REACTION TO HIS MOTHER’S DEATH
Meursault’s reaction towards his mother’s death is not a usual reaction you might express from most people. He is cold, distanced from the people around, and gives an impression that he doesn’t care about his own mother’s death.
Since Meursault had to go to the funeral for the sake of decorum, he had to be absent from the work for two days. His boss wasn’t happy about it, so Meursault says, “It’s not my fault (p. 9) ” It gives an impression that the funeral is just becoming an “excuse” of being absent in work, than seeing his mother feeling grief for her and being emotional for her death. It shows that Meurasult is a cold character, and also shows that he is the character who doesn’t like to take blame, or feels blamed. He justifies himself a lot thought the novel.
Meursault refused to see his mother’s face at the funeral. When the caretaker asked him why not, he answered, “I don’t know. (p. 12)” because he didn't want to get the actual feeling of lost, and also trying to avoid being emotional.
Meursault also smoked at the funeral. He hesitates a little bit because he thought that he shouldn’t smoke in front of his mother. However soon after he said, “I thought it over, it really didn’t matter (p. 14)” and started to smoke. Meursault thought that “It didn’t matter” because his mother was dead, and this shows his lack of emotional feeling and
Meursault reflected the day of the funeral at the end of the chapter, “seemed so inevitable and natural that I don't remember any of it any more. (p. 22)” It gives a feeling that the funeral and his mother’s death didn’t affect Meurasault, because he spent his weekend like any of his other weekends, which is shown in the next chapter: “after all, nothing had changed. (p. 28)”, meaning that his mother’s death made no difference to his normal life.
Meursault gets arrested in Part 2 because he murdered an Arab. His lawyer asks him about his unusual behavior at the funeral and asks him if he felt any grief at the funeral. Meursault answered, “I probably loved mother quite a lot, but that didn’t mean anything (p. 65)”. Like his response to Marie, he doesn’t really think love is good enough reason for doing something such as marrying and crying at the funeral. “I’d rather mother hadn’t died. (p. 65) ” His response is very calm, giving an impression that he is telling the truth, however he is lacking emotion.
Meursault is a cold character, however he seems to be a really honest man. He answered, “To a certain extent all normal people sometimes wished their loved ones were dead. (p. 65)” to the lawyer’s question, which is quite odd to say this when you are arrested and talking to the lawyer who is trying to commute your sentence. Also the lawyer asked him if he could say that he’d controlled my natural feeling at the funeral. However, Meursault said “No, because it’s no true (p. 65)” shows that he values honesty than being declared not guilty. He didn’t really care about his reputation, and didn’t care about hiding his lack of emotion by crying at the funeral untruthfully.
When a magistrate asked him if he loved his mother, Meursault replied, “Yes, like everyone else. (p. 67)” He is quite an odd man, however he tries to be a normal person, just like everyone else.
Meursault’s reaction to his arrest
Meursault keeps on observing what is going on around him. He is not panicking, and it seems like he is not that worried about him. He says, “I thought my case was very simple. (p. 63)” shows that he is calm, and quite objective about what he’d done. Examining magistrate told him how the law worked, but Meursault thought “At first I didn’t take him seriously (p. 64)” shows that he is not that interested in laws.
When Meursault meets his lawyer, he was about to shake his hand, but he decided not to, “but I remembered just in time that I’d killed a man. (p. 64)” shows that he is feeling guilty about what he’d done. He felt faith towards this Lawyer, and Meursault thanked him, showing that he is polite and respects him.
However, after questioning about Meursault’s mother’s death, the lawyer was angry because he wasn’t pleased with Meursault’s answer. Meursault didn’t want that, but soon he said “But it was all really a bit pointless and I couldn’t be bothered. (p.66)” He didn’t really care about what lawyer thought about him.
Later, Meursalt meets a magistrate who attempts to convert him to Christianity.The magistrate tells him that God will forgive him if he believes God. However Meursault “realized at the same time that his was ridiculous after all, I was the criminal. ” He felt meaningless when being forgiven by someone or god, because he killed someone and admits that it something from which there is no repentance.
Inside his new cell
In chapter five of part two, Meursault gets moved to a new cell, where he does a lot of thinking. He suddenly remembers the only thing his mom had told him about his dad – that his dad had once gone to see a murderer being executed. His dad coming home and feeling nauseated disgusted him at first, but now Meursault understands it was completely natural. Now he realizes that executions “were the only thing a man could really be interested in! If I ever got out of prison, I’d go and watch all the executions there were.” He then realizes that he is being irrational because he knew that he was not getting out of prison to see an execution.
We also learn that Meursault doesn’t mind dying. No matter when you die, even if it’s twenty years later, you’re going to die eventually. In fact, the thought of having to live for another twenty years scared Meursault. However, when the chaplain came to talk to Meursault about believing in God, but Meursault has no interest. It doesn’t matter to Meursault whether he dies now or years later. He will face death in the belief that he will die outright, and he didn’t want to waste the last minutes of his life listening about someone he didn’t believe in.
Meursault is sure of himself, sure of everything, sure of his life, sure of the death that was imminent. This was his truth – that he’d been right, is right, and was always right. To Meursault, nothing mattered, and to him, everyone was condemned no matter how they lived their lives. He is satisfied with this life, and he doesn’t regret anything he’s done.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert. The Outsider. Trans. Matthew Ward. Random House, New York. 1988.