Essay, Research Paper: The Stranger By Albert Camus

THE STRANGER
The Stranger, by Albert Camus, is about the life of a very complex character named Meursault. Meursault is a very stolid person, who isn't given to shows of emotions. He remains this way through most of the book, but towards the end, he starts to become more feeling. He is what would be considered an "existentialist" today and examples can be selected to show how he supports the nine tenets of existentialism.
In the opening scene of the book, we find out that "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know."(pg. 3) These sentences are the first hints about Meursault's character, they show him to be almost unfeeling. He feels the need to apologize for things that are out of his control, and to thank people for things that they had nothing to do with. He basically apologizes to his boss when he asks for two days off of work to go the vigil and funeral for his dead mother. He goes through the entire funeral and vigil without any feeling, doesn't want to see the body, and doesn't want to pay his last respects. He smokes and drinks coffee at the vigil, which is considered strange and almost taboo in the place and time the story takes place. This supports the tenets that emotions and attachments are "absurd" and detrimental. After he kills the Arab, he describes the feeling that "it was like knocking four quick times at the door of unhappiness." (pg. 59) He only describes it as unhappiness, something relatively mild on a scale of emotions. Toward the end of the book he comments that he wanted to kiss a man, and tells us that this is the first time he has ever had this feeling. He wants to show gratitude for Celeste. This shows that he experiences emotion; and even though he doesn't usually feel it, or maybe act on it, that it's still there. There is one other instance towards the end of the book where Meursault's emotions almost break through to the surface. He says that he feels like crying, which he hasn't felt like in years, because he could feel how much everyone there hated him.
Meursault believes romance is fallacy, doesn't understand what it is and thinks that it is meaningless. When Marie, his mistress, asks him if he loves her, he replies that he doesn't think it means anything, but that he doesn't think so. When she asks him a second time, his response is the same. She asks him to marry her and he is very nonchalant about it; instead of saying a definite yes or no, he says that it is up to her; if she wants them to be married then he will go along with it. The relationship with his mother also shows a lack of love, although there is one instance where he says that he probably did love his mother; but that it still didn't mean anything. At his trial, the prosecutor shows these characteristics to the jury to convince them that he is not a normal person and this leads them to the decision that he could be a murderer.
On page fifty-six Meursault illustrates the tenet that man has freedom of choice. He says "It was then that I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot." He sees the choices that he can make, and the consequences of his actions are going to affect him. At this point he does not shoot, but later on he rethinks his decision and shoots the Arab. He ends up paying the consequences after he is arrested, and eventually he realizes what he has done. On page sixty-nine he thinks "I was about to say that that was precisely because they were criminals. But then I realized that I was one too." There is also a scene in the courtroom when he thinks to himself that he is guilty. He admits that he has to pay for his wrong when he thinks "I was guilty, I was paying for it, and nothing more could be asked of me." Towards the end of the book he thinks a lot about his death, but not in a negative way, almost in a curious way. He thinks about his father going to witness an execution and tells what he thought after meditating on this: "nothing more important than an execution" that it's the "only thing a man could truly be interested it." (pg. 110) He wonders what it will feel like to climb the scaffolding up to the guillotine.
He believes that the world is indifferent or hostile, and that there really is no point to it. People are born; they live; and they die. "But everybody knows life isn't worth living...it doesn't much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living...we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter." (pg. 114) This in some aspects is true. People are all going to die, and others will keep on living but since he doesn't really feel emotions, he doesn't think about the pain that death can cause other people, and doesn't experience it himself.
Meursault believes that there is no such thing as human nature. By eliminating emotions, romance, and attachments, not much of what is considered human nature remains. People may choose to do what they wish, as long as they are responsible for their actions and face the consequences. He considers the story of a man being beaten to death by his sister and mother who didn't know that it was their relation, "perfectly natural." (pg. 80) This shows that he believes there is a lack of human nature, or at least that he believes in a different human nature than most. Another quote that supports the fact that there is no thing as human nature and that people are unique is when he says about the lawyer that "He didn't understand me, and was sort of holding it against me." (pg. 66)
Meursault fits all of these tenets almost perfectly. He is unique but isolated, finds the world to be indifferent or hostile, life to be unexplainable, romance to be fallacy, emotions to be detrimental and absurd; --that man has freedom of choice; and that man has to be responsible for his actions. These are all shown in various instances throughout the book. The complexity of this character, trying to figure out what is going through Meursault's mind, has made the book as popular as it is.