The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Stranger by Albert Camus is the story of Meursault, a young man living in Algiers, who receives a report of his

mother Madame Meursault's funeral. He attends her funeral, but he does not display the normal signs of grief at the

loss of his mother. He returns to his home and immediately begins an affair with Marie Cardona, a former co-worker.

He strikes up an acquaintance with Raymond Sintes, a local gigolo and pimp. Meursault unintentionally becomes

involved in a dispute between Raymond and Raymond's mistress and her brother, the Arab. The dispute ends with

Meursault's murder of the Arab.

Meursault is arrested and brought to trial. During the trial, it becomes clear that various members of the courtroom

feel a need to explain the senseless, unmotivated killing. It refuses to convict him of the murder without giving a

sensible explanation for him doing it.. Unfortunately, Meursault ends up being tried and sentenced to death more on

the basis of his atheism and lack of emotional attachment to his mother than on the basis of anything connected to

the murder. By the end of the trial, the court interprets his ...

Meursault's murder of the Arab.

Meursault is arrested and brought to trial. During the trial, it becomes clear that various members of the courtroom

feel a need to explain the senseless, unmotivated killing. It refuses to convict him of the murder without giving a

sensible explanation for him doing it.. Unfortunately, Meursault ends up being tried and sentenced to death more on

the basis of his atheism and lack of emotional attachment to his mother than on the basis of anything connected to

the murder. By the end of the trial, the court interprets his lack of emotional attachment to his mother as an

explanation of the murder, and vice versa. Together, the two justify the prosecutor's definition of Meursault as a

"monster."

Meursault's predicament develops Camus's idea of the absurd. He focuses on the problem of accepting the absurd

world we live in without going mad. Meursault becomes the Absurd Hero when he can accept the absurdity of the

reasons for the court finding him guilty without sinking into depression. Hope is just a distraction from the short time

he has left but Meursault still manages to stay optimistic, which allows him to make the most of the short life he has

left.

It is clear that the author is always trying to get a reaction from the reader by keeping the reader changing their

opinion of Meursault. He does this by using vague language with double meanings and this tends to make you keep

changing your mind about what it could mean. Meursault doesn’t seem to have a memory or an imagination and

doesn’t connect up events in life with any meaning. The person reading the story sort of does this, or else the story

has nothing to keep your interest. This means that each person will have created their own idea of the type of person

Meursault is, and this is exactly what the author is trying to do. When the court tries to get Mearsault to think about

his past and use his memory and then again when he is in his jail cell and has nothing to do but imagine he is forced

to develop his own awareness of his life. This in turn means that the reader has then to start to compare between the

ideas they had conjured up themselves and those now being shown from Meursault himself.