Camus Camus Sympathy For Death

In the final pages of Camus’s novel, The Stranger, the reader finds Meursault thinking about life and death. Mostly about his unfulfilling, meaningless life and his impending death. Camus presents a character that is only truly happy in his last moments. So, a reader would feel sympathy for Meursault because in a typical human’s mind, death is sad and something many even fear. But Camus isn’t writing this scene or character for your sympathy, it’s the opposite of what he wants you to take from this. He wants you to have the same revelation Meursault has now that death is upon him. With his certain impending death, Meursault becomes free after this stark realization that life is meaningless and nothing is certain except for death, and this is

But that’s not what Camus is trying to say, the way Meursault talks about wanting death is more existential than actual logical reasons. Meursault’s life has been good all things considered, he did well enough at work for a promotion, he had friends (Raymond, Masson, and kind of Salamano), and he had his girlfriend Marie. So he lived a pretty comfortable and good life, so he’s not escaping life because it is terrible or unbearable. Camus is portraying that Meursault wants to die because life is pointless and irrational, and he doesn’t want to try to make sense of it anymore. From the point where this realization comes to the execution he starts to think, no matter what he was going to die anyways so why try and prolong his life and even be upset about death now? “Quote” This is what makes him so strange to people everywhere, including in the actual book. This need to escape life for no reason other than its inconvenient. So this false sympathy that can be felt for Meursault is not wanted by the character or Camus. What Camus really wants is to talk about his beliefs through Meursault, so the reader can understand them