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The Stranger By Albert Camus

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Recommended: Essays on camus' the stranger

Life is said to be meaningful and a mission to find yourself. However, for people such as Meursault, who is the anti-hero in The Stranger life has a different meaning. Camus views the world in the eyes of an outcast within his society to show his difference through lack of heroic attributes. In the novel, the story follows the story of a man named Meursault who can’t see the point of existence, and who one day, accidentally shoots an Arab man without knowing his own motivations. He ends up being put to death because he doesn’t show any remorse but he didn’t care for his fate because he was going to die eventually. Throughout “The Stranger”, written by Albert Camus, the reader is able to identify Meursault as an anti-hero because he serves his
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Ernest J, Gaines is a Louisiana native, born on a plantation, in a slave area. Being from the rural south, he typically writes his novel relating to the south, poverty, and African Americans and the challenges they have faced. The novel takes place in the 1940s, a time where blacks were typically hated by whites. The novel was accepted and loved by the critics in 1993 when the book was published. Stated in The New York Times newspaper, “A Lesson before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines's novel about black life in Louisiana before the civil-rights era, won the National Book Critics Circle award for fiction yesterday”

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Those who don’t know their purpose may feel that their daily lives are ridiculous. Camus’ The Stranger, portrays an inexplicably nonsensical character, Meursault, who winds up in a unanticipated situation. Similar to real life struggles, the character perpetually repeats insignificant actions not accordant to any essence.

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The Stranger, written by Albert Camus, It follows the story of our tragic hero, Meursault, shortly after his mother dies through the events that lead to him being sentenced to death. Camus uses the motif of weather to express Meursault’s emotions. The Stranger shows how even when a person does not explicitly express emotion they are shown in some way. How emotions are expressed is a window to a person's personality. I will first discuss how Meursault appears emotionless, than how Camus uses the motif of weather to express Meursault’s emotions for him and lastly what impact this makes.

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Camus outlines this argument in The Stranger through the nihilistic anti-hero Meursault. Throughout the novel, Meursault exhibits very little emotion, which only filters into the protagonist’s stream of consciousness when he expresses physical discomfort or social frustration. The detachment from the world around him makes him a case study for one’s personal quest to find his/her own purpose. Camus’s secular approach deviated from contemporary understanding and challenged the existentialist and religious ideologies that preceded

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932 Words | 4 Pages

Through the use of diction and symbolism; Camus reveals Meursault’s is apathetic towards his bonding with others and unable

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251 Words | 2 Pages

In The Stranger, the crucifix appears to represent Christianity, a religion that Monsieur Meursault refuses to believe in or accept. Additionally, it represents rational beliefs that the magistrate attempts to thrust upon Meursault. He wants Meursault to accept God so that his sin will be forgiven. However, Meursault rejects the notion that his life have any significance or rational explanation.

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(59) After long passages describing the painful violence of the sun, Camus’s transition into the murder is shockingly abrupt, provoking a sense of bewilderment at the unexpected randomness of the murder, conveying effectively the irrationality of Meursault’s murder of the man. However, during the trial, when Meursault reveals that he murdered the Arab only because of the sun, refusing to allow others impose their logical but false interpretations upon his life, “people laughed” (103) and even his own “lawyer threw up his hand” (103) as they are unable comprehend and accept such an irrational motivation. To protect themselves from this harsh reality of the universe, they can only fabricate and impose their own logical explanation for Meursault’s behavior. The prosecutor, for instance, is convinced Meursault murdered the man in cold blood, certain in the narrative he has constructed out of events completely unrelated to the murder, from Meursault’s “ignorance when asked Maman’s age” (99) to his association with a man of “doubtful morality” (99). In both cases, Meursault’s indifference for societal standards of morality has painted him as a man immoral and cold-hearted enough to premeditate the murder.

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I believe each person holds their own views on life, while this seems to be a reasonable assumption it stands to argue that people can share common beliefs as a community. An example would be people who follow the same religion; Christianity is a faith who believes marriage is a sacred practice between their god, a man and a woman. Christianity does not favor same sex marriages due to their belief marriage is meant to help encourage reproduction of more church going members. A person, like myself, would agree with certain aspects of the religion but not its entire philosophy. In “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, Meursault’s refusal to accept that he has been sentence to death is what prompts him to seek a repeal of the sentence.

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Human nature calls for the need to divulge deeper into the meaning of an individual’s existence and the reasons behind all actions taken in life. An introspective look in one’s existence, displayed in Camus’s The Stranger by the non-conformist Meursault, highlights a seemingly meaningless existence when confronted with one’s own mortality. After murdering a man, Meursault, once thought to be apathetic towards all aspects of life, becomes a complex symbol for the struggle of human meaning. This idea continually emerges in contemporary society due to the question of why humans seemingly live to die. Camus masterfully makes a question of human existence through mortality and societal restraints in a skillfully written short novel making The Stranger

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A connection with a reader and the characters in a book creates an experience for the reader and brings enjoyment. Normally, it is easy for the reader to develop a connection with the protagonist but with a lack of feelings from the central character, the bond is more difficult to establish and maintain. For example, Meursault, the main character in the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, has an absurdist view of life. He shows a lack of emotion and lives as if life is purposeless with no meaning. Camus shows this behavior with his sentence structure and word choice.

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"The stranger" by Albert Camus is an ideal example for existentialism. Concepts, actions, behaviors and relations of the main character, Meursault, with others around him, all have existentialism touches. He is a man who believes that life and the universe are meaningless, and therefore, what matters is the individual's existence and not the judgments made by others, for existence precedes essence. The novel starts with a letter to Mersualt telling him that his mother has died at the old persons' where she lives. Unlikely to normal person, he shows carelessness, with no sadness for the death of his mother.

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Imagine a world where every day was the same; a world where you did the same things, saw the same people, and had the same dull, lifeless conversations. Needless to say, this is not the world we live in. Georg Simmel’s perspective of “The Stranger” (1908) illustrates a world where our everyday interactions shape the society we currently live in. Georg Simmels view is a micro level approach that seeks to understand the role individuals play in communication and culture. Accepting these “strangers” is essential to break down cultural barriers while creating diverse communities.

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The themes of death explored using absurdism in The Stranger is shown with a general disregard for death by Meursault and the strange way he sees life based on these existentialist views. The Stranger is a perfect example of an existentialist novel that was written for that time period, as during this time around the area of France and Europe there was an existentialist movement that Albert Camus, the author, was involved in.

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As the French, absurdist philosopher Albert Camus once said, “Being different is not a bad thing. It means you are brave enough to be yourself.” That summed up with our topic, which is absurdity through human existence, a human being should tolerate the absurd condition of human existence. Albert Camus introduces Meursault the protagonist and narrator of the book The Stranger, who is a stranger through society eyes and the title point out his personality in the world of absurdity. Meursault is indifferent and alienates young man to others.

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In his novel The Stranger, Albert Camus creates an emotionally incapable, narcissistic, and, at times, sociopathic character named Meursault to explore and expose his philosophies of Existentialism and Absurdism. Throughout the story Meursault follows a philosophical arc that, while somewhat extreme - from unemotional and passive to detached and reckless to self-reflective - both criticizes the dependent nature of human existence and shows the journey through the absurd that is our world. In the onset of The Stranger, following his mother’s death, Meursault acts with close to utter indifference and detachment. While the rest of “maman’s”(9) loved ones express their overwhelming grief, Meursault remains unphased and, at times, annoyed at their

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