Elorch 1

Amine Elorch

Mr. Gallagher

English 12 CP

6 December 2010

The Stranger: Final Essay.

The Stranger is a story about a man named Meursault living in Algiers. Algiers is at the very

northern top of Africa. Meursault is instantly labeled as odd in the readers mind when the story starts:

"Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure." As you read along you keep wondering,

"What is going on inside the mind of this man? Is he insane?" Because of this first seed that is planted

in your mind, everything that follows is tainted with the first impression you have of Meursault. So, as

you follow him through his life day to day, after his mother's death, you can know exactly what he is

thinking and doing. Knowing this you are even more confused with the strange attitude of this man in

response to life. The more you find out about him, the more appropriately you realize the book is titled.

You start to realize that he has a very absurd life, and as the back of the book puts it, "Life begins to

stalk him quietly and slowly..." Halfway through the book Meursault ends up killing an Arab man who

was very loosely related to a friend. He goes on trial for this, but the trial, taking up the second half of

the book, turns into an examination of Meursault's character as a human being. I don't want to reveal

the ending but it should be fairly obvious. Basically, Meursault is on trial for his actions as a member

of society, being judged by members of society, while he has almost absolutely nothing to do with

society in the first place. The least you can say is that the court, including the jury, has no reason to

look upon him favorably.

 Elorch 2

Throughout "The Stranger", Camus seems to be trying to say how little control we have over

life, and constantly stressing the absurdity of it. His point, as I interpret it, is that we have so little

control over life that we should, like the stoics, seek the greatest pleasure for our self when we can.

However, I am divided by believing that and another one of my interpretations, which is that he is

trying to say life may not have any meaning because it is so absurd, and we need to make that meaning

for our self. Meursault accomplished this goal by living his life like a modern stoic, believing that

pleasure is the greatest good and that pain is the worst evil.

In the passage when Meursault feels no regrets about the crime that he has commited, Albert

Camus suggests that the protagonist is a person that is incapable of feeling bad, he doesn’t know how

to rethink and contemplate about past actions…these two do not exist with Meursault.

The author is also trying to show that Meursault is a man of present moments, he has never looked

backward and contemplated the past, and for this exact reason, the entire trial has been an enormously

new experience for Meursault.

Meursault says ‘My mind was always on what was coming next, today or tomorrow’, which makes the

author trying to show us that all he cares about is everything except for what he’s done in the past.

During the same passage (p.100), Meursault feels that all through trial, more is said about his

personality and his past than about the crime that he commited, which is in my point of view funny and

ironic.

Camus' view of the absurd was developed while he was helping to defend against the Germans

in Paris during World War II. It really isn't that hard to imagine someone coming to the conclusion that

life has no rational meaning after they have been in such a horrible war. One of the interesting things

about Camus' view on life is that while he was alive (he died in a car accident in 1960), he did not

make immoral decisions. Some would say that he has a belief of a positive outlook on life although
 Elorch 3

there is no hope. That is, just because there is no hope it does not mean you have to despair. "After all,

you are here right now" may have been the point he was trying to make.