"The Stranger" by Albert Camus.

ESSAY

THE STRANGER

Alejandra Rojas

Bogotá - Colombia, March 4, 2003

English

Colegio Campoalegre

OUTLINE

I.Introduction.

II.Meursault as an "insensible man".

III.Indifference and how it was seen by society.

IV.The trial.

V.The verdict-conclusion.

Society has a series of parameters and "ways of acting" according to the situation. If you don't act as you've been expected to, you get rejected and are catalogued as insane and seen as a strange creature. This was the case of Meursault, a man that didn't see the need of acting the way he was "supposed to", and for this, he was condemned to death.

As the title of the book indicates, Meursault was a stranger in the eyes of society and in the eyes of the reader. Throughout the book, Camus shows different common situations using the first-person point of view, that make the reader anticipate what is going to happen next, but then, Meursault does the opposite (most of the times).

Albert Camus' tombstone in Lourmarin

Image taken from page 173 of 'The Story of Charles...

Image taken from page 207 of 'The Story of Charles...

With this, Camus makes the reader comprehend how the character was seen by the rest of the people at the time.

Meursault's actions give him the appearance of a man without feelings that can't express emotions, as seen when he was asked about the death of his mother: "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday. I don't know". (Camus, pg. 9) He never talked about the effect of the news about the loss of his mom, he only showed irrelevance to it talking about the uncertainty of the date. Why ruin the rest of your life because a mother who you really didn't care about anymore had died? Why shedding false tears, when you didn't feel sadness? After the funeral, his is also indifferent to the situation. He says, "I thought to myself that it was still another Sunday gone by,