The Outsider is a critique to society through the eyes of a person immune to its disapproval. Discuss.

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The Outsider is a critique to society through the eyes of a person immune to its disapproval. Discuss.

The Outsider, by Albert Camus, shows the reader how the world is seen by a pure existentialist, a person that can only be sure of his own existence and that, in this case, doesn’t have any belief for moral concepts. Meursault, the main character in the novel, is totally honest about his feelings and only believes in what he can actually see and touch. So for a person like this, faith is impossible. Due to Meursault being an existentialist, in certain situations that involve moral concepts and societal conventions, he is seen as an ‘outsider’, because he doesn’t react the way one is expected to react in a modern society. His lack of feelings, belief in moral concepts and being indifferent to society later leads him to problems and eventually death. It is discussable, that Camus uses this book to criticize modern society.

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The society in the novel is the same we have today, so there are certain actions that we expect every person to do in specific situations. But if a person doesn’t do the expected action during the appropriate situation, that person is seen as an ‘outsider’. In the beginning of the novel, when Meursault finds out about his mothers death and goes to visit her corpse, we have the first example of a situation like this. “I offered the caretaker a cigarette and we smoked.” This shows how Meursault has no respect for any kind of societal conventions; a person ...

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