Stranger
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A stranger is a person who is unknown to another person or group, a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance; an outsider or foreigner. Because of this unknown status, a stranger may be perceived as a threat until their identity and character can be ascertained. Different classes of strangers have been identified for social science purposes, and the tendency for strangers and foreigners to overlap has been examined.
The presence of a stranger can throw an established social order into question, "because the stranger is neither friend nor enemy; and because he may be both". The distrust of strangers has led to the concept of stranger danger (and the expression "don't talk to strangers"), wherein excessive emphasis is given to teaching children to fear strangers despite the most common sources of abduction or abuse being people known to the child.
Namesakes
- The Comfort of Strangers, a 1981 novel by British writer Ian McEwan
- The Stranger (novel), by Albert Camus
- "The Stranger" (short story), by J. D. Salinger
- "The Stranger" (sociology), an essay by Georg Simmel
- The Stranger (1962 film) or The Intruder, an American film by Roger Corman, starring William Shatner
- The Stranger (1967 film), based on Camus's novel and directed by Luchino Visconti
- Portrait of an Unknown Woman or Stranger, an 1883 painting by Ivan Kramskoi
See also
- Familiar
- Strange
- Strange woman
- Stranger danger
- Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a citizen of that country
- Stranger-killing
- Unknown soldier
- Unknown
- Alterity, a philosophical and anthropological term meaning “otherness"
- Hospitality, the relationship between a guest and a host, including the reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers
- Martian scientist, a hypothetical stranger popularly used in thought experiments
- Online predator, strangers who prey on victims via the internet
- Strangeness, a property of particles in physics
