The Stranger, By Albert Camus

373 Words2 Pages
In the book The Stranger, by Albert Camus, the main character, Meursault, kills an Arab for seemingly no reason. When on trial, Meursault tries to explain that the killing was because of the sun yet he believes that he sounds ridiculous when he says this (103). The people in the story don't understand him and refuse to accept the sun as the reason for the murder. They instead attribute it to his absence of a soul and relate his lack of grief after his mother’s death to the reason. However, the real reason for Meursault killing the Arab is due to the fact that his sole purpose was to attain immediate physical contentment. Throughout the novel, his actions were purely based on whatever would give him physical pleasure and allow him to avoid pain