use the mechanisms is to solidify his beliefs, whereas Zoya uses them to escape reality and try to fix his problems. Zoya and Meursault are both at two very different points in their lives, Meursault knows exactly the person he is in the beginning, and has an even better sense at the end of the novel. Zoya is quite the opposite, he has a vague idea of what is important to him but gets completely lost at the end of the story. This leads us to another explanation, maturity. Kendra Cherry from Verywell Mind states that “denial also requires a substantial investment of energy” (Cherry). So then maybe that energy is what comes with maturity, the maturity that Zoya doesn’t yet have. 
The two works show the realities of having different mentalities and if ever in the situation where you are not sure if what you are doing will harm, it’s important to keep in mind if the action will make some meaningful difference, and if anyone else will get harmed from it.