Meursault Murder Quotes

Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malicious intent. In the book The Stranger by Albert Camus, the main character is accused of murdering a man on the beach and sentenced to death by guillotine. A more fitting verdict for this crime would be manslaughter, due to lack of malicious forethought. Meursault, the main character, shows sociopathic tendencies throughout the book. He also goes to the beach where he murders the man without knowing the man would be there. The Arab who Meursault shot had already slashed Meursault’s friend with his knife and during the second encounter, the Arab took his knife out again, so Meursault fired at him. To completely understand why Meursault is not guilty of murder, one must understand

During his own mother’s funeral at the beginning of the book, Meursault shows both antisocial behavior as well as a lack of sadness for her death. After being asleep for a while and finally waking up, Meursault notices a man near him, “…he was staring hard at me, as if he had been waiting for me to wake. Then I fell asleep again” (Camus 11). After he is sentenced to death, Meursault never feels guilt for killing the man. When he is nearing his execution date, all he hopes for is “that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with cries of hate” (Camus 117). He doesn’t truly care he is about to be executed, nor is he truly sorry or feel any guilt for killing the Arab on the

Previously, the man had followed Meursault and Raymond around the town for a while. When the two confronted the Arab, Meursault was given the gun by Raymond because he did not want to shoot the man. The Arab man brandished a knife and slashed Raymond. Later, Meursault still had the gun and went for a walk toward the area where Raymond had been slashed. Seeing the Arab man on the beach, Meursault was clearly and justly scared of the man. When the man drew the knife again, remembering the earlier incident, Meursault pulled his gun out and fired at the man. After he shot the man once, he fired four more times. “I fired four more times at the motionless boy where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace” (Camus 57). Firing these extra shots is not to get back at the man, but a symptom of not feeling empathy for another human being. During the trial, after being accused of being a ‘monster’, Meursault is asked if he has anything to say. “I rose, and as I felt in the mood to speak, I said the first thing that crossed my mind: that I’d had no intention of killing the Arab” (Camus