In the late 19th century, a former high school teacher turned unionist tries to organize workers laboring with inhuman conditions at a textile factory.
Meursault is a man who feels utterly isolated from everyone and everything around him. This alienation results in sudden, inexplicable bursts of violence, culminating in murder.
At the end of World War II, shallow, self-centered Mara is the prettiest girl in her small Italian village; Bebo is a Communist partisan who is finding it difficult to adjust to the dull banalities of life in peacetime. When Mara’s father, a passionate Communist, declares that his daughter will marry the returning hero, her reactions range from joy to bitter resentment.
