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Meursault's Indifference In The Stranger, By Albert Camus

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The Stranger, written by Albert Camus, is a story about a man living in Algiers. The book starts with the death of protagonist Meursault’s mother. After the death and burial Meursault meets a girl, swims, hangs out with some friends, gets invited to a beach house, watches someone get cut up by an Arab with a knife, shoots the Arab, and gets the death sentence. However, Meursault is convicted not because he murdered an Arab, but because he did not cry at his mother's funeral. Meursault’s conviction is directly linked to the fact that his indifferent, apathetic attitude is fundamentally at odds with society’s expectations of how a person should act and think, and this is also seen when Raymond is beating his girlfriend and after Meursault’s conviction when he continually refuses God. One example of Meursault’s general indifference can be seen in his reaction to his mother’s death. Meursault’s indifferent attitude greets the reader in the very first line of the book: “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know” (Camus 1). Meursault is so indifferent towards his mother that he cannot even remember …show more content…

When the chaplain comes to visit Meursault, he pleads with him to accept the lord into his heart so he can be forgiven for his sins, but Meursault plans to do no such thing: “I had only a little time left and I didn’t want to waste it on God.” (Camus 120). Again, Meursault defies the expectations of society. Society expects the man sentenced to death to plead for forgiveness from God and hope that they may redeem their soul in the afterlife. The chaplain could be used to represent society as he insists that Meursault must turn to god and after several refusals and a fit of rage from Meursault he leaves the cell his eyes “full of tears” because he cannot understand why Meursault thinks and acts the way he does (Camus

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