After I read the trial scene in The Stranger I kept thinking about how Meursault was mostly judged on his past actions and not the actions that actually took place surrounding the murder.

While Meursault was getting interrogated, and witnesses being brought to the stand, they were not being asked about the murder. Rather, they were being asked on Meursaults actions in the past. This includes his mothers funeral and the day he met Marie. The prosecutor after hearing all the different witnesses said “The same man who the day after his mother died was indulging in the most shameful debauchery killed a man f0r the most trivial of reasons and did so in order to settle an affair of unspeakable vice” (96). Later, Meursault thinks “there was a lot said about me, maybe more about me than about my crime” (98).

All these moments stood out to me because it seemed that instead of determining whether he committed a murder, they were trying to see how he differed from what society believes is right. Going on a “dubious liaison” – as the prosecutor calls it – with Marie the day after his mothers funeral, is wrong in the view of the people. You should be mourning the loss of your mother, not forgetting about it the next day. Meursault says that after the prosecutor stated his belief on him, the jury did not listen to all the ‘good’ things his friends had to say, most likely because they already had a picture of the person Meursault is. This one piece of information about himself, altered the view of jury. He was not guilty of the murder, but rather being a person who stands out among the rest. He is not seen as normal, based on his past actions with his mother and Marie.

I think the trial showed that society does not like things in cannot control. It fears the fact that Meursault is an outsider, and used his previous actions to justify it.

One of the most interesting parts of Albert Camus’ The Stranger is Meursault’s relationship to his mother. While, in the end, Meursault’s perceived lack of love for his mother led to him being sentenced to death, numerous moments throughout the text implied that he did care about her. Just after he arrives at the old people’s home, he states that he wants to see his mother right away (4). He calls her “Maman,” an endearing term suggesting that he cares for her. Still, he is quickly distracted by the director and from that point becomes entirely focused on the world around him, no longer concerned with seeing his mother.

Meursault quickly moves on from any disruption caused by the death, meeting up with Marie the very next day.

However, Meursault references his mother continually throughout the rest of the story. As Meursault is very independent, it stands out when he talks about another person, and especially when he takes advice from them. Almost every time he thinks about his mother, he thinks about advice that she gave him or he took from her. At the end of the book, Meursault makes connections between the end of her life and the end of his. He states, “Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too” (122). Meursault’s mother had such a strong influence on him that she was one of the last things he thought of.

A certain line caught my eye while reading the last part of The Stranger by Albert Camus. It’s in the first paragraph on page 65 when Meursault is conversing with his lawyer. Meursault mentions that “my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings.” This line really got me thinking, because throughout the novel I had been trying to reason and relate with the way Meursault acts as a means of understanding him better. However, up until this point in the story, I hadn’t come up with a good way to describe Meursault’s actions.

Reading this line made me look back and I realized that throughout the book this statement Meursault makes holds true. He constantly complains about the sun and how hot he is at his mother’s funeral, at the beach before he kills the Arab, and even somewhat at the courthouse. His relationship with Marie is almost purely physical, at least from his perspective. If he is in a situation where he is physically uncomfortable or doesn’t feel good, he wants to leave it as soon as possible.

While in my previous post, I credited Meursault for living a carefree life, I now see that more than anything Meursault is a weak human. He has no mental strength, or rather, no ability to surpass situations that he finds physically uncomfortable. Meursault does not have the ability to endure, and I believe that even if he was put in an extreme situation this would hold true. Although The Stranger at its core is about the absurdity of life, I took more meaning away from this single line than the entirety of the last part of the book after Merusault meets with the Chaplain.

The sun follows Meursault throughout his journey in The Stranger. At his mother’s burial ad when he kills the Arab, the sun beats down on our protagonist. Then, on death’s door, the sun is noticeably absent and the nighttime sky is left to comfort Meursault in his final moments. The sun’s presence reminds Meursault of the expectations of society. When walking to bury his mom, the sun induces a great sweat, seemingly compensating for the lack of tears welling in Meursault’s eyes with a bodily equivalent. When killing the Arab, the sun blinds Meursault, trying desperately to prevent him from seeing his mark, to save him from killing him and ending his own life. In these moments, the sun antagonizes Meursault, trying to reign him into societal norms. And so, Meursault resents the sun. He feels its oppressive presence and rejects it. It is logical then, that when he finally accepts his individual reality, the sun no longer nags at him. He is freed from his subjugation beneath it and is allowed to look at the stars.

Throughout the course of The Stranger, the Sun and temperature is emphasized at different points throughout the story. During Maman’s funeral, the sun is “bearing down” and the heat is “inhuman and oppressive” (15). And the heat of the sun is mentioned again when Meursalt is about to shoot the Arab. Meursalt even thinks that “the sun was the same as it had been the day I’d  buried Maman” (58). And finally, during Meursalt’s trial the heat is mentioned again. He observes that “it was getting hotter, and I could see people in the courtroom fanning themeselves with newspapers” (86).

All three of these moments are very important to the development in the story. Maman’s funeral is an event that’s referenced many times throughout the book and is important to Meursalt’s character development. Meursalt shooting the Arab is a pivotal moment in the book that leads to his imprisonment and sets up the entire second half of the book. And the trial is anther hugely important event that leads to Meursalt being executed. Meursalt is a character that doesn’t experience emotions very often, but during these moments, Meursalt is forced to confront his feelings because of the seriousness of the events. I believe that Meursalt notices the stifling heat in these moments because they force him into a situation where he’s not sure how to react and he feels trapped.

Because of this I find it interesting that right before Meursalt’s execution, instead of feeling heat, he says that “smells of night, earth, and salt air were cooling my temples” (122). His execution is one of the most important events in the book which makes it confusing that instead of emphasizing the sun, like Camus normally does in moments like these, he mentions the cool night. But unlike the other moments when the sun is mentioned, Meursalt knows exactly what he’s thinking and feels free. Meursalt no longer feels a stifling heat because he fully understands his belief about life and it sets him free.

Albert Camus’s The Stranger articulates the difficulty in making sense of a world that is inherently meaningless and having to accept it. The novel challenges the absurdity of our existence and death contrasting with the search for the truth of life.

Throughout the novel Meursault shows indifference to serious life events, like his mother dying and killing someone, that typically involve many emotions. Furthermore, when Meursault is on trial, the reader sees throughout the trial the focus is on his character and not the actual crime he committed. Both these examples exemplify society’s need to make sense out of something when there is no meaning. I understand it as Meursault represents the meaningless of life. There is no rhyme or rhythms to his actions or emotions.

Similar to what we do in class, we have been attempting to make sense of the novel along with analyzing Meursault’s actions, yet we come to the conclusion that everything is meaningless.

It is no secret that Meursalt from Albert Camus’ The Stranger is a bit of an odd guy. The first chapter of the story begins with him finding out about his mother’s death. However, Meursalt remains fixated on the days he will take off of work to attend her funeral rather than her death itself. His mind always seems to be somewhere else, atypical of what most ‘normal’ people would be thinking. That being said, he appears to live a pretty normal life. He enjoys swimming, has friends at a local restaurant, and gets along well with his neighbors. Despite this, that odd feeling in his thoughts remains. It is as if something in his life is missing. Multiple times throughout the text, Meursalt claims something along the lines of, “does it really matter?”, such as when he was offered a new role in his job by his boss. It is clear Meursalt is somewhat apathetic, or as if he is missing something that leads him purpose in life. However, this changes when he picks up the gun given to him by Raymond and shoots his mistress’ brother.

Meursalt’s descriptions in the text were typically rather bleak. However, when he was on the beach by himself, this changes. He notices the mistresses’ brother, who of course he did not like because of his incident with Raymond. Armed with the gun, he finds the opportunity to shoot and kill him. Of course his death was an unexpected turning point in the story, but that was not the only thing that changed throughout this scene. Suddenly, Meursalt begins to give an incredibly detailed description of the setting. As he stands on the beach, the bright sun beats down in his eyes, weathering him. As he is about to shoot, his detailed descriptions of the gun provide a crystal clear image of the situation, something I didn’t feel at any other point in the story. He shoots, then kills the brother, finishing him off with four more shots. During this event, Meursault felt like a different character to me, raising a ton of questions in my mind. He suddenly was illuminated and began to think completely different. The complex descriptions were shocking and took me by surprise in comparison to the bleakness of before. I couldn’t help but question what came to him in that moment. Was it getting revenge on the brother for attacking his friend? The adrenaline of shooting and killing someone? His sudden feelings were a stark contradiction to his past which seemed apathetic. Although I haven’t read further in the story, I think this event will remain significant, and says a lot about Meursault’s emotions. Had the gun caused him to feel strong emotions that he had been longing for? Or perhaps it a moment of panic, where he was so overwhelmed with emotion that he didn’t know what to do, shooting and killings the brother just to alleviate his thoughts.

Multiple times throughout the story, my mouth was gawked wide open. Almost half of the stories we’ve read have had disgusting men as prominent figures, which I don’t think is a bad thing to promote, since most men in our world are disgusting.

Meursault, our main protagonist, has interactions that are often devoid of genuine emotional engagement, particularly in moments that a normal sincere person would have a deeper emotional response to. For instance, his reaction to his mother’s death is strikingly indifferent as he prioritizes dull details over mourning. Additionally his relationship with Marie lacks depth, as he approaches intimacy with a non-chalant attitude that strips the whole relationship of significance, and sadly Marie still has feelings for this man. Meursault’s new friend Raymond also exemplifies toxic mascuilinity, engaging in in manipulative and abusive behaviors.

This dissection of male figures shows the absurdity and often grotesque nature of human relationships, which shows the troubling representations of masculinity in literature.

In The Stranger, we meet a man whose mother has just died. We expect to see him fall apart or have his world shattered, crying, grieving, and searching for answers. Instead, we see him sleep and smoke. Meursault seems to lack any type of emotion for his dead mother, even as people who knew her for a fraction of the time break down around him. At first, I thought this was just his way of grieving. Pretending like nothing happened and trying to go on as normal. But soon it was clear that he wasn’t trying to pretend like things were normal, everything was normal, he just didn’t care about anything. Camus seemed to point this out when he described the robot-like lady on page 43 who seemed to be so invested and care so much about every little thing she was doing. Meursault, in contrast, cared so little about what he was doing that he got up with no intentions but to aimlessly follow this lady.

He also showed his indifference to Marie. He initially was very invested and even at one point admitted he loved her, but then claimed that he wouldn’t care if she loved him back. If he loved her, how could her love not make a difference? Meursault’s callback to the quote “It’s not my fault,” on page 3 and 20 indicates that he has some kind of personal investment in his mother’s death, even if his actions say otherwise. This makes me wonder whether or not he truly doesn’t feel anything, or if he is simply too scared of losing Marie or feeling the pain of loosing Maman to admit that it affects him?

After beginning The Stranger by Albert Camus, the most noticeable aspect to the book is the writing strategy that Camus uses. Through short, basic vocab and simple, fast sentences, the strategy somehow creates a complex story.

Why is this writing strategy so interesting? Why is something so simple so effective for the telling of this story? I think it’s because we rarely see a style as simple as this (especially in a school-assigned book) and because it perfectly represents the main character.

In most books we’re assigned, It’s usually a pretty dense, hard-to-understand topic that’s written with thick paragraphs and complicated vocab, but The Stranger is different. This book uses simple, easy-to-read sentences and vocabulary, but still has a dense, supported story that still has so much to be revealed, even though we are almost more than halfway through the book.

I think this writing strategy also represents Meursault’s monotone, unemotional personality that he has displayed throughout the story. The basic, short sentences can represent his basic thought process, and the simple vocab can represent his monotone view on life and his experiences.