The Stranger Essay Research Paper The StrangerThe

The Stranger Essay, Research Paper The Stranger The Stranger, by Albert Camus, is about the life of a very complex character named Meursault. Meursault is a very quiet person who rarely shows any external emotions when a situation in which most people would. He displays limited feelings for his girlfriend, Marie Cardona, and shows no remorse at all for killing an Arab. He remains this way through most of the book, but towards the end he starts to understand his feelings better. Meursault s reactions to life and to people tend to distance him from his emotions and from his relationships with others. In the opening scene of the book, we find out that his mother has just died. The first page alone gives many hints about Meursault’s character and it shows him to be almost

unaware of his emotions. 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 funeral for his dead mother. He goes through the entire funeral without displaying any external emotions, saying that he doesn’t want to see the body and that he doesn’t want to pay his last respects. He smokes and drinks coffee with the caretaker, which is considered strange in the place and time the story takes place. At the end of Part 1, Meursault shoots and kills an Arab man. After he kills the Arab, he describes the feeling like, “it was like knocking four quick times at the door of unhappiness.” (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 give thanks to Celeste, a man who owns a restaurant under the same name and where Meursault frequently eats. This shows that he experiences emotions and even though he doesn’t usually act on it, 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 at his trial hates him. Meursault believes love doesn t exist, he doesn’t understand what it is and thinks that it is

meaningless. When Marie, his girlfriend, asks him if he loves her, he replies that he doesn’t think love means anything, but that he also 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 non-reactive about it. Instead of saying a definite yes or no, he says that it is up to her and that 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 is a cold blooded

murderer. Meursault illustrates that man has freedom of choice, “It was then that I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot.” (56) He sees the choices that he can make and that 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. “I was about to say that exactly, because they were criminals, but then I realized that I was one too.” (69) 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 what he has done and thinks to himself, “I was guilty, I was paying for it, and nothing more could be asked of me.”